Chapter 5: The Red Ledger
Luca sent two security staff upstairs with Celia.
Vanessa remained beside the table, watching the doorway.
“You’re making a terrible mistake,” she told Luca.
“The mistake was signing papers without reading them.”
“You wanted a wife who could manage your social life.”
“I wanted a partner.
Not someone who used my name as a bank.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Careful, Moretti.
That accusation could cost you.”
Rosa folded her arms.
“So could bribing a witness.”
“I offered you a settlement.”
“You put cash on my van.”
The dining-room doors opened again.
Celia returned between the security staff, but her hands were empty.
“The drawer was open,” she said.
Vanessa smiled.
“There was no ledger because she invented it.”
Celia’s face fell.
“I locked that drawer myself.”
Daniel tapped his briefcase.
“Then perhaps this performance is over.”
One of Luca’s staff approached him.
“The study window was open.
We found burned paper in the fireplace.”
Vanessa looked at Luca.
“Old receipts.
Nothing more.”
Celia grabbed the back of a chair.
“You destroyed it.”
“You are confused, Aunt Celia.
You’ve been confused for years.”
Celia’s chin trembled.
I moved beside her.
“She knew exactly where the drawer was.”
Vanessa pointed at me.
“And the woman with Daniel’s money in her account is suddenly an expert on my family.”
The front doors opened downstairs.
Footsteps crossed the hall, and a gray-haired man entered carrying a laptop.
Luca nodded to him.
“Thomas, examine everything.”
Thomas Greer set the laptop on the table.
“I’m Luca’s attorney.
No one touches the documents or phones.”
Daniel laughed.
“You should begin with your client.”
Thomas opened an email on the screen.
It showed Luca authorizing Bellini Event Holdings to manage all mansion events for the next year.
Luca read it.
“I never sent this.”
“The message came from your account,” Thomas said.
Vanessa’s confidence returned.
“So now I forged his email too?”
Thomas clicked another file.
“There are twelve approvals, all sent using Luca’s credentials.”
Daniel looked at the guests.
“You have your answer.
Luca approved the company, Marco mishandled the guest count, and Emma accepted payment.”
For the first time, Luca had nothing to say.
Vanessa slipped off her engagement ring and placed it beside his plate.
“You humiliated me because a frightened employee told you a story.”
“You threatened her father in front of thirty-two witnesses,” Luca said.
“I explained the consequences of making false accusations.”
Thomas closed the laptop halfway.
“Until I verify the server records, Marco and Emma must be removed from financial access.”
Vanessa smiled at me.
“You heard him.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Emma has no financial access.”
“She has access to this house.
Your office.
Your passwords.”
“I have never entered his private office,” I said.
Daniel produced a photograph.
It showed me standing outside Luca’s office two nights earlier with my hand on the door.
“That isn’t what this suggests.”
“I was cleaning the corridor.”
Vanessa picked up her ring.
“Search her locker.”
Luca stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because if she is innocent, you’ll find nothing.”
Security opened my staff locker while we watched through a video call.
A black flash drive lay beneath my folded sweater.
“I’ve never seen that,” I whispered.
Thomas connected it to an isolated laptop.
A folder appeared containing copies of Luca’s contracts and passwords.
Vanessa slid the ring back onto her finger.
“Call the authorities.”
Then Thomas opened the final file.
May you like
Its title contained only two words:
EMMA REED.
