Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN IN RED
Luca had seen the photograph twenty years earlier.
Our father had kept it inside his private desk.
“I wasn't supposed to be in his office,” Luca admitted.
“You were sixteen. Of course you were in his office.”
Despite the situation, Alina almost smiled.
“What did the woman look like?” she asked.
Luca frowned, trying to remember.
“Dark hair. Red coat. She was standing beside Dad outside some factory.”
“Our factory?” Alina asked.
“No.”
“Did you recognize her?”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“Why are you pale?”
“Because Mother caught me holding it.”
Silence.
“What did she do?”
“She slapped me.”
Alina inhaled sharply.
Our mother had been stern.
Distant.
But she'd almost never hit us.
“She took the photograph,” Luca continued. “Then told me if I ever mentioned the woman again, Father would leave us.”
I felt sick.
“What did Father say?”
“I never told him.”
We went to the bank with two detectives and independent security.
The vault required my signature.
Then Alina's.
The steel door opened.
Inside sat one black document case.
Nothing else.
Alina looked at me.
“That's it?”
I opened it.
Corporate ledgers.
Letters.
Old photographs.
A digital drive.
And one red envelope.
Alina picked it up.
Inside was the photograph.
A woman in a crimson coat stood beside our father and Jonathan Hartwell.
She looked about thirty.
Beautiful.
Dark hair.
Green eyes.
And strangely familiar.
Alina stared.
“I know her.”
My pulse changed.
“Who?”
She brought the photograph closer.
“I don't know.”
“That isn't knowing her.”
“I've seen her face.”
“Where?”
Alina searched her memory.
Then froze.
“My mother's house.”
“What?”
“There is an old photograph in Mom's bedroom. From before I was born.”
She looked at me.
“This woman is in it.”
The detectives copied everything.
Meanwhile, I opened a letter addressed to me.
My father's handwriting.
Dante, if you are reading this with Alina beside you, then one thing has gone right. You trusted her.
I stopped.
Alina touched my wrist.
“Keep reading.”
The woman in red is Sofia Bellandi. She served as financial controller for Moretti Shipping and later worked for Hartwell Manufacturing.
Luca frowned.
“I've never heard that name.”
She discovered Caterina had been routing payments through shell vendors.
My hands tightened.
There it was.
My mother's name.
Jonathan and I helped Sofia gather evidence. Before she could testify, she disappeared.
I looked toward the photograph.
Alina suddenly whispered:
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
She pointed at Sofia's hand.
A ring.
Small sapphire.
Distinctive.
Alina wore its twin on her right hand.
“My mother gave me this when I turned eighteen.”
I stared.
“Where did she get it?”
“She said it belonged to my aunt.”
“What aunt?”
Alina's face had gone completely white.
“I don't have one.”
Then Luca opened the next letter.
His eyes widened.
“Dante.”
“What?”
He handed it to me.
May you like
Only one sentence had been written.
Sofia Bellandi is Alina's biological mother.
