Chapter 2 - THE PAPERS FOR SATURDAY
Luca did not ask me to repeat the story. He asked Daniel to write it down, including the time I heard the voice, the exact words Vanessa had used, and the location of the mirror before she moved it. Daniel took notes with the steady focus of a man who understood that details could become evidence.
I sat in the leather chair nearest the door, trying not to shift my weight. Dr. Harris had given me instructions about resting my back, but I could feel the ache pulsing beneath the ice pack. Luca noticed me wince and pushed a glass of water across the desk.
“Drink.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You don't need to call me sir every time you speak.”
I looked up, surprised.
“I'm your employee.”
“That doesn't make you a witness who needs to be frightened into silence.”
I didn't know what to say to that. Luca leaned back and asked whether I had touched the device. I told him I had only touched the mirror's frame when Vanessa shoved it. He asked if I could identify the voice. I couldn't. It had sounded male, low, and slightly distorted by the connection.
“Did he mention my name?”
“No, sir. Not while I was there.”
“Did Vanessa call him by name?”
“No.”
Daniel placed his notebook on the desk. “We'll need to preserve the device before anyone attempts to access it. I'll have our technical team make a forensic copy. No one should switch it on or off until they document it.”
Luca nodded. “And the server?”
“We're tracing it. The connection routes through a commercial hosting company, then through two private accounts. It may take a while to identify the person who paid for it.”
“Make it take as little time as possible.”
Daniel left to arrange the examination. Luca looked at me again.
“Claire, I want you to understand something. If Vanessa threatened you, she was wrong to do it. If you tell the truth about what happened, you won't be punished for it.”
I tried to believe him. “What if she says I made it up?”
“Then we'll examine the evidence.”
“And if she gets angry?”
His jaw tightened. “She already has.”
He called Mrs. Carter and told her to arrange paid medical leave for me until Dr. Harris cleared me to return. I protested because I had already missed a shift the previous month when my mother needed help after an appointment. Luca interrupted before I could explain the bills waiting at home.
“Your wages will continue. That isn't negotiable.”
He said it without kindness or cruelty, as though paying an injured employee was simply the correct thing to do. Somehow, that made my eyes sting more than a grand gesture would have.
Before I left, he asked me to write down everything I remembered about the mirror's delivery. I recalled a tall man in a gray coat bringing it through the side entrance. He had carried a clipboard, and the delivery slip had been signed by someone named Bellini. I couldn't remember the first name.
“Did you see the vehicle?” Daniel asked from the doorway.
“A black van. No company name on the side.”
Daniel wrote it down.
Luca's expression had become distant, his attention fixed on a point beyond the desk. “The mirror arrived Thursday,” he said. “That was the day I met with Adrian Cole.”
His attorney.
I remembered the name because Adrian came to the house every few weeks, always carrying a leather briefcase and always asking the staff to leave the study before he sat down with Luca. That Thursday, the meeting had lasted almost three hours.
“What did you discuss?” Daniel asked.
“An amendment to the Moretti family trust. I intended to sign it Saturday morning, before the engagement photographs.”
“Does Vanessa know?”
“She knows a document exists. She doesn't know its final terms.”
He looked at the recorder again. “Or she knows more than she should.”
I had no idea what a family trust could contain, but I understood the meaning of a private conversation being stolen. Someone had listened to Luca's attorney, learned what he intended to sign, and installed a device where it could capture more information. Whatever the purpose, it was deliberate.
Luca told Daniel to contact Adrian and postpone the signing without revealing why. He also ordered the security team to inspect every room Vanessa had access to, but to do it discreetly. He did not want her to know they had found the recorder until they understood who was receiving the audio.
“Should we confront her?” Daniel asked.
“Not yet.”
“Boss, if she's involved—”
“If she's involved, I want to know how far it goes before she realizes we're looking.”
Daniel nodded. Then he glanced at me. “I'll arrange a car to take Claire home.”
Luca agreed. I started to rise, but the pain in my back forced me to stop halfway. He was on his feet immediately, though he didn't reach for me without asking.
“May I help?”
I nodded. He offered his arm and waited until I was steady. The small courtesy unsettled me. I had expected a man like Luca to treat people as pieces on a board. He could be intimidating, but he seemed to understand the difference between authority and permission.
As Daniel escorted me toward the service entrance, I heard Vanessa's voice from the adjoining hallway.
“Where is she going?”
She stood at the far end in her red gown, holding a phone. Her eyes moved from my ice pack to Daniel, then to the study door.
“Claire is on medical leave,” Daniel said.
Vanessa smiled. “How unfortunate. I hope she understands that we can't keep paying people who aren't able to work.”
