Chapter 5 - Rules Written in Marble
By nine the next morning, Villa Belladonna no longer felt like a restoration site.
It felt like a crime scene.
No police cars appeared.
No flashing lights.
No uniforms.
The Morettis handled problems differently.
Luca’s security staff quietly restricted access to the eastern wing.
Every employee badge used during the previous seventy-two hours was reviewed.
Camera footage was downloaded.
Contractors were questioned without being told precisely what had disappeared.
Elena stood in the temporary project office watching all of it through the window.
She did not like mysteries when they touched her work.
She liked them even less when they touched Marco Bellini.
Matteo entered carrying two coffees.
He placed one on her desk.
“You look angry.”
“I am.”
“Good morning to you too.”
Elena picked up the coffee.
“Thank you.”
“See? Civilization.”
She leaned against the desk.
“What was in the missing folder?”
Matteo did not answer immediately.
“Alessandro told you?”
“Luca told me it involved the Bellinis.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“Matteo.”
He removed his glasses.
“Sit.”
“I hate when people say that.”
“Elena.”
She sat.
Matteo pulled a chair opposite her.
“In 1998, our father hired Bellini Costruzioni to perform preliminary restoration work.”
“Marco’s father?”
“Vittorio Bellini personally supervised parts of it.”
“Why did they stop?”
“A dispute.”
“You already said that.”
“There was more.”
Elena waited.
Matteo folded his hands.
“Our father believed money was disappearing.”
“From the project?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“We don’t know.”
“You’re Morettis. How do you not know?”
His mouth twitched.
“A flattering amount of faith in our omniscience.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He continued.
“The accounting was complicated. Shell contractors. Duplicate invoices. Material charges for work that never happened.”
Elena thought about her supplier problem.
“Was Vittorio accused?”
“Privately.”
“By your father?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Vittorio denied everything.”
“What did your father do?”
“Terminated the project.”
“That’s all?”
Matteo looked toward the window.
“No.”
There it was again.
The pause.
Elena waited.
Finally, Matteo said, “One accountant who worked on the restoration disappeared.”
She went still.
“Disappeared?”
“Left Italy.”
“According to?”
“Official records.”
“And unofficially?”
“We don’t know.”
She studied him.
“You genuinely don’t know.”
“No.”
“Who was he?”
“Carlo De Santis.”
“Did he work for Moretti or Bellini?”
“Both, technically. He was an independent auditor.”
Elena absorbed that.
“And the missing folder?”
“Contained copies of De Santis’s invoices and correspondence.”
“Why would someone steal records from twenty-eight years ago?”
“That is what we would like to know.”
Elena stood.
“Does Marco know?”
“No idea.”
“Sophia?”
Matteo’s expression sharpened.
“Why would your sister know?”
“Because apparently Sophia knows many things I don’t.”
Pain cut unexpectedly.
Elena hated that Matteo saw it.
His voice softened.
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t be.”
“Why?”
“Because pity makes me want to throw things.”
“That was not pity.”
She looked at him.
Matteo held her gaze.
“Your sister betrayed you. That is on her. Being hurt by it is not weakness.”
The simple statement struck harder than Elena expected.
Marco had spent years telling her she was too sensitive whenever something mattered.
Sophia had called her dramatic.
Now this man she barely knew treated her pain as evidence not of fragility but of humanity.
Elena looked away.
“Thank you.”
Matteo put his glasses back on.
“If it helps, Luca wants to dislike Marco on principle.”
“Why?”
“He dislikes men with too much hair product.”
Elena laughed.
“That is a disturbingly specific moral system.”
“Our family has standards.”
A knock sounded.
Luca entered.
“We found something.”
Elena immediately straightened.
“What?”
He placed a tablet on the desk.
Security footage.
Timestamp: 2:13 a.m.
Two nights earlier.
A figure moved across the exterior service road.
Dark clothing.
Baseball cap.
Face mostly hidden.
“Employee?” Elena asked.
“No.”
