Chapter 4 - CLAIRE COLLINS
Emma had never heard Luca raise his voice.
He did not raise it now.
“Where is the letter?”
Vanessa looked at Matteo.
Her brother stood.
“We’re leaving.”
Luca turned toward him.
“No.”
One word.
Matteo stopped.
The attorneys shifted.
Daniel’s men appeared at both ballroom exits.
Emma felt the room change.
Vanessa said, “You can’t hold us.”
Luca looked at one of the lawyers.
“Tell her whether I’m holding her.”
The attorney cleared his throat.
“Miss Bellini, technically, you may leave.”
“Good.”
“However, Mr. Moretti may also provide police with evidence of falsified animal surrender paperwork, identity misuse and possible coercion of an employee.”
Vanessa glared.
The attorney continued carefully.
“I recommend staying.”
Matteo sat back down.
Luca looked at Vanessa.
“The letter.”
She stared at Emma.
“I burned it.”
Emma’s stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“Because it mentioned your mother.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
Vanessa’s expression hardened.
“Your mother worked for Victor.”
Emma laughed.
“No.”
“She did.”
“My mother was a bookkeeper.”
“For Bellini Development.”
Emma stopped.
Her mother had worked for many companies when Emma was young.
Temporary accounting jobs.
Payroll.
Invoices.
Emma had never cared about the names.
“Which years?”
Vanessa told her.
Emma’s heart sank.
She had been seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Around the time her father disappeared from their lives.
Emma had always believed he had simply left.
No contact.
No child support.
No explanation.
Claire Collins refused to discuss him.
“What did she do for Victor?”
“Books.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Not normal books.”
Emma stared.
Vanessa leaned back.
“My father had two sets of accounts.”
Luca understood first.
“Claire kept the second.”
Vanessa nodded.
Emma shook her head.
“No.”
“She didn’t know at first.”
“What was in them?”
“Cash payments. land options. political contributions. Moretti transfers.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“My father?”
“Some.”
“And Gabriel?”
“Your brother found out through Claire.”
Emma’s legs weakened.
She sat.
“My mother knew Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He came to her office after hours.”
“Why?”
“Looking for Victor’s private accounts.”
“And she gave them to him?”
“Copies.”
Emma covered her mouth.
Her quiet mother.
The woman who clipped coupons.
Who hated being late for church.
Who had spent the last five years working part-time at a library before illness forced her to stop.
She had helped a Moretti heir steal evidence from Victor Bellini.
“Why?”
Vanessa’s voice softened.
“Because she found something.”
“What?”
“Payments connected to your father.”
Emma’s pulse jumped.
“What about him?”
Vanessa looked at Matteo.
He shook his head.
She continued anyway.
“Your father didn’t leave you.”
Emma stared.
The sentence did not make sense.
“What?”
“He disappeared.”
“That is the same thing.”
“No.”
Vanessa’s face lost some of its hardness.
“He was working at a Bellini construction site.”
“When?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
Emma’s mouth went dry.
She had been eleven.
The last morning she saw her father, he had kissed her forehead and told her to save him a piece of birthday cake.
He never came home.
Claire said he chose another life.
No police report Emma remembered.
No funeral.
Just absence.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t.”
Emma stood.
“Do not tell me you don’t know.”
Vanessa flinched.
“My father handled it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I was sixteen.”
“And you’ve had twenty-three years to ask.”
Luca watched Vanessa.
She looked away.
Emma’s voice broke.
“Did your father kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Name.”
“What?”
“My father’s name.”
Vanessa frowned.
“You know your father’s name.”
“Say it.”
“Peter Collins.”
Luca’s face changed.
Emma saw.
“What?”
He looked at Daniel.
Daniel had gone pale.
“What?” Emma repeated.
Luca spoke slowly.
“Peter Collins was a Moretti subcontractor.”
Emma stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“He worked construction?”
“Electrical systems.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“Everyone in this city was an electrician apparently.”
Luca ignored her.
“My father had a file on him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma’s chest tightened.
“Where?”
“In the archive.”
Daniel already moved toward the office.
Five minutes later, he returned with a thin file.
PETER COLLINS.
Employment records.
Invoices.
A photograph.
Emma took it.
Her father.
Younger.
Work boots.
Standing beside Salvatore Moretti.
And Gabriel.
Her hands shook.
“What was he doing with them?”
Luca opened the file.
One report.
Incident date.
Seventeen years ago.
Bellini River Project.
Employee failed to report after evening shift.
Vehicle located two days later.
No employee found.
Emma read it twice.
“Missing.”
Not left.
Missing.
Her mother had lied.
Why?
Another page.
A handwritten note by Salvatore.
CLAIRE KNOWS. KEEP HER AND THE GIRL OUT OF THIS.
The girl.
Emma.
She sat again.
Luca crouched beside the chair.
“Emma.”
“My mother knew.”
“Yes.”
“She told me he left.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
No one answered.
Emma grabbed her phone.
“I’m calling her.”
