Chapter 5 - THE TUNNELS UNDER BELLADONNA HOUSE
By the time we reached Belladonna House, smoke was rising from the west wing.
Fire crews surrounded the estate.
One security officer had been found unconscious near the kitchen entrance.
Another was missing.
Vivian was gone.
So was Carlo.
Vincent stepped toward the burning house.
Salvatore grabbed his arm.
“No.”
“My mother’s evidence is under there.”
“And you being dead won’t help.”
Vincent looked ready to hit him.
Then he stopped.
That mattered.
Again.
Control.
Not impulse.
Firefighters contained the blaze before it reached the ballroom.
The west library suffered heavy damage.
The old chapel survived.
So did the basement.
Elena gave investigators directions to a concealed entrance behind the wine cellar.
The tunnels were brick.
Narrow.
Cold.
They ran beneath the estate toward an old carriage house and wooded property beyond.
Police entered first.
Then Vincent, under escort.
I was told to stay outside.
I agreed.
For seven minutes.
Then a guard came running from the cellar.
“They found Miss DeMarco.”
Vivian.
I followed.
She sat against a tunnel wall, wrists bound with plastic ties.
Her silver-blue engagement gown had been replaced by dark pants and a sweater.
Her lip was split.
She looked terrified.
Vincent crouched.
“Where is Carlo?”
She shook her head.
“He left me.”
“Why?”
“I wouldn’t burn the files.”
Something changed.
“You helped him enter.”
“Yes.”
“You disabled security.”
“Yes.”
“But then?”
“He told me to pour gasoline into the archive room.”
“And you refused.”
“I didn’t know what was inside until I saw photographs.”
Her voice broke.
“Women. Girls. Passports.”
Her father’s trafficking operation.
Vivian had known Carlo was corrupt.
She claimed she never knew the full scope.
Was that true?
Maybe.
The woman who struck me with a riding crop had already shown what she believed about people beneath her.
Ignorance was not innocence.
Still, she had drawn a line.
Late.
But a line.
“Where did he go?” Vincent asked.
“Archive chamber.”
“Why?”
“The recording.”
Exactly what Elena feared.
Police found the chamber open.
Shelves emptied.
Boxes scattered.
A reel-to-reel recorder lay smashed.
The tape was gone.
Vincent punched the wall.
Then I noticed something.
A row of photographs.
Antonio.
Elena.
Teresa.
Carlo.
One picture showed my mother holding me as an infant.
Antonio stood beside us.
His hand rested on my tiny head.
I stared.
Proof of a father I never knew.
Behind the photograph was a handwritten notation:
COPY STORED WITH R.M.
“R.M.?” I asked.
Vincent looked.
His face changed.
“Rafael Moretti.”
His uncle.
Antonio’s younger brother.
The man who had led the Moretti family after Antonio’s supposed death.
Rafael retired to Naples twelve years earlier.
Or so Vincent believed.
“He might have a copy.”
Salvatore called.
No answer.
Then Vincent looked toward Vivian.
“Does Carlo know?”
She nodded.
“He left for the airport.”
Everyone moved.
Carlo DeMarco was arrested at Teterboro Airport before his private plane departed.
He carried three passports.
$600,000 cash.
The original tunnel recording.
And a photograph of Rafael Moretti tied to a chair.
Taken recently.
Carlo had already kidnapped him.
The image background showed an industrial freezer.
Salvatore recognized the location.
An abandoned meatpacking facility in the Bronx once owned by Moretti Foods.
Police found Rafael alive.
Barely.
Inside the facility was more evidence.
Carlo had been preparing to eliminate every surviving witness.
Teresa.
Elena.
Rafael.
Vivian, eventually.
Maybe me.
Carlo’s arrest should have ended everything.
It did not.
Because when federal investigators played Antonio’s recording, another voice appeared.
A woman.
Antonio said:
“You knew what Carlo was doing.”
She answered:
“I knew enough.”
Vincent went pale.
The voice belonged to Elena.
His mother.
Antonio accused her of protecting Carlo’s financial transfers.
Elena responded:
“I was protecting Vincent.”
