Chapter 2 - The Evidence That Was Supposed to Burn
The first SUV followed them through three turns.
The second stayed farther back.
Luca noticed both before Elena did.
“Seat belt.”
“What?”
“Put it on.”
Something in his voice made her obey immediately.
The driver turned sharply onto an avenue glittering with rain.
Elena grabbed the door handle.
“Are those Damian’s men?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Would certainty make you feel better?”
“No.”
“Then probably is sufficient.”
She stared at him.
“How are you this calm?”
“I’ve had worse weddings.”
Despite herself, Elena almost smiled.
Then the SUV behind them accelerated.
Her smile disappeared.
Luca pressed a button.
“Marco.”
The driver nodded.
The sedan suddenly turned into an underground parking garage.
The SUV followed.
Elena’s heartbeat pounded.
They descended one level.
Then another.
On the third level, Marco drove toward a concrete wall.
“Elena,” Luca said.
“Yes?”
“Do not scream.”
“That is never a comforting instruction.”
Marco hit another button.
A section of wall lifted.
The sedan passed beneath it.
The barrier dropped immediately behind them.
The pursuing SUV shot past the hidden entrance.
Elena blinked.
“What is this?”
“My garage.”
“You have a secret garage beneath downtown Chicago?”
“I have several.”
“Of course you do.”
Luca looked at her muddy dress.
“You’re adapting remarkably well.”
“I was almost married to Damian Vale an hour ago. My standards for normal have changed.”
The sedan stopped beside a private elevator.
Two men were waiting.
Neither looked surprised to see Luca arrive with a barefoot bride.
That somehow made the situation stranger.
Luca stepped out.
Elena remained seated.
He looked back.
“Coming?”
“Where?”
“Somewhere you can stop dripping on Italian leather.”
She frowned.
“Is that your main concern?”
“No. My main concern is determining who burned your evidence before you had finished escaping your wedding.”
That got her moving.
The elevator opened directly into a penthouse.
Elena had expected something dark and intimidating.
Instead, Luca’s home was quiet.
Warm wood.
Bookshelves.
Large windows overlooking the storm.
No gold statues.
No guns displayed on tables.
No stereotypical criminal excess.
A gray-haired woman walked from the hallway.
She looked at Elena.
Then Luca.
Then Elena again.
“Luca.”
“Yes, Nonna?”
“You brought home a bride?”
Elena covered her face.
Luca sighed.
“She isn’t mine.”
“Obviously. She has good taste.”
For the first time that night, Luca looked genuinely defeated.
“Elena, this is my grandmother, Sofia.”
Sofia approached.
Her expression changed immediately when she saw Elena’s bare feet and bruised wrist.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Those two words almost broke Elena.
Sofia did not ask questions.
She simply wrapped a blanket around Elena’s shoulders.
“Come.”
“I’m getting mud everywhere.”
“I have floors. Floors can be cleaned.”
“My dress—”
“Can be burned.”
Luca cleared his throat.
Sofia pointed at him.
“You. Kitchen.”
“Nonna—”
“Kitchen.”
Luca went.
Elena stared.
“The Luca Moretti takes orders from his grandmother?”
Sofia smiled.
“Every dangerous man needs at least one woman who remembers when he wet the bed.”
From the kitchen came Luca’s voice.
“I can still hear you.”
“Good.”
Twenty minutes later, Elena emerged wearing black sweatpants, an oversized sweater, and borrowed slippers.
Her wet hair hung around her shoulders.
The wedding dress remained upstairs.
For the first time since morning, she felt like a person instead of an object being displayed.
Luca sat at the dining table with a laptop.
Three men stood nearby.
He dismissed them when Elena entered.
“Coffee?”
“Something stronger.”
Sofia placed tea in front of her.
“No.”
Elena accepted defeat.
Luca turned the laptop.
News reports already showed the wedding venue.
A photograph of Elena appeared beside Damian’s.
The headline made her stomach turn.
HEIRESS ABDUCTED FROM WEDDING — BUSINESSMAN LUCA MORETTI QUESTIONED IN SHOCKING DISAPPEARANCE
“Questioned?” Elena said. “Nobody has questioned you.”
“Journalism has become ambitious.”
Then Damian appeared on video.
His tuxedo was still stained from the bouquet.
He looked devastated.
Perfectly devastated.
“My fiancée was frightened and confused,” he told reporters. “Mr. Moretti exploited that vulnerability.”
Elena’s mouth fell open.
Damian continued.
“I only want Elena home safely.”
“Home?” she whispered.
Franklin stepped beside him.
Elena stopped breathing.
Her father looked directly into the cameras.
“My daughter has struggled emotionally since losing her mother.”
Elena stood.
“No.”
Luca watched silently.
Franklin continued.
“She can become impulsive when overwhelmed.”
“No.”
“We believe Mr. Moretti manipulated her.”
Elena slammed her palm against the table.
“LIAR!”
Sofia appeared in the doorway.
Luca closed the laptop.
Elena paced.
“He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
“Yes.”
“He’s making me look unstable.”
“Yes.”
“He’s creating a story before I can tell mine.”
“Yes.”
She stopped.
“Could you say something besides yes?”
“Yes.”
Elena glared at him.
Luca almost smiled.
Then his expression became serious.
“This is what men like Damian do. Facts matter less if he controls the first story.”
“Then I tell mine.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because right now you have accusations.”
“I have evidence.”
“You had evidence.”
Elena looked toward him.
“Not all of it.”
Luca became still.
“The building wasn’t my only copy.”
“Where is the second?”
Elena sat.
“My mother taught me something when I was sixteen.”
“What?”
“Never keep the truth in one place.”
Luca waited.
“The second copy isn’t digital.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Paper?”
“Mostly.”
“Where?”
