Chapter 3 - THE VIDEO IN THE RABBIT
The card contained one video.
Forty-eight seconds.
No sound.
No file name.
Date stamp: four years earlier.
The night Isabella Conti died.
We watched it in Alessandro’s private screening room with an outside attorney, a digital-forensics consultant, Dom, Greta, and me.
Mia slept upstairs with Rosa, a cook I trusted more than anyone else in the house.
Alessandro stood instead of sitting.
Nobody questioned it.
The video began with rain.
A road.
Dashcam footage.
Two cars ahead.
One black sedan.
One silver compact.
The black sedan carried Isabella.
The silver compact—
I leaned forward.
“That’s my mother’s car.”
My voice barely worked.
Greta closed her eyes.
I recognized the dent above the rear wheel.
My mother had kept that car for years.
She told me she sold it after my hospitalization.
On the screen, both cars stopped at a red light.
A dark SUV approached from behind.
Too fast.
It struck the silver car first.
The impact spun it sideways.
Then the SUV accelerated again.
Deliberately.
It hit Isabella’s sedan.
The black car crashed through a barrier.
Video shook.
Headlights.
Metal.
Then stopped.
Forty-eight seconds.
I stared.
“That wasn’t an accident.”
Nobody answered.
Alessandro’s face had become stone.
The forensic consultant paused the last frame.
The SUV’s plate was partially visible.
Dom leaned closer.
“Can enhance?”
“Maybe.”
“Do it.”
The consultant worked.
I looked at Greta.
“Where did this come from?”
She stared at the floor.
“Dashcam.”
“Whose?”
“Your mother’s.”
My chest tightened.
“She had a dashcam?”
“Yes.”
“I never knew.”
“She bought it after someone followed her.”
I stood.
“What are you talking about?”
Alessandro turned.
“Let her finish.”
Greta’s eyes filled.
For the first time, I realized she might not have framed me simply because she hated me.
Fear had been steering her too.
Not excusing.
Explaining.
“My mother knew Isabella?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Greta looked at Alessandro.
“Through the Conti Foundation.”
He frowned.
“My wife’s foundation?”
“Yes.”
Isabella had run literacy programs, women’s shelters, legal-aid grants.
Publicly.
Quietly too, apparently.
My mother had worked as an administrative clerk at a housing nonprofit.
I had never connected them.
“Your mother found irregularities,” Greta said.
“What irregularities?”
“Money moving through charitable housing accounts into private companies.”
Dom’s expression changed.
“Whose companies?”
Greta looked at Alessandro.
“Conti companies.”
Silence.
Alessandro’s jaw tightened.
“My companies?”
“Companies using your name.”
That distinction mattered.
“To do what?” I asked.
Greta hesitated.
Dom said, “Say it.”
“Buy buildings through shell entities. Force tenants out. Resell.”
My stomach turned.
Alessandro’s legitimate real-estate holdings were enormous.
If criminal money had moved through charity accounts—
He said, “I did not authorize that.”
Greta gave a broken laugh.
“I know.”
Everyone stared.
She looked at him.
“Isabella knew too.”
Alessandro’s face changed.
“What?”
“She discovered it six months before she died.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She tried.”
“No.”
Greta swallowed.
“You didn’t listen.”
That sentence hit him.
He stepped back.
I knew nothing about their marriage, but grief moved visibly across his face.
“What did she say?”
“That someone inside the family was using your name and companies.”
“I would remember.”
“She said you were distracted.”
“With what?”
Greta looked at Dom.
Then away.
Dom’s face darkened.
Alessandro followed.
“What?”
Dom answered.
“Four years ago was the Costello war.”
The word war sounded too large inside a screening room.
I knew enough from newspapers to remember violence across several New York crews.
Restaurants burned.
Men disappeared.
Alessandro had survived.
Apparently at a cost.
Greta continued.
“You thought every warning was connected to that.”
He closed his eyes.
I understood.
Isabella had said something.
He had heard something else.
Maybe later became too late.
I looked at the frozen video.
“My mother was helping her?”
“Yes.”
“With evidence?”
“Yes.”
“What happened after the crash?”
Greta looked at me.
“You survived.”
“I know that part now.”
“Your mother survived too.”
My breath stopped.
“What?”
I had been told she had not been in the car.
Then I remembered.
She died two years later.
Of cancer.
So yes, she survived the crash.
Why had she lied?
“Why tell me I fell?”
“Because she was terrified.”
“Of who?”
Greta looked at Alessandro again.
Not him.
His family.
“She believed whoever killed Isabella would finish the job if they knew the dashcam survived.”
“Then why keep it?”
“Insurance.”
“Why hide it in a toy?”
“She didn’t.”
We all stopped.
“What?”
Greta pointed toward the card.
“Your mother gave the original card to Isabella before the crash.”
“Then how—”
“Isabella had it when she died.”