“Mr. Moretti has approved her wages.”
The smile remained, but her eyes sharpened. “How generous.”
She looked at me. “You should be careful, Claire. Accidents can become expensive when people tell different stories about them.”
Daniel stepped between us. “That's enough, Miss Bellini.”
For the first time, Vanessa's face revealed something besides contempt. She looked at Daniel as though she had forgotten that he could refuse her.
I left the mansion with my back aching and my thoughts racing. The car carried me through Chicago's wet streets while I stared at the lights moving across the windows. I wondered whether I had made a terrible mistake by speaking. Then I remembered the little green light behind the mirror and the way Vanessa's voice had changed when she believed she was alone.
At home, my mother was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. She took one look at me and set the cup down.
“Claire, what happened?”
“I strained my back at work.”
“That's not all.”
I lowered myself into a chair and told her about the mirror. I left out the details of Luca's private life, but I told her about the device, the recordings, and the threat. My mother listened with both hands wrapped around her cup.
“People who threaten you often hope you won't notice how frightened they are,” she said.
“I noticed. That almost makes it worse.”
She reached across the table and squeezed my fingers. “Then let the truth do the work. You don't have to fight her by yourself.”
I slept badly. Every time the building creaked, I imagined someone standing outside the apartment. At 2:13 a.m., an unknown number sent me a message: You should have kept your eyes on the dust.
I read it three times before showing my mother. She called the number, but it went straight to a recorded message. I took a screenshot and sent it to Daniel, who replied within minutes that the security team would preserve it and that I should not answer.
The next morning, Luca met with Adrian Cole in a private office downtown. Daniel later told me what happened because Luca wanted my account to remain connected to the investigation. Adrian arrived carrying the same briefcase he had brought to the mansion on Thursday. When Luca explained the recorder, Adrian's face tightened.
“The amendment was designed to protect the company if you were incapacitated or coerced into signing something,” Adrian said. “It would require a second independent review before control of certain assets could be transferred.”
“Why would someone want that conversation?” Luca asked.
“Because if they knew the terms in advance, they could prepare a document that looked like the opposite. Or they could pressure you to sign something before the amendment took effect.”
Luca asked him to explain the papers Vanessa had mentioned. Adrian opened his briefcase and removed a draft agreement prepared by the Bellini family's legal office. It was labeled a marital property and management agreement. On the surface, it looked ordinary: shared property schedules, confidentiality terms, and provisions for the businesses they would manage together after marriage.
But one paragraph gave Vanessa temporary authority over a group of companies if Luca was unavailable for more than seventy-two hours. Another allowed her to appoint an interim manager without the board's approval. A third gave that manager access to internal financial records and security contracts.
“Who drafted this?” Luca asked.
“An attorney who represents Richard Bellini's investment company.”
Luca stared at the document. “Vanessa told me it was a standard prenup.”
“It is not a standard prenup.”
The two men sat in silence. The amendment Luca had planned to sign Saturday would have added safeguards against exactly this kind of transfer. The Bellini agreement would weaken those safeguards. If Luca signed the wrong document first, Vanessa could claim he had voluntarily granted her authority over part of his business empire.
“Did you send me a copy of this?” Luca asked.
“No. I received it yesterday afternoon and refused to approve it. I was going to call you this morning.”
“Then someone was listening before the draft was even delivered.”
Adrian's expression darkened. “Or someone knew the meeting was happening and wanted to learn what you intended to sign.”
Luca called Daniel and told him to investigate the Bellini family's legal office, the delivery company, and every person who had entered the study since Thursday. He also asked for a full list of people who knew about Saturday's signing.
By noon, Daniel had identified the hosting account that received the recorder's uploads. It was registered through a consulting company with no public website, but its payment card belonged to a firm called Northline Strategic. The firm's listed director was Paul Rainer, a private security consultant who had worked for Richard Bellini on several corporate acquisitions.
The connection wasn't proof that Vanessa had ordered the recording. It was enough to make the suspicion difficult to ignore.
That afternoon, Luca called me. He asked whether I would be willing to speak with Adrian and Daniel again, this time in a formal recorded interview. I said yes. He assured me that I could have my own attorney present and that no one would ask me to return to the mansion until I felt safe.
Before ending the call, he said, “I'm sorry you were hurt because you noticed something that shouldn't have been there.”
I looked toward the kitchen, where my mother was making soup, and thought about how strange it was to hear an apology from the man everyone in Chicago seemed afraid to challenge.
“Just find out what they're trying to do, Mr. Moretti,” I said.
May you like
“I intend to.”
And as the call ended, I understood that Saturday was no longer simply the date of an engagement celebration. It was a deadline someone had been preparing for in secret.