“How did he get in?”
“Used an old maintenance gate.”
Matteo frowned.
“That gate is sealed.”
“Was.”
Luca enlarged the image.
The figure carried something.
A flat leather case.
Elena leaned closer.
“Architectural portfolio.”
Luca looked at her.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
She pointed.
“See the handle placement? Document case. Probably A2 size.”
“Why would someone bring plans into the villa while stealing a folder?”
Nobody answered.
Luca changed footage.
The figure entered a camera blind spot.
Nineteen minutes later, he emerged without the case.
Elena’s pulse quickened.
“So he brought something in.”
“And took something else out,” Matteo said.
Luca nodded.
“What did he leave?”
“That is the question.”
All three looked toward the eastern wing.
Alessandro appeared at the doorway.
“We’re opening the room.”
Elena’s head snapped toward him.
“Finally.”
His gaze moved to her.
“You are not going inside.”
She stared.
“Excuse me?”
“The situation changed.”
“Yes. Someone entered a part of the building that affects my project.”
“This is no longer about architecture.”
“It became about architecture the moment somebody carried plans into my building.”
“My building.”
Elena stepped forward.
“Then hire someone else.”
Silence.
Luca looked at Matteo.
Matteo suddenly examined the ceiling.
Alessandro’s expression hardened.
“You would resign over this?”
“I would resign if you expect me to sign responsibility for a building while intentionally keeping structural information from me.”
“I excluded your liability.”
“That was before someone started sneaking into it.”
He stared at her.
Neither moved.
Finally Alessandro said, “Fine.”
Elena blinked.
Luca whispered to Matteo, “I owe you fifty.”
“You bet on this?”
Elena asked.
Matteo looked unapologetic.
“I believed Alessandro would surrender within three minutes.”
“How long?”
“Two forty-six.”
Alessandro looked murderous.
Elena smiled.
“Pay him.”
The eastern corridor was colder than the rest of Belladonna.
Original stone covered the floor.
Heavy curtains blocked several windows.
At the far end stood an oak door reinforced with modern steel.
Luca unlocked it.
He looked toward Alessandro.
Alessandro nodded.
The door opened.
Elena stepped inside.
Her professional brain immediately took control.
Large rectangular room.
Approximately eight by eleven meters.
Bookcases.
Covered furniture.
A massive drafting table.
Old framed photographs.
Storage cabinets.
Nothing supernatural.
Nothing obviously criminal.
“Why hide this?”
Alessandro entered behind her.
“It was my father’s private study.”
Elena looked around.
“After your mother died?”
“Yes.”
She approached the drafting table.
An architectural plan lay open.
Fresh.
Not twenty-eight years old.
Fresh paper.
Fresh ink.
The portfolio from the security footage.
Elena’s pulse accelerated.
She leaned closer.
It was a redevelopment drawing.
Villa Belladonna’s property.
But not her project.
This proposal showed the entire eastern garden demolished.
A new road.
Underground parking.
Commercial structures.
A luxury hotel complex.
“This isn’t mine.”
“No,” Matteo said.
Elena looked at the title block.
Her breath stopped.
BELLINI COSTRUZIONI — PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT PROPOSAL
Date: three months earlier.
Three months.
While Elena had still been engaged to Marco.
While she had been planning her wedding.
While Marco knew she had dreamed of restoring Belladonna since architecture school.
“What the hell?”
Alessandro stepped beside her.
“You never saw this?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Elena stared at the signature.
Marco Bellini.
Project development director.
Her former fiancé.
Her throat tightened.
“He knew.”
“Knew what?” Luca asked.
“That I wanted this building.”
Her voice sounded distant.
“I talked about Belladonna constantly. Marco used to joke that if we ever became rich enough, he’d buy it so I could save it.”
Nobody spoke.
She looked again.
Her own professional ideas appeared within the plan.
Not exact drawings.
But concepts.
A concealed service entrance on the north side.
A glass transition corridor preserving the original facade.
