Chapter 5
On Tuesday night, Bianca left a thin folder beneath the chair in my office. Inside were questions she had never asked me aloud — which trustees supported Dante, where legacy documents were stored during family events, whether the private study remained locked when guests were in the garden, who controlled security after midnight.
Beneath the questions was a photograph of Bianca standing outside a hospital beside her mother and a man I recognized from the security briefing Dante had allowed me to read. Marco Belandi. A rival with shipping interests, old resentments, and enough patience to make hatred profitable.
Bianca’s mother was listed in my files as Elena Russo. But the photograph had been labeled Elena Belandi.
I searched my mother’s handwritten records until midnight. Twenty-seven years earlier, Elena Belandi had come to Marchetti Matches under the name Elena Russo. She had not been looking for a husband. She had been looking for a way out. Across the final page, my mother had written in red ink: Do not disclose address to brother Marco. He believes family loyalty includes ownership.
At 11:40, Bianca knocked on the office door. She entered pale, shaking, and already aware of what I had found. Her confession came in pieces.
Marco was her uncle. He had located Elena in a hospital six months earlier. He paid two bills, then used the debt to pull them back into his control. When Elena tried to disappear again, Marco took her. Bianca showed me a photograph — her mother sitting in an unfamiliar room, frightened but alive.
Marco had forced Bianca to enter my agency, become a candidate, and reach Dante’s private study during Valyria’s birthday. She was expected to leave a listening device beneath his desk.
“I gave him nothing important,” Bianca said. “Wrong schedules. Public information. Old meeting rooms. Enough to make him believe I obeyed.”
“We tell Dante tonight.”
Terror transformed her face. “No. If Dante moves, Marco knows I spoke.”
“Dante has resources.”
“Dante has enemies watching those resources. My mother dies before his men find the door.”
I believed Dante could protect people. I also knew his first instinct was action, and action created movement.
“Give me until morning. Do not contact Marco unless he calls. Do not change your routine.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because my mother helped yours.”
Bianca looked at me for a long time. Then she whispered, “You love him.”
“We are discussing your mother.”
“You do. I see your face when he enters.”
“That changes nothing.”
“It changes what this will cost you.”
She left through the rear stairway. I copied the folder, locked the original and the listening device inside my mother’s cabinet, and wrote Dante a message requesting an urgent meeting on Monday morning. I did not explain why.
On Sunday night, I remained at the office after ten, reviewing every possible way to warn Dante without exposing Elena. When I finally turned off the lights and entered the stairwell, two men were waiting near the service door.
One was gray-haired with an ordinary face. The other wore gloves despite the warm evening.
The younger man took my phone before I could reach the elevator. His fingers closed around the same wrist that had only recently healed.
“Bianca remains in the process,” the older man said. “You destroy whatever she gave you. You tell Varlli nothing.”
“Where is Elena?”
“Comfortable.”
“Release her.”
“After the birthday.”
The younger man twisted my arm behind me. Pain shot through my shoulder.
“You will attend the dinner,” the older man continued. “You will smile while Varlli chooses. If you interfere, your mother’s agency burns. Rosa leaves through a parking garage with no cameras. And Elena stops receiving medication.”
Anger cut through fear. “If you believe Dante would choose Bianca, you would not need to frighten the woman choosing for him.”
The older man’s face did not change. “You are not choosing for him anymore. You are choosing for yourself. Keep her quiet, or lose everything.”
They left through the service door. I stood in the dark stairwell with my phone gone, my wrist throbbing, and the weight of three lives pressing against my ribs.
I walked home. I did not call Dante. I did not sleep.
In the morning, I put on concealer. I buttoned my cuffs. I prepared a report on Serena’s compatibility and Bianca’s suitability, and I wrote nothing about the folder, the photograph, or the men in the stairwell.
Dante arrived at eleven. He sat across from me. He looked at my face for a long moment, and I knew he saw something. But he did not ask. He only waited.
“I need to see the security arrangements for the birthday dinner,” I said. “The full layout. Staff movements. Entry points.”
“Why?”
“Because I am your matchmaker. And I will not let anything go wrong on the night your mother finally sees you choose someone.”
He studied me. “You are lying about something.”
“About many things. That is not relevant to your case.”
“You are relevant to my case, Lena. You have been from the first night I walked into this office.”
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I did not answer. I could not. Because if I opened my mouth, I would tell him everything — the folder, the men, the threats, the photograph of Elena in a locked room — and he would act. Marco would know. Bianca’s mother would die.
And I would have lost the only thing I had left to give: the chance to save her quietly.
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