Chapter 4 - The House No One Could Finish
Within two weeks, Villa Belladonna consumed Elena’s life.
She welcomed it.
Every morning at seven, she drove north with coffee, rolled drawings, and a determination not to check celebrity news sites.
Every evening, she returned to Milan carrying measurements, photographs, material samples, and new questions.
The scandal gradually moved down the headlines.
Marco and Sophia became the new subject.
Someone photographed them leaving a restaurant together.
Someone else claimed Sophia had moved into Marco’s penthouse.
Elena stopped reading after the first article.
Pain did not disappear because you refused to look at it.
But you did not have to feed it.
Belladonna gave her better things to feed.
Curiosity.
Ambition.
Pride.
The western facade required urgent masonry stabilization.
The roof drainage had been badly redesigned during the seventies.
Three balconies needed reinforcement.
A section of the original parquet could be saved if humidity levels were controlled quickly.
Elena created a restoration plan built around preservation rather than replacement.
The Morettis approved it.
Mostly.
“We’re keeping this wall?” Luca asked one afternoon.
“Yes.”
“It looks terrible.”
“It looks old.”
“Same thing.”
Elena glared.
“No.”
“Explain the difference.”
“Your face is older than it was yesterday.”
Matteo coughed into his hand.
Luca pointed at her.
“That was vicious.”
“Did it become terrible?”
“No.”
“Then you understand historic preservation.”
Alessandro walked in during the exchange.
“What happened?”
“Elena attacked my face.”
“She was probably justified.”
“Family loyalty is dead.”
Elena smiled down at her plans.
These moments became dangerously easy.
That bothered her.
She had promised herself after Marco that she would not depend on people for stability.
Yet the Moretti brothers were becoming part of her days.
Matteo brought espresso when she forgot lunch.
Luca appeared whenever she needed access to some impossible corner of the property.
And Alessandro…
Alessandro noticed things.
Not romantic things.
At least Elena told herself they were not romantic.
He noticed when she rubbed her temple because she had a headache.
He noticed when contractors spoke over her and would quietly ask, “Rossi, were you finished?”
He noticed when she had worked twelve hours and ordered the staff to send food to the site office without asking whether she wanted it.
Most importantly, he never tried to rescue her from her own competence.
If Elena fought with a supplier, Alessandro did not intervene unless she asked.
If she disagreed with an engineer, he listened to her argument before forming his own opinion.
Marco had often called her intensity intimidating.
Alessandro seemed to consider it useful.
That difference lodged somewhere under her ribs.
One rainy Thursday, Elena arrived to find the main contractor waiting outside the temporary site office.
His name was Paolo Ferri.
Sixty.
Excellent reputation.
Unimpressed by wealthy clients.
Elena liked him immediately.
Today he looked furious.
“We have a problem.”
“Structural?”
“Money.”
“Whose?”
“Ours, apparently.”
She followed him inside.
Three invoices lay on her desk.
Steel.
Stone.
Specialist labor.
All increased dramatically.
“These aren’t our negotiated rates.”
“No.”
“Who changed them?”
“The suppliers claim our credit terms were withdrawn.”
“Why?”
Paolo pushed over a printed email.
Elena read it.
A rumor had circulated that Rossi-Conti Architecture was financially unstable after losing its largest commercial client.
Bellini Costruzioni.
Her stomach turned.
“This is Marco.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
The site office door opened.
Alessandro entered.
He took one look at Elena’s face.
“What happened?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
He waited.
She hated that his silence worked.
Elena handed him the invoices.
His expression did not change.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you suspect someone.”
“Yes.”
“Bellini.”
Paolo looked between them.
Elena sighed.
“Probably.”
Alessandro removed his phone.
“No.”
His eyes lifted.
“No?”
“You’re not calling anyone.”
“You don’t know who I’m calling.”
“That’s exactly why you’re not calling them.”
Paolo suddenly found the window fascinating.
Alessandro slipped the phone back into his jacket.
“What do you intend to do?”
“Renegotiate.”
“Those suppliers already broke your terms.”
“Then I find different suppliers.”
“It delays the project.”
“Two weeks.”
“It costs you money.”
“Yes.”
“I can fix it in five minutes.”
Elena knew he probably could.
One phone call from Alessandro Moretti and every supplier in Lombardy would suddenly rediscover generosity.
That was precisely the problem.
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because I need to know my firm can survive without a powerful man making phone calls.”
His eyes sharpened.
“This isn’t about Marco.”
“It’s partly about Marco.”