The recording continued.
Carlo threatened to expose something about the boy.
Something that could destroy Antonio’s succession plans.
Then the gunshot.
Chaos.
The tape ended.
Vincent stared at Elena’s hospital bed later that night.
“What did Carlo have on you?”
She closed her eyes.
“Vincent.”
“No more lies.”
Her expression crumpled.
“You are not Antonio’s biological son.”
Silence.
I felt my stomach drop.
Vincent didn’t move.
“What?”
Elena began crying.
“I was pregnant before I married Antonio.”
“By who?”
“Rafael.”
Vincent stepped backward.
His uncle.
Antonio’s brother.
This family tree was collapsing by the hour.
Elena explained.
She and Rafael had loved each other when they were young.
But Antonio was the heir.
Their father insisted Elena marry Antonio to merge two Italian-American families.
Elena was already pregnant.
Antonio discovered it before the wedding.
He married her anyway.
Raised Vincent as his son.
Rafael remained silent.
The secret mattered because the Moretti trust transferred controlling shares specifically to Antonio’s biological descendants.
If Vincent was Rafael’s son, his inheritance could be challenged.
Then Antonio fathered me with Teresa.
Suddenly I was Antonio’s only known biological child.
Carlo learned.
That was why he needed me erased even more than anyone realized.
If the truth came out, Vincent might lose control.
I would gain it.
Carlo could manipulate whichever heir remained.
My stomach turned.
“I don’t want the company.”
Vincent looked at me.
“I know.”
Elena whispered, “Antonio intended to change the trust.”
“Why?” Vincent asked.
“To protect both of you.”
She looked at me.
“He wanted Isabella acknowledged.”
Then at Vincent.
“And you kept as his son legally, regardless of blood.”
“But he died first.”
“Yes.”
Carlo’s murder stopped the amendment.
For twenty-eight years, the Moretti empire had rested on a succession structure built on false parentage.
Vincent sat.
I expected anger.
Instead he laughed.
A tired, bitter sound.
“All this time everyone called me the Moretti heir.”
Elena reached for him.
“You are my son.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“You’re Antonio’s daughter.”
“Apparently.”
“And the trust may make you controlling heir.”
“I don’t want it.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that like you’re about to hand me an empire.”
A tiny smile appeared.
“Would you prefer cash?”
Despite everything, I laughed.
It shocked both of us.
Then Vincent became serious.
“We need DNA.”
“Yes.”
“And lawyers.”
“Unfortunately.”
“And Vivian.”
I looked toward the hall.
She had been arrested for conspiracy, unlawful restraint, assault, and assisting Carlo’s access to Belladonna House.
The engagement was over.
Obviously.
But the betrayal ran deeper.
Vivian had not merely planned to marry Vincent.
Her father had raised her to control him.
And when she realized I might be the legitimate Moretti heir, she brought me into the mansion so Carlo could steal the locket and eliminate the last proof connecting Teresa to Antonio.
The riding crop had not been an impulsive act of cruelty.
It had been part of a plan to force me outside alone.
If Vincent had arrived three hours later as scheduled, I might have disappeared before the party ended.
The thought left me cold.
Then Salvatore entered.
“We found something else in Carlo’s airport bag.”
“What?”
“A marriage certificate.”
Vincent frowned.
“Whose?”
Salvatore looked at Elena.
Then Teresa.
“Antonio Moretti and Teresa Romano.”
My mother stopped breathing.
“What?”
The document was dated six months after my birth.
Antonio had secretly married Teresa.
But he was still legally married to Elena.
Unless—
Elena whispered:
“We were divorced.”
Vincent stared.
“You and Antonio divorced?”
“Privately. In Nevada.”
“And nobody knew?”
“We planned to announce it after Antonio changed the trust.”
Then Antonio married Teresa.
Legally.
That meant my mother had not been his mistress when he died.
She was his wife.
And I was not merely an illegitimate daughter hidden from the family.
Under Antonio’s last valid will, I might be his direct legal heir.
Vincent slowly looked at me.
May you like
The nightmare had just become a succession war.
And every surviving Moretti relative would know by morning.
