Chapter 4 - THE SAFE FULL OF LIES
By midnight, Luca was sitting in my study with a folder thick enough to destroy a family.
Alina sat beside me.
Not across the room.
Beside me.
That mattered more than I wanted to admit.
Luca opened the folder.
“I found these while looking for Grandfather's property records.”
“Why were you in Mother's safe?”
“Because she asked me to retrieve a deed.”
“And instead?”
“I found this.”
He slid an invoice toward us.
Private endocrine panel.
Genetic screening.
Toxicology.
Patient initials: A.M.
Alina Moretti.
The date was three days before the charity gala.
Alina stared at it.
“I never had these tests.”
Luca nodded.
“I know.”
I looked at him.
“How?”
“Because the samples weren't collected at a clinic.”
He produced another sheet.
“Private courier pickup.”
The address was our house.
My house.
Alina went still.
“What samples?”
“Hair. Blood.”
She stared.
“Blood?”
I remembered something.
Two weeks before the gala, Alina had cut her hand while arranging roses in the kitchen.
Our housekeeper had called a concierge physician because the cut was deeper than it looked.
A nurse had cleaned it.
Drawn blood “as a precaution.”
I stood so quickly my chair scraped backward.
“Who was the nurse?”
Luca's expression darkened.
“I'm trying to find her.”
Alina looked at me.
“Dante, sit down.”
I couldn't.
Someone had used my home.
My staff.
My mother's access.
To investigate my wife without consent.
“Why would Mother test you?”
Alina whispered, “Maybe she thought I was sick.”
“Before you were sick?”
Nobody answered.
Luca rubbed his jaw.
“There is another possibility.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Our father's will.”
My eyes narrowed.
Father had been dead seven years.
“What about it?”
Luca hesitated.
“He left a sealed codicil.”
I knew that.
It had never been opened because the triggering conditions had supposedly never occurred.
Luca continued.
“One condition involved your first legitimate child.”
Alina slowly turned toward me.
“What?”
I had forgotten.
Or perhaps deliberately ignored it.
Our father had tied voting control of several family companies to succession.
“If Dante had a child,” Luca explained carefully, “additional shares would transfer into a trust controlled by Dante's branch of the family.”
Alina frowned.
“And if he didn't?”
Luca looked at me.
“After Dante turns forty-five, those shares transfer elsewhere.”
“Where?”
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
I already knew.
“To Mother.”
Luca nodded.
Silence settled.
I wanted to reject the implication.
My mother was cold.
Controlling.
Obsessed with legacy.
But harming Alina to prevent me from having a child?
No.
Then Luca pulled out one final document.
My father's sealed codicil had been accessed six months ago.
The attorney's office log showed who requested the review.
Caterina Moretti.
My mother.
And someone else.
I read the second name.
My stomach dropped.
Alina saw my face.
“Who?”
I turned the page toward her.
May you like
Evelyn Hartwell.
Her mother.
