Chapter 2 - THE GREENHOUSE LEDGER
For several seconds, the greenhouse contained only the sound of rain striking old glass.
Luca stood beside the stone bench with his mother’s sealed envelope in one hand and the faded photograph in the other.
Vanessa had stopped fighting.
That frightened me more than when she had swung the watering can.
She was watching Viktor Petrov with the flat, measuring expression of someone recalculating a plan.
Luca did not look at her.
“Who tried to kill my mother?”
Viktor took a slow breath.
“Not the way you are thinking.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.” The old gardener lowered himself carefully onto the edge of a planting table. “It is what I should have told you years ago.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“You were gone.”
“I was made to be gone.”
Vanessa scoffed. “Here we go.”
Luca turned his head.
“One more word from you, and Gino will escort you to a guest room until I decide what happens next.”
Vanessa’s eyes widened.
“You wouldn’t.”
“You came into a locked greenhouse and tried to destroy evidence connected to my mother.”
“It is not evidence.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”
That shut her up.
Viktor pointed toward the leather journal.
“Elena wrote everything down. Dates. Meetings. Names. She did not trust telephones after she realized someone had been listening to conversations inside the house.”
I thought of the mansion around us. The polished hallways. The silent staff. The men at gates. It had always seemed impossible that anything could happen inside without Luca knowing.
Apparently his mother had once made the same mistake.
Luca opened the journal.
The handwriting was neat, slanted and small.
Most of it was in English. Some entries were in Italian. A few pages contained columns of numbers.
He turned several pages.
Then stopped.
“Bellini Freight.”
Vanessa’s face tightened.
Viktor nodded.
“Your father used Carlo’s trucking company to move wine and restaurant equipment between Chicago and New York. At first, everything was legitimate.”
“At first?”
“Then invoices began appearing twice. One amount for the Moretti books. Another amount for the bank.”
Luca looked up.
“You are accusing Vanessa’s father of skimming my family twenty-six years ago?”
“I am telling you your mother discovered it.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“My father built his own company. He did not need to steal from yours.”
Viktor looked at her.
“Your father built his company with money Elena Moretti proved he had already stolen.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“That is enough.”
Luca lifted one hand without looking at her.
“No. It isn’t.”
He returned to the journal.
The next page had a name circled twice.
CARLO BELLINI.
Beneath it, Elena had written: Ask Antonio why he keeps forgiving him.
Luca read the sentence aloud.
Viktor looked tired.
“Your father and Carlo grew up together. Antonio believed loyalty meant giving a man one more chance than he deserved.”
“And my mother?”
“She believed loyalty without accountability was simply another word for weakness.”
For the first time, Luca smiled faintly.
“That sounds like her.”
Viktor’s expression softened.
“Yes.”
Luca turned another page.
There was a date written at the top.
September 14.
Twenty-six years earlier.
Below it, Elena had written only three words.
HE KNOWS I KNOW.
Luca’s hand stopped.
Viktor rubbed both palms over his knees.
“That night, she left a charity dinner early. She said she felt dizzy. I drove her home.”
Luca’s face changed.
“She had the heart episode that night.”
“Yes.”
“My father said she collapsed in the upstairs sitting room.”
“She did.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Viktor looked at Vanessa before answering.
“I am saying that earlier that evening, someone tampered with her medication.”
My breath caught.
Vanessa shook her head violently.
“No.”
Luca stared at Viktor.
“How do you know?”
“Because Elena showed me the bottle. The tablets were the wrong color. She kept one.”
“Where?”
Viktor nodded toward the cashbox.
Luca searched beneath the journal.
There was a small wax-paper packet tucked under the leather cover.
Inside was a single pale tablet, yellowed with age.
Luca did not touch it with his fingers.
He stared at it as though it were something alive.
“Did she take one?”
“No. Not from that bottle.”
“Then why did she collapse?”
“She had a heart condition. Fear and stress were not kind to her. She believed someone had entered her bedroom, replaced the pills, and wanted her to take them by mistake.”
“That is not attempted murder.” Vanessa’s voice was sharp. “That is paranoia from a sick woman.”
Luca looked at her.
It was not anger in his eyes anymore.
It was distance.
The kind of distance that appears when trust has already begun to die.
“Why are you defending something I haven’t accused your father of yet?”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Viktor looked at me.
“Emma, would you hand me the cake box?”
I brought it over.
He removed the cake carefully and turned the cardboard base upside down.
Along one edge, two layers had been glued together.
Viktor worked a thumbnail beneath them and pulled.
A thin folded sheet slid out.
Vanessa whispered something under her breath.
Italian.
A curse.
I understood it.
Luca did too.
Apparently he had heard enough around his family to recognize tone even when he did not catch every word.
Viktor unfolded the paper.
