Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE VIDEO
For the first time since Grace had arrived, Matteo Moretti looked lost.
He did not collapse, shout, or strike the desk. Men like Matteo had spent entire lives training themselves not to give chaos the satisfaction of visible victory.
He simply stared at the frozen image of Bianca beneath the south gate light.
“Play it again,” he said.
The investigator did.
The footage had no audio.
Marcus opened the gate manually. The unmarked truck entered. Bianca stepped out from behind a stone wall, handed Marcus a folder, and walked beside him toward the south terrace.
The time was 1:18 a.m.
Bianca had told Matteo she was in Boston that week.
Grace watched Matteo absorb that fact.
“What was delivered?” he asked.
“We don’t know,” the investigator said. “The rest of the files are damaged.”
“Recover them.”
“We’re trying.”
Matteo turned to Grace.
“Do not speak about this.”
“I won’t.”
He hesitated.
“Especially not to Dolores.”
That surprised her.
“She’s Marcus’s aunt.”
“She also gave me the key.”
“That is why I don’t want her in danger.”
Grace nodded.
The wedding continued as though nothing had happened.
That was the strangest part.
Dressmakers arrived. Caterers tasted sauces. Musicians rehearsed beneath the terrace. Bianca walked through the estate with perfect posture, discussing candles and seating charts while Matteo met her gaze and said almost nothing.
Grace wondered whether Bianca noticed the distance.
She did.
Three days later, Grace found a diamond bracelet beneath her pillow.
She stared at it for several seconds before touching nothing.
Then she laughed once, without humor.
The trap was so obvious it insulted her.
Five minutes later, Bianca entered the staff corridor with Dolores and two security officers.
“My bracelet is missing,” she said.
Grace stepped aside from her doorway.
“There it is.”
The bracelet glittered on the bed.
Dolores closed her eyes.
Bianca looked almost disappointed that Grace had not panicked.
“How convenient,” Grace said.
One of the guards moved forward.
“Don’t touch it,” Grace warned.
“Excuse me?”
“Check the hallway camera first. Then fingerprint it.”
Bianca’s face changed.
“The staff corridor camera has been out since this morning,” she said.
Grace looked at her.
“I didn’t know that.”
Bianca realized her mistake a fraction too late.
Neither guard spoke.
Dolores’s expression became stone.
Matteo arrived ten minutes later.
He stood in Grace’s doorway while an investigator photographed the bracelet.
“Who reported the camera outage?” he asked.
The guard checked his tablet.
“Security office, sir. At 8:12.”
“Who signed the maintenance request?”
The guard swallowed.
“Marcus Vale.”
Bianca stepped forward.
“This is humiliating. I misplaced a bracelet. Why are we turning it into a criminal inquiry?”
Grace looked at her.
“You didn’t say you misplaced it. You said it was missing.”
Bianca’s composure broke.
Only slightly.
Enough.
Matteo saw it.
“Everyone out,” he said.
Bianca remained.
“Not you,” he told Grace.
The room emptied except for the three of them.
Bianca stared at Matteo.
“You are taking her side.”
“There should not be sides.”
“There are always sides.”
Matteo’s voice cooled.
“Where were you on March fourteenth two years ago?”
Grace saw the blood drain from Bianca’s face.
“What?”
“March fourteenth. 1:18 a.m.”
Bianca looked toward Grace.
That was answer enough.
“What did she show you?”
“Nothing,” Matteo said. “I asked you a question.”
Bianca’s eyes filled with anger, then calculation.
“I met Marcus because I was worried about Luca.”
“Why?”
“He was investigating people who could hurt this family.”
“Who?”
Bianca said nothing.
“Who?”
“You.”
The room went silent.
Matteo did not move.
Bianca stepped closer.
“Luca thought you were hiding money through the foundation. Marcus said Luca was becoming paranoid. I tried to find out what he knew before he embarrassed you publicly.”
Matteo’s face was unreadable.
“So you met Marcus secretly.”
“Yes.”
“At one in the morning.”
“Yes.”
“And lied to me about being in Boston.”
“Yes.”
“Why the truck?”
“I don’t know.”
He stared at her.
Bianca’s voice rose.
“I don’t know, Matteo.”
Grace believed one thing in that moment.
Bianca was lying about something.
But perhaps not everything.
Then shouting erupted in the courtyard.
A crash followed.
Titan barked.
Grace ran first.
Outside, Nero had pinned a man against a catering van—not biting him, merely standing between him and the open rear doors.
The man was one of the wedding vendors.
Except Grace had seen his face before.
In Luca’s memory card footage.
He had been driving the unmarked truck.
The man bolted.
Nero chased.
“Stop him!” a guard yelled.
Grace whistled sharply.
Nero stopped.
Not because he was trained to obey her.
Because he trusted her.
The fleeing man reached the side gate, where Matteo’s outside investigators tackled him.
Inside the catering van, beneath folded tablecloths, they found boxes of cloned keycards, surveillance equipment, and a hard case containing documents with forged Moretti Foundation seals.
Matteo stood in the rain, staring at the contents.
The vendor laughed from the ground.
“You think this stops anything?”
Marcus pushed through the crowd.
“What happened?”
The vendor looked straight at him.
For one second, neither man moved.
Then Titan launched forward.
Grace caught his collar.
The dog strained, barking with a fury she had not seen before.
Marcus stepped back.
Matteo saw everything.
“Take Marcus’s access,” he said.
Marcus’s eyes widened.
“Matteo.”
“Now.”
Two investigators moved toward him.
Marcus looked at Dolores.
“Auntie.”
Dolores’s face crumpled.
Then she straightened.
“Give them your badge.”
Marcus did.
But when the guards reached for his phone, he slammed one man into the van, shoved another aside, and ran.
He knew the estate better than anyone.
He disappeared through the south garden before security could close the grounds.
And as the gates locked behind them, Grace understood something terrifying.
The wedding was in six days.
May you like
The man who knew every camera, tunnel, door, and blind spot on the property was somewhere outside.
Or perhaps he had never truly left.
