Chapter 6 - The Friend Who LiedLuca Moretti did not deny it.
That frightened Matteo more than a denial would have.
The two men stood across from each other in Matteo’s office while morning traffic crawled sixty floors below them.
Enzo remained near the door.
He had one hand inside his jacket.
Matteo noticed.
Luca noticed too.
“Tell Enzo to relax.”
Matteo’s expression remained unreadable.
“Answer me.”
Luca exhaled.
“Yes. My credentials were used.”
“By you?”
“No.”
“Then by who?”
“I don’t know.”
Matteo’s voice became colder.
“You expect me to believe someone accessed a secure account belonging to my second-in-command and created a false employee referral without your knowledge?”
“I didn’t say without my knowledge.”
Enzo shifted.
Matteo’s face hardened.
“Explain.”
Luca walked toward the window.
“Three months ago, I received an envelope.”
“What envelope?”
“No return address. Delivered to my apartment.”
“What was inside?”
“A photograph.”
“Of?”
“Sophia.”
Matteo’s entire body went still.
“When?”
“October first.”
One day before Elena Bellandi had received the mysterious letter.
Two days before Sophia saw the fake employment advertisement.
Matteo’s mind arranged the timeline automatically.
“What else?”
“A note.”
Luca reached into his wallet.
He removed a folded piece of paper.
Matteo stared.
“You’ve carried it for three months?”
“Yes.”
He handed it over.
The message contained eight words.
Put the Bellandi girl where Matteo can see her.
Matteo read it twice.
“Why did you obey?”
Luca looked at him.
“Because beneath the message was another name.”
“What name?”
“Alessandro Moretti.”
Matteo’s anger faltered.
Luca’s father.
A man missing since 2003.
Presumed dead.
“What did it say?”
“Nothing. Just his name and a date.”
“What date?”
“August seventeenth, 1999.”
Matteo knew it immediately.
The attack at the Bellandi estate.
“You thought whoever sent the note knew what happened to your father.”
“I still do.”
“So you manipulated Sophia into working at Bellissimo.”
“I created the referral. Somebody else created the advertisement.”
“You used her.”
“Yes.”
The answer landed like a slap.
Enzo spoke.
“Why not tell Matteo?”
Luca laughed bitterly.
“Because every time anyone mentioned the Bellandis after Santino died, Matteo shut the conversation down.”
Matteo looked at him.
“You still should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Instead you placed an innocent woman inside a situation she knew nothing about.”
“Yes.”
Luca turned.
“I made the wrong choice.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“You endangered her.”
“We didn’t know she was in danger.”
“You knew somebody was manipulating events.”
“And I thought Bellissimo was the safest place to put her.”
“You thought wrong.”
Luca held his gaze.
“I know.”
Matteo’s phone rang.
Sophia.
He answered immediately.
“Sophia.”
There was silence at the other end.
Then her voice.
“She died.”
Everything else in the room stopped mattering.
Matteo looked away from Luca.
“I’m sorry.”
“She waited until I got here.”
“That sounds deliberate.”
A broken laugh.
“She was stubborn.”
“I remember.”
Sophia became quiet.
“You remember my grandmother?”
“A little.”
“She remembered you.”
Matteo closed his eyes briefly.
“That surprises me.”
“She told me something before she died.”
His attention sharpened.
“What?”
Sophia hesitated.
“Not over the phone.”
Matteo looked toward Luca.
“I can come to Italy.”
“No.”
“Sophia—”
“No private jet, no armed men, no dramatic arrival.”
Despite everything, Matteo almost smiled.
“You’re becoming very specific.”
“I’m learning.”
“What do you need?”
“I need to go to the Bellandi property.”
“When?”
“Today.”
“Don’t.”
Her voice hardened.
“You don’t get to order me.”
“This is not about control.”
“It sounds exactly like control.”
“Someone engineered your employment at my restaurant.”
“I know.”
Matteo glanced at Luca.
“How?”
“My mother received a letter the day before I applied.”
That was new.
“What letter?”
“She’ll show you when you arrive.”
Matteo stopped.
“When I arrive?”
“You just said you could come.”
“I did.”
“I changed my mind.”
Luca raised his eyebrows.
Matteo ignored him.
“Why?”
“Because my grandmother said something belongs to both families.”
“What?”
“The ledger.”
Matteo’s grip tightened around the phone.
“You found it?”
“Not yet.”
“Where?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Sophia.”
“No.”
“That property may not be safe.”
“It has been abandoned for years.”
“That doesn’t make it safe.”
“I’m going with my mother.”
“Absolutely not.”
Sophia became quiet.
Then she said, “You understand that every time you say ‘absolutely not,’ I want to do the thing more, right?”
Luca turned away to hide a smile.
Matteo glared at him.
“Sophia.”
“Matteo.”
He heard something unexpected beneath her irritation.
Trust.
Not much.
Enough.
“I’ll be there this afternoon.”