“Elena—”
“My fiancé cheated on me, then his father cancelled a major contract, and now somebody is using that loss to tell the industry my company is unstable.”
She stepped closer.
“If you solve this for me, maybe the problem disappears today. But tomorrow I still won’t know whether I survived because I was good enough or because Alessandro Moretti decided I should.”
Silence.
Paolo quietly exited.
Smart man.
Alessandro stared at her.
“You think accepting help makes you weak?”
“No.”
“Sounds like it.”
“I think there is a difference between help and having someone erase every obstacle before I touch it.”
His expression changed.
Not anger.
Understanding.
Slowly.
“Fine.”
Elena blinked.
“That’s it?”
“You said no.”
“People tell you no?”
“Rarely.”
“And?”
“I dislike it.”
She almost laughed.
“But I heard you.”
Something loosened inside her.
“Thank you.”
Alessandro moved toward the door.
Then paused.
“If you need something, ask.”
“I will.”
“You probably won’t.”
“Probably not.”
He left.
Elena solved the supplier problem in thirty-six hours.
She called every contact she had.
Giulia renegotiated financing.
Paolo found a stone supplier near Verona.
Matteo quietly reviewed the new contracts but made no calls on Elena’s behalf.
Construction resumed.
Friday evening, Elena returned to the villa after everyone else had gone.
She stood beneath the central dome reviewing lighting measurements.
“Successful week?”
She turned.
Alessandro stood on the stairs.
“I thought you went home.”
“I live here.”
“Oh.”
Elena looked around.
“You actually live in Belladonna?”
“Partially.”
“That sounds uncomfortable.”
“Come upstairs.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He sighed.
“There is a kitchen upstairs.”
“That clarification helped.”
Ten minutes later they sat in a small private kitchen that had already been renovated.
Alessandro opened a bottle of wine.
Elena accepted one glass.
“To solving your own problem,” he said.
She touched her glass to his.
“To you not solving it.”
He smiled.
It transformed his face.
Elena looked away too quickly.
Bad idea.
Very bad idea.
“What?” Alessandro asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re terrible at lying.”
“So are you.”
“I’m excellent at lying.”
“That is not reassuring.”
He laughed quietly.
For the first time, Elena understood why so many people were drawn to dangerous men.
It was not necessarily danger.
It was contrast.
A man everyone else feared laughing alone in a kitchen felt intimate in a way it should not.
She took another sip.
“Why Belladonna?”
Alessandro’s smile disappeared.
“What?”
“You could build something new anywhere. Why spend this much money saving a collapsing nineteenth-century villa?”
He turned his glass slowly.
“My mother loved it.”
Elena waited.
“She died when we were seventeen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She used to bring us here.”
“The Morettis already owned it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why was it abandoned?”
His eyes shifted toward the dark window.
“My father stopped coming after she died.”
There was more.
Elena heard it in the pause.
She did not push.
Alessandro noticed.
“You’re not asking.”
“You’ll tell me if you want to.”
That seemed to surprise him.
Marco had once accused Elena of questioning everything.
Maybe he had been right.
But buildings were not people.
And trust could not be demolished to expose the structure beneath.
Alessandro looked at her.
“You really are different from what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“A woman who might refuse the contract because my surname frightened her.”
“It still might.”
He smiled.
“You’re here.”
“For the building.”
“Of course.”
Neither of them believed the answer completely.
A sound echoed somewhere below.
Elena turned.
“What was that?”
Alessandro stood instantly.
The warmth vanished from his expression.
Another sound.
Metal against stone.
He moved toward the hall.
“Stay here.”
Elena stood.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“If somebody damaged my building, I’m coming.”
Even now, Alessandro almost smiled.
They descended together.
The main hall was empty.
Then Luca appeared from the eastern corridor.
His expression was serious.
“What happened?” Alessandro asked.
Luca held up a broken lock.
“Someone opened the restricted wing.”
Elena’s attention sharpened.
“The room I’m not allowed to see?”
Neither man answered.
Luca looked toward Alessandro.
“This lock wasn’t forced from outside.”
Alessandro’s expression became cold.
“Meaning?”
“Whoever opened it had a key.”
A long silence.
Elena looked down the dark eastern corridor.
The hidden room.
The Bellini warning.
The Moretti family.
Someone inside the villa had opened a door that had remained sealed for years.
Then Luca said something that made Elena’s skin go cold.
“There’s another problem.”
Alessandro turned.
“What?”
Luca held out an old folder.
“It was empty when I found it.”
“What was supposed to be inside?”
May you like
Luca looked directly at Elena.
“Records from the Bellini restoration.”
