Chapter 2 - THE ADVISER WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Marco Bellini had been beside me for twenty years.
He attended my father's funeral.
Held me upright when grief nearly destroyed me.
Helped me build the Moretti empire from broken alliances and blood-soaked promises.
I trusted him more than anyone.
Now he had hung up on me.
I called again.
Straight to voicemail.
I looked toward my security chief, Gabriel Conti.
"Find Marco."
Gabriel nodded.
"Should I bring him here?"
"No. Locate him and tell me where he is. Nobody touches him."
For a moment, Gabriel looked surprised.
In the old days, I would've handled suspicion with force.
But Isabella's final instruction echoed inside my skull.
Don't hurt anyone over this.
I had already destroyed our marriage.
I wasn't going to destroy another innocent person because I couldn't control my anger.
At 5:17 A.M., Gabriel returned.
Marco's office was empty.
His car remained in the underground garage.
And the security cameras had stopped recording shortly after midnight.
"Someone disabled them," Gabriel said.
I stared.
"Who?"
"We're investigating."
Then he handed me a folder.
Inside were photographs taken in Marco's private office.
One showed an overturned chair.
Another showed broken glass.
The third showed a photograph of Isabella.
My wife.
Standing beside Marco's desk.
Someone had circled her face in red.
My hands trembled.
"Who took these?"
"Our investigators."
I studied the picture.
A handwritten note lay beneath it.
One sentence.
THE DONNA KNOWS.
My stomach dropped.
For eleven years, Isabella had been more than my wife.
She had managed charitable programs, helped negotiate business agreements, and remembered details I regularly dismissed as unimportant.
She knew people.
She knew numbers.
She knew when someone was lying.
And while I spent nine months chasing a younger woman, she'd apparently uncovered a conspiracy beneath my own roof.
I called my attorney, Rebecca Shaw.
"Find every document connected to Antonio Moretti's death."
Rebecca hesitated.
"Dante, that investigation is twenty years old."
"Then start twenty years ago."
"And Isabella?"
My throat tightened.
"She has her own attorney. Contact them through proper channels. I want to know whether she's safe, not force her to return."
Rebecca was silent for a moment.
Then she said, "That's the first sensible thing I've heard from you in years."
I deserved that.
At noon, Gabriel returned with another discovery.
Marco had accessed an old family trust three weeks earlier.
The account had been inactive for nearly two decades.
But someone had recently transferred $18 million out of it.
I stared at the statement.
"Where did the money go?"
Gabriel swallowed.
"Through companies registered to Valentina Russo."
The room went silent.
My mistress.
The woman I'd spent forty-eight hours with while Isabella prepared to disappear.
I took a slow breath.
"Are you certain?"
"The account names are confirmed. We're still determining who controlled the transactions."
Then Gabriel showed me the authorization.
At the bottom was a signature.
Not Marco's.
Not mine.
Isabella Moretti.
My wife had apparently authorized the transfer.
But beside her signature was a handwritten notation.
FOR LUCIA.
I stared.
"Who is Lucia?"
Gabriel looked uncomfortable.
"Boss, Lucia was your wife's younger sister."
My chest tightened.
"Was?"
He nodded.
"She disappeared nineteen years ago."
May you like
Then he added something that made my blood run cold.
"According to the records, Isabella's sister was declared dead the same night your father was murdered."