“Commercial?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
“I’ll be there this afternoon.”
She almost laughed.
Then her voice softened.
“Come alone.”
Matteo looked at Enzo.
“No.”
“Then don’t come.”
“Sophia—”
“One person. You.”
He hesitated.
“Fine.”
“You said that too quickly.”
“You’ve already won. Don’t investigate the victory.”
She ended the call.
Luca crossed his arms.
“You’re going.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“Yes.”
“Matteo.”
He looked at him.
“You’ve spent twenty years protecting me from situations I entered voluntarily. You can spend one afternoon staying out of this.”
Luca’s face tightened.
“This involves my father.”
“And Sophia’s grandfather.”
“And your father.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Matteo picked up the note.
“When I return, we finish this conversation.”
Luca nodded.
Matteo stopped beside him.
“If anything happens to Sophia because you put her in Bellissimo…”
“I know.”
“No.”
Matteo’s voice lowered.
“You don’t.”
By six that evening, Matteo was in Tuscany.
He ignored Sophia’s demand about arriving alone in the technical sense.
Enzo and two security men remained in Florence.
Matteo rented a car himself.
No convoy.
No visible protection.
Sophia met him at the Bellandi house after sunset.
The estate was not what Matteo remembered.
When he was sixteen, the villa had been alive with light, workers, dogs, dinner conversations, and Vittorio Bellandi’s booming laugh.
Now vines crawled over stone walls.
Shutters hung crooked.
The fountain in the courtyard was dry.
Sophia stood beneath the portico wearing jeans, boots, a dark coat, and the blue ribbon around her wrist.
Matteo stopped when he saw it.
She noticed.
“This?”
“Yes.”
“My grandmother said it meant safe.”
Matteo looked at the ribbon.
“Once.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing stays safe forever.”
Her mother appeared behind her.
Elena Bellandi Bennett.
Matteo recognized her instantly.
Older.
Silver appearing at her temples.
But unmistakably the girl who had dragged a bleeding sixteen-year-old into a cellar while gunshots echoed beyond the vineyard.
“Elena.”
She stared at him.
“Matteo.”
Twenty-seven years existed between those two names.
Then Elena hugged him.
Sophia’s mouth opened slightly.
Matteo froze before returning the embrace.
“You survived,” Elena whispered.
“So did you.”
“Barely.”
When they separated, Elena touched his cheek.
“You look like your mother.”
Matteo swallowed.
“Nobody says that.”
“Then nobody remembers her properly.”
Sophia watched the exchange.
For the first time, she saw Matteo without the armor of wealth and authority.
For one moment he was sixteen again.
Elena led them inside.
The house smelled of dust, wood, and cold stone.
Sophia carried two lanterns.
“The electricity barely works.”
“Chapel?” Matteo asked.
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
They crossed through the old garden.
The chapel stood behind the main villa.
Its roof sagged slightly.
One window was broken.
Above the entrance, stone angels watched them with weather-damaged faces.
Sophia stopped.
“The place where angels lost their faces.”
Matteo looked at the carvings.
“Your grandmother had a taste for riddles.”
“She had a taste for making everyone work harder than necessary.”
Inside, their footsteps echoed.
The altar remained.
Several saints had lost paint from their faces.
Sophia moved closer.
“Which angel?”
Matteo examined the architecture.
Then he remembered.
“There.”
He pointed to a carved panel behind the altar.
A winged figure with its face chiseled away.
Sophia approached.
“What happened to it?”
“Damage during the war, I think.”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
They turned.
“Your grandfather did that.”
“Why?”
“To create a marker.”
Sophia touched the stone.
Behind the angel, one section sounded hollow.
Matteo found the seam.
Together, they moved the panel.
Behind it was a narrow compartment.
Empty.
Sophia stared.
“No.”
Elena went pale.
“It was here.”
“You knew?”
“I knew your father built the compartment. I didn’t know what he put inside.”
Matteo inspected the dust.
Recent disturbance.
Someone had opened it.
Recently.
“There’s something else,” he said.
A folded scrap of paper lay deep inside.
Sophia reached.
Matteo stopped her.
“Wait.”
She gave him a look.
“Fingerprints?”
“Yes.”
He used a handkerchief to pull the note free.
Three words.
Too late, Matteo.
Sophia’s blood turned cold.
“They knew we were coming.”
A sound came from outside.
Gravel shifting.
Matteo extinguished one lantern immediately.
“Stay behind me.”
Sophia whispered, “You promised no dramatic arrival.”
“This is a dramatic departure.”
The chapel door opened.
A figure stood outside.
Older man.
Gray coat.
Cane.
Sophia lifted the remaining lantern.
Her mother gasped.
The man looked directly at Elena.
“Took you long enough.”
Elena collapsed against the pew.
“Papa?”
Sophia stopped breathing.
The old man smiled sadly.
May you like
“Yes, Elena.”
Vittorio Bellandi had just returned from the dead.
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