Chapter 4 - THE BROKEN BRACELET
The silence in the foyer was absolute.
Every guest was staring at the broken half of the diamond bracelet on the floor.
Vanessa’s face contorted in panic. She instinctively reached for her own wrist, covering it with her other hand.
But she was too late.
Luca saw the movement.
In two long strides, he crossed the space between them. He grabbed Vanessa’s wrist, pulling her hand away.
Clasped around her arm was the exact matching half of the broken diamond bracelet.
“Where did you get this?” Luca demanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
Vanessa tried to pull away. “My mother gave it to me! It’s a family heirloom!”
“You’re lying.” Luca released her wrist in disgust. He bent down and picked up the broken half from the floor. He held them side by side. “This bracelet belonged to my mother. She was wearing it the night she was poisoned.”
A collective gasp echoed through the room.
Everyone in Chicago knew the tragic story of the Moretti matriarch. She had died of a sudden, mysterious heart failure three years after her husband’s fatal car crash.
No one had ever proven it was poison. Until now.
“Vanessa,” Luca said, his eyes turning cold and dead. “My mother’s jewelry went missing the night she died. And now half of it is sewn into the dress she was murdered in, and the other half is on your wrist.”
“I didn’t do it!” Vanessa screamed, backing toward the guests. “I was a teenager when she died! It wasn’t me!”
“Then who gave it to you?”
Vanessa clamped her mouth shut. She looked terrified. Not of Luca, but of someone else.
“I need to make a phone call,” she whispered, turning toward the door.
“Nobody leaves,” Luca commanded.
Marcus and three other armed security guards instantly blocked the exits.
Luca turned back to me.
“Emma. You said your mother made this dress. Why would she sew my mother’s broken bracelet into the lining?”
I looked at the heavy satin fabric. My mind was racing.
“Because it was proof,” I realized out loud. “If your mother was struggling with someone... the bracelet could have snapped. One half fell, and she hid it in the dress she was altering before she died.”
I looked at Vanessa. “And the killer took the other half.”
Vanessa’s eyes darted frantically around the room.
“You’re all crazy,” she spat. “My father is Victor Bellini. He won’t let you treat me like this!”
“Your father,” Luca repeated softly.
He walked over to the small wooden box on the table. He picked up the stack of letters tied with the blue ribbon.
He slipped the ribbon off and opened the top letter.
He read it in silence.
As he read, the anger in his face melted into pure, unadulterated shock.
He looked up at me.
“Emma,” he said softly. “Your father didn’t run my father off the bridge.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“He was in the passenger seat,” Luca continued, reading the paper. “He was my father’s bodyguard.”
My knees almost buckled. My father wasn’t a factory worker.
“But that’s not all,” Luca said, his voice shaking. He turned the letter around so I could see the handwriting.
It was my mother’s handwriting.
“They took the baby, Maria. Victor Bellini took my son. If Arthur speaks about the crash, they will kill him.”
I stared at the words.
“My son?” I whispered.
I only had one sibling. My younger brother, Leo.
But Leo was twenty. The crash happened twenty years ago.
Before I could speak, the heavy oak doors of the study burst open.
May you like
Standing in the doorway was my twenty-year-old brother, Leo.
And holding a gun to his head was Vanessa’s father, Victor Bellini.