It was a photocopy of an old bank deposit receipt.
The amount was enormous for the time.
Four hundred eighty thousand dollars.
The receiving account belonged to Bellini Freight Holdings.
The depositor line read A. MORETTI.
Luca frowned.
“My father gave him the money.”
“No,” Viktor said. “Elena believed Carlo forged Antonio’s authorization.”
Luca looked at the date.
It was three days before his mother’s heart episode.
Vanessa folded her arms.
“So what? An ancient bank slip proves nothing. My father and Antonio did business.”
Viktor nodded.
“That is what Carlo said too.”
“Because it was true.”
“Then why did he pay me twenty thousand dollars to disappear after Elena died?”
Vanessa’s face went blank.
Luca slowly raised his eyes.
“What?”
Viktor reached into his jacket and removed an old envelope. Its edges were soft from years of handling.
Inside was a cashier’s check stub.
The issuing bank no longer existed.
The purchaser did.
Carlo Bellini.
Luca stared at it.
“You took his money.”
“I did.”
The disappointment in Luca’s voice hurt even though it was not aimed at me.
Viktor accepted it without defense.
“I was fifty-four. My wife had cancer. We had nothing. Carlo told me if I stayed in Chicago, he would make sure the police found enough evidence to blame me for stealing from your father. He knew I had access to the house, the cars, the greenhouse. He knew how easy it would be.”
“So you left.”
“I left because my wife needed treatment and because Elena was already dead.”
Luca’s face went hard.
“My mother died six months later.”
Viktor closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You were gone before she died.”
“Yes.”
“And you never came back.”
“No.”
“Why now?”
Viktor looked toward the greenhouse door.
“Because three weeks ago, I received a letter with no return address.”
He reached into his pocket again.
This time he removed a folded sheet of modern white paper.
The message contained only one sentence.
LUCA MORETTI IS MARRYING CARLO BELLINI’S DAUGHTER.
No signature.
Luca read it twice.
“Who sent this?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa laughed once.
“How convenient.”
Viktor ignored her.
“I came back to Chicago. I visited the cemetery. Then I drove past this estate. Yesterday, I saw work crews around the greenhouse.”
Luca turned to Vanessa.
“What work crews?”
She shrugged too quickly.
“Landscapers.”
“Gino would have the records.”
“Then ask him.”
Luca pulled out his phone.
Vanessa moved closer.
“Luca, please. Think about what you are doing. You are turning our engagement night into an interrogation because of a man who accepted money to disappear.”
Viktor’s face tightened.
Luca looked down at his phone but did not dial.
Instead, he picked up the sealed envelope addressed to him.
“Maybe my mother can settle this.”
Vanessa’s composure cracked again.
“Don’t.”
One word.
Barely audible.
Luca looked at her.
She realized what she had said and immediately changed course.
“I mean not here. Not in front of staff.”
I almost stepped backward.
Luca did not.
He slid his thumb beneath the seal.
The paper opened with a dry whisper.
Inside were three handwritten pages.
Luca read silently.
At first, his expression did not change.
Then his eyes narrowed.
He returned to the first page and read one line again.
“What?” Viktor asked.
Luca looked at Vanessa.
“My mother wrote that if Carlo Bellini or anyone from his family ever came into this house claiming friendship, I was to ask one question before trusting them.”
Vanessa’s lips parted.
Luca read from the letter.
“Ask them what happened at St. Agnes on October third.”
The color vanished from Vanessa’s face.
I had never seen a person go pale so quickly.
Viktor stood despite his bad knee.
“What did she write?”
Luca did not answer him.
He watched Vanessa.
“What happened at St. Agnes?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You reacted.”
“I reacted because this is insane.”
“St. Agnes what? Church? Hospital? School?”
Vanessa backed toward the door.
“I said I don’t know.”
Then a voice came from outside the greenhouse.
Gino.
“Boss?”
Luca opened the door.
The security chief stood in the rain holding a tablet.
“I checked the work orders. Miss Bellini authorized a private landscaping crew three days ago.”
Luca’s gaze moved to Vanessa.
Gino continued.
“They were instructed to begin demolition of this greenhouse Monday morning.”
Monday.
Two days after the wedding.
No one spoke.
Luca looked at the sealed pages from his mother, then at the floor compartment, then at the woman he was supposed to marry.
“Why were you going to demolish this building?”
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
For one breath, I almost believed the tears.
Then she said, “Because my father told me to.”
Luca went still.
“And what happened at St. Agnes?”
Vanessa’s gaze moved toward the rain-dark garden.
“My father said if you ever asked that question...”
She stopped.
Luca waited.
“If I ever asked what?”
May you like
Vanessa looked back at him.
“He said it meant your mother had left more proof than he thought.”