Elena smiled faintly.
“My father’s house.”
Luca stared at her.
“You hid evidence against Franklin inside Franklin’s home?”
“It’s the last place Damian would expect me to return.”
“Unfortunately, returning is now required.”
“Exactly.”
“No.”
Elena blinked.
“No?”
“No.”
“You told me to prove I was prepared.”
“I did not tell you to become suicidal.”
“I know that house.”
“Damian knows you know it.”
“I know passages he doesn’t.”
Luca studied her.
“What passages?”
“My mother renovated the east wing when I was a child. There’s an old servants’ staircase behind the library wall.”
“How dramatic.”
“I didn’t build it.”
“Where does it lead?”
“Basement to second floor.”
“Security?”
“Six cameras outside. Four inside.”
“Guards?”
“Usually two.”
“Tonight?”
Elena looked toward the television.
“Probably twenty.”
Luca leaned back.
“Then we wait.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“If my father suspects there’s another copy, he’ll search everything.”
“He probably already is.”
“Which means waiting makes it worse.”
Luca looked irritated.
Good.
She was tired of powerful men expecting obedience.
“I’m going.”
“You are currently the most recognizable runaway bride in Illinois.”
“Then make me less recognizable.”
“That sentence worries me.”
“Do you want the evidence or not?”
Luca stared at her for several seconds.
Then he stood.
“Finish your tea.”
“Why?”
“Because apparently we’re breaking into your childhood home.”
Sofia called from the kitchen.
“Take umbrellas.”
Luca closed his eyes.
Elena smiled.
An hour later, she was wearing dark jeans, boots, a black coat, and a baseball cap.
They approached Ashford House through neighboring woods.
Rain had weakened to a cold drizzle.
The mansion glowed beyond the trees.
Elena stopped.
Cars filled the driveway.
Too many.
Luca raised binoculars.
“Eight guards outside.”
“That’s not normal.”
“Obviously.”
Then Elena saw someone through an upstairs window.
Her father.
He was carrying boxes.
“He knows.”
They moved toward the eastern wall.
Elena found the old cellar entrance beneath climbing ivy.
Locked.
She removed a hairpin.
Luca stared.
“You pick locks?”
“My father used to lock the wine cellar.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“It does if you knew me at seventeen.”
The lock opened.
Luca almost looked impressed.
They entered.
The basement smelled exactly as Elena remembered.
Stone.
Dust.
Wine.
Childhood.
She led him behind shelving toward a narrow panel.
The servants’ staircase remained hidden.
They climbed.
Halfway up, Elena stopped.
Voices.
Franklin.
And Damian.
They were in the library.
Elena pressed her ear to the wall.
“You said she didn’t know,” Damian hissed.
“She shouldn’t.”
“She ran directly to Moretti.”
“That was coincidence.”
“Nothing involving Luca Moretti is coincidence.”
Elena looked at Luca.
His face revealed nothing.
Franklin spoke again.
“The ledger is gone.”
Elena’s pulse jumped.
“Which ledger?” Damian asked.
“The original Bellweather ledger.”
Silence.
Then Damian said something that changed everything.
“If Moretti sees that ledger, he’ll know who ordered his brother’s death.”
Elena slowly turned toward Luca.
He had heard it too.
For the first time since she had met him—
Luca Moretti looked shaken.
Franklin continued.
“That happened four years ago.”
“Moretti doesn’t forget.”
“No one can prove anything.”
“Then find Elena.”
“I’m trying.”
“Find her before she remembers what her mother told her.”
Elena’s breath caught.
Her mother?
Damian continued.
“Because if Evelyn told that girl where she hid the original files, your debt is going to be the least of our problems.”
Footsteps approached.
Luca grabbed Elena’s hand.
They moved silently upward.
The staircase opened behind the second-floor linen closet.
Elena led Luca toward her childhood bedroom.
Inside, everything looked almost unchanged.
She crossed toward the fireplace.
“What are we looking for?” Luca whispered.
“A book.”
“You risked your life for a book?”
“It isn’t a book.”
She pulled an old copy of Little Women from the shelf.
Luca raised an eyebrow.
“My mother gave it to me.”
Elena opened the cover.
The center had been hollowed out.
Inside was a small brass key.
Luca’s expression sharpened.
“What does it open?”
“My mother’s desk.”
“Where?”
“The foundation office.”
“So the evidence isn’t here?”
“No.”
“Wonderful.”
Elena reached deeper into the hollow book.
Her fingers touched paper.
She froze.
There had never been paper inside before.
She removed a folded envelope.
Her name was written across it.
ELENA
She recognized the handwriting immediately.
Her knees weakened.
“My mother.”
Luca closed the bedroom door.
Elena opened the envelope.
Inside was a single page.
Her mother had written it six years earlier.
Three months before she died.
Elena read silently.
Then stopped.
“What?” Luca asked.
She handed him the page.
His eyes moved across the handwriting.
At the bottom was one sentence.
If Franklin ever tries to give you to Damian Vale, go to Luca Moretti. He is not the man they told you he is.
Luca stared at the words.
Elena stared at him.
“You knew my mother.”
Luca did not answer.
“Luca.”
Footsteps suddenly sounded outside the bedroom.
Someone tried the handle.
Locked.
“Elena?” Franklin called.
Her blood froze.
“Elena, sweetheart?”
Luca quietly reached for her hand.
Franklin knocked again.
“I know you’re in there.”
Elena looked at Luca.
Her father laughed softly from the other side.
“And if Luca Moretti is standing beside you, ask him why your mother trusted him more than she trusted her own husband.”
Elena stopped breathing.
Because suddenly she understood something terrifying.
Her mother’s death might not have been the tragedy she had always believed it was.
May you like
It might have been the beginning.
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