Vanessa spoke sharply.
“Don’t.”
Everyone turned.
Emma stared.
“Why?”
“Because if Claire is still keeping Gabriel’s copy of the accounts, my father may be watching her.”
Silence.
Emma’s heart stopped.
“My mother is alone.”
Luca stood.
“Daniel.”
“Already moving.”
Security team.
Cars.
Police contact.
Everything happened at once.
Emma called Claire.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Her hands began shaking.
“I should have gone home.”
Luca took the phone from her long enough to call again from his.
No answer.
“Emma.”
“She always answers me.”
“We’re going.”
They drove to Bridgeport.
Too fast.
Emma barely remembered the streets.
When they arrived, Claire’s front door was open.
Emma ran.
“Mom!”
The living room was empty.
A lamp had been knocked over.
The kitchen chair lay on its side.
Her mother’s oxygen tubing stretched across the floor.
“Mom!”
Luca caught Emma before she slipped.
Daniel checked bedrooms.
“Clear.”
Emma found blood on the kitchen counter.
Not much.
Enough.
Her body went cold.
“No.”
Luca’s voice was close.
“We’ll find her.”
“How?”
He did not lie.
“I don’t know yet.”
Then Daniel called from the bedroom.
“Boss.”
Inside Claire’s closet, someone had pulled out the back panel.
A small metal box sat behind it.
Unlocked.
Empty.
Except for one old photograph.
Claire.
Peter.
Gabriel Moretti.
And a baby.
Emma.
On the back, in Gabriel’s handwriting:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO PETER, CLAIRE HAS THE ORIGINAL LEDGER.
Luca looked at Emma.
“The accounts Vanessa said she burned.”
“She didn’t.”
“No.”
Emma stared at the photo.
“My mother has them.”
“Or had them.”
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
Security camera from a neighbor.
A dark SUV leaving ten minutes before they arrived.
Plate partially visible.
Bellini Property Services.
Emma turned toward Vanessa, who had been brought under guard in a second vehicle because Luca refused to let her out of sight.
Vanessa went white.
“No.”
Luca’s eyes became deadly.
“You recognize the car?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“My father’s security director.”
“Name?”
“Caleb Shaw.”
Daniel was already searching.
Emma grabbed Vanessa’s wrist.
“Where would he take her?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma tightened her grip.
“Think.”
Vanessa stared at her.
Then whispered:
“The old Bellini hotel.”
Luca frowned.
“Which one?”
“Lake Geneva.”
“Wisconsin?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s empty in winter.”
Emma released her.
Vanessa looked shaken.
Then added:
“There’s a basement archive.”
Luca stared.
“Your father’s records?”
“Some.”
Emma’s pulse pounded.
“Then we go.”
Luca looked at her shoulder.
“No.”
She laughed through tears.
“Do you really want to try this argument tonight?”
He looked at her.
Then at the photograph of baby Emma in Gabriel’s arms.
“No.”
Twenty minutes later, they were on the highway north.
Emma stared at the photograph the entire way.
One detail kept bothering her.
Gabriel was holding her.
Not awkwardly.
Not like a stranger.
Like someone who knew her.
Her mother had trusted him with her child.
Emma turned the picture over again.
There was a second line beneath the first.
Faded.
Almost rubbed away.
Luca used his phone light.
They read it together.
PETER IS NOT HER FATHER.
Emma stopped breathing.
Luca stared.
The car seemed to go silent around them.
Emma whispered:
“Then who is?”
The highway north seemed endless after that. Emma watched dark trees flash past the window while the photograph lay in her lap like evidence from someone else's life.
Luca sat beside her, silent.
Finally she said, “If Gabriel was my biological father, then you knew my father.”
“I knew Gabriel.”
“That isn't what I meant.”
He turned toward her.
Emma swallowed. “Peter. Did you ever meet Peter?”
Luca thought. “Once, maybe twice. I was young. He came to the estate with electricians.”
“What was he like?”
“I don't remember enough to be fair.”
“Try.”
Luca looked out the window. “Quiet. He listened before he spoke. My father respected him.”
Emma laughed bitterly. “Apparently everyone respected him while letting him disappear.”
Luca had no defense.
That helped more than one would have.
Emma rubbed the edge of the photograph. “If my mother lied because she was afraid, I understand the fear.”
“But not the lie.”
“No.”
“Good.”
She looked at him.
“Why good?”
“Because people in my family spent decades forgiving lies too quickly because they understood the reason behind them.”
Emma considered that.
Understanding was not absolution.
Love was not permission.
Fear was not truth.
She looked back at the road. Somewhere ahead, her mother might be alive, injured, terrified, or all three. Somewhere behind them, Bruno was sleeping after almost being killed because he scratched at the wrong wall.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it was a man named Peter Collins, who might not have shared her blood but had apparently risked his life for hers.
May you like
Whatever waited at Lake Geneva, Emma knew one thing now.
She was done accepting anyone else's version of her family without proof.
