Chapter 5 - The House With Her Father’s Name
At eight the next morning, Elena called Rossi Studio and asked her office manager to change every access code.
At eight-ten, she froze all archive permissions.
At eight-twenty, she learned Sophia had entered the building four times during the month before the wedding.
Sophia had no professional reason to be there.
Elena sat in the temporary project office at Palazzo Moretti staring at the access records.
“I gave her a family badge years ago.”
Dante stood across from her.
“Why?”
“She used to meet me for lunch.”
“You trusted your sister.”
Elena looked at him.
“You say that like it was a tactical mistake.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Feels like one.”
Dante rested both hands on the desk.
“Trusting someone isn’t stupidity. Refusing to recognize betrayal after you see it would be.”
Elena studied him.
People described Dante Moretti as the most dangerous of the brothers.
Yet he had been unexpectedly careful around her.
Perhaps danger and cruelty were not always the same thing.
“What was in the envelope?” he asked.
“We need to find out.”
They went to Rossi Studio that afternoon.
Elena had avoided returning since the wedding.
The office occupied the top floors of a nineteenth-century building overlooking a narrow Milanese street.
Her father’s name remained engraved beside hers.
ROSSI CONSERVATION & ARCHITECTURE
Walking inside felt like entering a life that existed before Marco.
Her staff greeted her carefully.
Too carefully.
Everyone knew.
Elena lifted her chin.
“Please stop looking at me like I survived an explosion.”
Her office manager, Giulia, winced.
“Was it obvious?”
“Painfully.”
A few people laughed.
The tension broke.
Elena realized she had missed them.
She gathered the senior staff.
“No questions about my private life. We have a security issue involving project files. From today forward, nobody enters the archive without logging access.”
Giulia nodded.
“What are we looking for?”
“San Aurelio.”
A senior architect named Pietro went pale.
Elena noticed.
“You know it?”
Pietro hesitated.
“Your father worked on it for years.”
“Did you?”
“I was a junior draftsman.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I assumed you knew.”
Elena’s heartbeat increased.
“Knew what?”
Pietro looked toward the Moretti brothers.
Elena said, “Speak.”
“Carlo believed somebody was trying to invalidate the preservation structure. He stopped discussing it inside the office.”
“Because?”
“He didn’t trust everyone.”
Elena absorbed that.
“Who specifically?”
“I don’t know.”
“Enzo Valli?”
Pietro looked away.
Enough.
Elena walked into her father’s old office.
She had preserved much of it.
His drafting table.
Books.
A photograph of Elena and Sophia as children.
The sight of Sophia’s laughing twelve-year-old face hurt more than Elena expected.
Dante remained near the doorway.
“You can wait outside.”
“No.”
“I’m not going to collapse.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because you shouldn’t have to stand in here alone unless you want to.”
Elena looked at him.
Then nodded toward the shelves.
“Help me search.”
For three hours they opened boxes.
Nothing.
Then Elena noticed dust.
One shelf had been moved recently.
Behind it was a narrow cavity in the wall.
Inside rested a ledger.
Not architectural.
Financial.
The entries covered nearly twenty years.
Payments.
Consulting fees.
Shell companies.
Elena recognized one recipient.
Valli Legal Consulting.
Dante read over her shoulder.
“Amounts increase around major preservation disputes.”
Elena flipped further.
Then stopped.
A payment dated six months earlier.
Two hundred thousand euros.
Origin: NC Strategic Holdings.
Recipient: a numbered account.
Attached was a handwritten note.
BELLINI INTRODUCTION COMPLETE.
Elena’s skin went cold.
“Six months.”
Marco’s company had started pursuing Moretti land six months earlier.
Dante photographed the page.
“Keep going.”
Another entry.
S.R.—ACCESS CONFIRMED.
Elena stared at the initials.
Sophia Rossi.
“No.”
Dante did not speak.
She turned more pages.
Forty thousand euros.
Then twenty.
Then seventy-five.
Payments routed through a fashion consulting company Sophia had created the previous year.
Elena knew Sophia’s business.
She had helped fund it.
“This can’t be…”
But it could.
Sophia had complained constantly about money.
Elena had offered help.
Sophia always insisted she wanted independence.
Apparently she had found another source.
Elena closed the ledger.
Her phone rang.
Sophia.
The name glowed on the screen.
Elena had ignored twenty-three previous calls.
This time, she answered.
Silence.
Then Sophia said, “You finally picked up.”
Elena’s voice was flat.
“How much did they pay you?”
Sophia stopped breathing.
That was all the confirmation Elena needed.
“Elena, I can explain.”
“Forty thousand. Twenty thousand. Seventy-five. Which payment bought my office files?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like?”
“I didn’t know what they were doing.”
“But you took the money.”
“I thought they wanted information about Moretti property.”
“You stole from my office.”
“I borrowed documents.”
Elena laughed.
Dante looked away, giving her privacy without leaving.
“You slept with my fiancé.”
Sophia started crying.
“Elena—”
“And somehow that’s becoming the least disturbing thing you did.”
“I love Marco.”
The words stopped Elena.
“What?”
“I love him.”
Of every explanation she expected, that was not one.
“How long?”
Sophia whispered, “Longer than four months.”
Elena gripped the phone.
“How much longer?”
Silence.
“Sophia.”
“Two years.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Two years.
Family dinners.
Christmas.
Their mother’s birthday.
Marco sitting beside Elena while Sophia sat across from them.
“How long did Marco love you?”
Sophia cried harder.
“I don’t know.”
That answer carried more truth than anything else.
Elena lowered her voice.
“They used you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know Marco.”
“I knew him for five years.”
“He said he was going to leave you.”
“When?”
“After the Casano project was finished.”
Elena opened her eyes.
There.
Sophia realized what she had said.
“What Casano project?”
“I have to go.”
“Sophia.”
The line disconnected.
Elena immediately looked at Dante.
“You heard?”
“Enough.”
“She knows.”
“Yes.”
“And she just admitted Marco connected their relationship to the Casano project.”
Dante reached for his phone.
“We can use that.”
Elena stared at the old photograph of herself and Sophia.
She remembered holding her sister’s hand on the first day of school.
Defending her from bullies.
Driving across the city at midnight because Sophia’s car had broken down.
Love did not disappear simply because trust did.
That was the cruelest part.
Dante stopped at the door.
“Elena?”
“I’m coming.”
Before she could move, the office phone rang.
Giulia answered outside.
Seconds later she appeared.
“Elena.”
“What?”
“There’s a man downstairs insisting on seeing you.”
“Who?”
Giulia looked uncomfortable.
“Marco.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
Elena felt something unexpectedly calm settle over her.
A week ago, she had walked away from Marco because she was shattered.
Today he had come into her house.
Her father’s house.
May you like
And this time Elena intended to ask the questions.
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