Chapter 2 - THE INVOICE FROM MY MOTHER'S RESTAURANT
I tried not to react.
Luca noticed anyway.
His eyes moved from my face to the contract.
“What did you see?”
“Nothing.”
He did not believe me.
Good. He was not stupid.
“Emma.”
The way he said my name made lying harder.
I pointed to the code at the bottom.
“BPE-17.”
Vanessa’s eyes sharpened.
“You recognize it?”
I should have said no.
Instead, I heard my mother’s voice in my head:
If a man in power asks for truth, make sure you tell the part that costs you something. That is the only part he’ll know is real.
So I said:
“My mother’s restaurant received invoices with the same prefix before she closed.”
Luca leaned back slowly.
“What restaurant?”
“Reed’s on Ashland.”
A man near the middle of the table murmured.
“I remember that place.”
So did half the room, apparently.
Reed’s had been small, loud, imperfect, and ours.
My mother served veal parmigiana on chipped white plates and argued with produce suppliers like they were family.
Then, six years ago, we were hit with inflated vendor bills, a lease dispute, and city inspection fines that arrived too quickly to fight.
Within four months, we were gone.
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
“What does your mother’s failed restaurant have to do with my engagement dinner?”
“Maybe nothing.”
Luca looked at me.
“But you don’t think so.”
“No.”
Marco’s face had gone pale again.
Not from fear this time.
Recognition.
“Emma,” he said carefully. “Your mother was Teresa Reed?”
“Yes.”
He covered his mouth.
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“You knew her?”
Marco nodded.
“She called me once.”
My heart jumped.
“When?”
“Six years ago. She said someone was forcing small Italian restaurants on the West Side to use a new supplier. Overpriced food, fake shortages, impossible delivery fees.”
“Bellini Private Events?” Luca asked.
Marco nodded.
“At the time, I told her I couldn’t help. I thought it was outside our world.”
His shame was real.
I felt anger.
Then something like pity.
My mother had spent her final business months calling everyone she thought might understand.
Most people decided not to.
Vanessa stood suddenly.
“This is absurd. Luca, you cannot let a maid turn our engagement dinner into a fantasy about her mother’s business failure.”
Luca finally looked at her.
“Sit down.”
She froze.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said sit down.”
No one moved.
For once, Vanessa obeyed.
Then Luca turned to his head of security.
“Pull every file connected to Bellini Private Events. Catering, vendors, restaurant supply, shell companies. Six years back.”
Vanessa laughed, but the sound was thin.
“You’re investigating my family now?”
“No.”
He picked up Marco’s forged resignation.
“I’m investigating a forged signature in my house.”
Then he looked at me.
“And I’m investigating why the same vendor code appears in the collapse of Emma’s mother’s restaurant.”
My throat tightened.
Not because he believed me.
Because nobody had believed my mother.
Then Luca’s security chief returned with a tablet.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“The deposit to Bellini Private Events didn’t come from your event account.”
“Where did it come from?”
The man hesitated.
“From Marco’s restaurant operating reserve.”
Marco looked up sharply.
“I never authorized that.”
The security chief’s face hardened.
“I know.”
He turned the tablet.
The transfer had been approved with Luca’s own executive code.
May you like
At 3:11 that morning.
From inside the mansion.