A specific structural strategy for the western terrace.
Ideas Elena had discussed at home.
With Marco.
Ideas never publicly released.
Her hands went cold.
“He used my work.”
Alessandro’s expression darkened.
“Explain.”
Elena pointed.
“This.”
Then another detail.
“And this.”
She moved across the plan.
“These are mine.”
Matteo leaned closer.
“Can you prove it?”
“I have sketches.”
“Dated?”
“Yes.”
“Emails?”
“Yes.”
“Digital metadata?”
“Yes.”
Matteo’s face changed.
Lawyer.
Strategist.
Predator in an expensive suit.
“Good.”
Elena looked at him.
“Why good?”
“Because stealing ideas is much easier to punish when the person who owns them keeps excellent records.”
Alessandro’s voice came quietly.
“Did Marco know you were coming here?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“Giulia.”
“Anyone else?”
“My staff.”
“Bellini?”
“No.”
Elena paused.
Unless—
She remembered the penthouse.
Marco asking where she had been.
No.
That happened before Moretti offered the project.
He could not have known.
Unless Alessandro’s approach had not been random.
She turned.
“Why were you at that bar?”
Alessandro went still.
“What?”
“The night we met.”
“Elena.”
“You told me about Belladonna less than an hour after I left Marco.”
“Yes.”
“How did you know I was there?”
“I didn’t.”
“Why were you there?”
“It’s a bar.”
“You own nightclubs. I doubt you accidentally drink alone in tiny neighborhood bars.”
Luca’s face changed.
Matteo said quietly, “Alessandro.”
Elena looked between them.
“You knew something.”
Alessandro held her gaze.
“I knew Bellini had submitted a proposal using ideas that resembled yours.”
Her heart began pounding.
“How?”
“We reviewed his proposal.”
“And you recognized my work?”
“I had seen your published projects.”
“So you suspected he stole from me.”
“Yes.”
“And instead of telling me, you offered me the job.”
“I needed to know whether the ideas were actually yours.”
Elena felt anger rise.
“You tested me.”
“I evaluated you.”
“While I was wearing a wedding dress after discovering him with my sister.”
“I did not know that would happen.”
“But when you saw me, you knew exactly who Marco Bellini was.”
“Yes.”
Elena stepped back.
Suddenly the black card felt different in her memory.
Not fate.
Not coincidence.
Strategy.
Of course it had been strategy.
Alessandro Moretti studied everyone.
He had told her that himself.
“You should have told me.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me that night.”
“You didn’t give me the choice.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was trying to protect the project.”
Elena laughed bitterly.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The mistake men keep making with me.”
Alessandro’s eyes narrowed.
“They decide what I can handle.”
She walked toward the door.
“Elena.”
She stopped without turning.
“From now on, there are rules.”
Alessandro said nothing.
“No secrets that affect my work.”
Silence.
“No using my personal life as leverage.”
Silence.
“And if you discover something connected to my designs, my company, Marco, or the Bellinis, you tell me.”
Alessandro looked at his brothers.
Then back at Elena.
“Agreed.”
She faced him.
“Say it properly.”
Something almost like admiration entered his eyes.
“I agree.”
Matteo nodded.
“So do I.”
Luca raised a hand.
“Same.”
Elena looked at the three Moretti brothers.
Three men with the same face.
Three different expressions.
And for reasons she could not yet understand, she believed them.
That frightened her more than she wanted to admit.
Then Luca’s phone vibrated.
He read the message.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Alessandro asked.
Luca looked at Elena.
“Security identified the vehicle used by the man who entered the estate.”
Elena waited.
“It belongs to Bellini Costruzioni.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Marco?”
“Not registered to him.”
“To whom?”
Luca turned the screen around.
The name on it made Elena forget how to breathe.
SOPHIA ROSSI.
Her sister.
May you like
And suddenly Elena understood that finding Sophia in Marco’s bedroom might not have been the beginning of the betrayal.
It might only have been the first part she had discovered.