My skin went cold.
Alessandro spoke.
“Who recovered her personal effects?”
Dom answered immediately.
“Family security.”
“Name.”
He hesitated.
“Victor Sanz.”
Alessandro’s face hardened.
Victor.
I knew the name.
Everyone did.
Former head of Conti security.
Retired three years ago.
Now living somewhere in Florida.
At least officially.
Greta continued.
“Victor found the card.”
“How do you know?” Alessandro asked.
“Because he gave it to me.”
Silence.
Dom looked ready to break something.
“When?”
“The morning after the crash.”
“Why you?”
“I was Isabella’s head housekeeper then.”
I stared.
Greta had served Isabella.
Of course.
Thirty years in the mansion.
She had known every generation.
Every secret.
“What did he tell you?”
“To destroy it.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Alessandro’s voice dropped.
“Why?”
Greta looked at him.
“Because Isabella was kind to me.”
The answer cracked something in the room.
Not loyalty to a boss.
Loyalty to a dead woman.
“I copied it,” Greta said. “Then I hid the original.”
“In Bunny?”
“No.”
“Then how did it get there?”
She looked at me.
“I gave it to your mother.”
My breath stopped.
“When?”
“Three months after the crash.”
“My mother knew you?”
“We met twice.”
“Why?”
“Because she wanted proof before disappearing.”
“She never disappeared.”
“She did from them.”
“Them.”
Always them.
“Who are they?”
Greta’s face tightened.
“I don’t know all the names.”
“Then one.”
She looked at Alessandro.
“Your uncle.”
Alessandro went completely still.
“Raffaele?”
“Yes.”
Dom swore.
I had heard the name.
Raffaele Conti.
Alessandro’s father’s younger brother.
Publicly retired.
Lived between Naples and New York.
Rarely seen.
Old-school.
Feared.
And, according to staff, the one man Alessandro never allowed to make decisions inside the mansion.
Alessandro looked at Greta.
“Why would Raffaele kill Isabella?”
“Because she found his money.”
Dom asked, “Proof?”
Greta pointed toward the card.
“Not enough.”
“What else?”
“Your wife kept files.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who does?”
Greta looked at me.
“Nora’s mother did.”
My head started pounding.
My mother had died without telling me.
Or maybe she had tried.
The rabbit.
Bunny.
I remembered buying it.
A thrift shop near our old apartment.
Except now memory shifted.
My mother had been with me.
Mia was still an infant.
I had reached for a different toy.
My mother had insisted on the rabbit.
“This one,” she had said.
I had laughed at how ugly it was.
One ear already bent.
She bought it.
Not me.
My eyes filled.
“She put the card in Bunny.”
Greta nodded.
“Probably.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody searches a child’s toy unless they know.”
My stomach turned.
Mia had carried that rabbit everywhere.
Daycare.
Parks.
The mansion.
We had carried evidence inside the Conti house for eight months.
Greta had known?
I looked at her.
“When did you recognize it?”
Her face changed.
“Three weeks ago.”
“How?”
“Mia left it in the laundry room.”
“And you remembered.”
“Yes.”
“So you framed me.”
She looked down.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To get you out.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“You drugged me, planted a stolen clock, threatened my daughter, and tried to have me fired to protect me?”
“It sounds bad when you say it like that.”
Dom stared.
“It is bad.”
Greta’s eyes filled.
“I panicked.”
I stepped closer.
“You told my child she would go to a bad house.”
“I know.”
“You made her think police would take me.”
“I know.”
“You could have told me the truth.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother made me promise.”
“My mother is dead.”
“I know.”
“Then the promise ended.”
Greta looked at Mia’s empty chair in her mind.
“No. She made me promise you would never be dragged into Conti business.”
I turned toward Alessandro.
He flinched slightly.
Greta continued.
“When you were hired here, I knew something had gone wrong. Someone had put your name on Isabella’s trust list. I thought maybe Elena did it to keep you visible. I didn’t know.”
“Why not ask?”
“Because asking gets people killed.”
Alessandro’s expression hardened.
“Not in my house.”
Greta looked at him.
“Your wife died outside it.”
He said nothing.
The forensic consultant interrupted.
“I have the plate.”
Everyone turned.
He enlarged the frame.
Partial registration.
Dom recognized it.
“So do I,” Alessandro said.
“What?” I asked.
He stared at the screen.
“That SUV belonged to Conti Security.”
My mouth went dry.
“Your security hit both cars?”
“Someone using one of our vehicles.”
Greta whispered, “Victor.”
Dom said, “He ran fleet.”
Alessandro’s voice became cold.
“Where is he now?”
Dom checked his phone.
“His Florida residence was sold two years ago.”
“Family?”
“No known.”
“Accounts?”
“Checking.”
The attorney cleared her throat.
“This needs law enforcement.”
Alessandro nodded.
Greta looked shocked.
“You’re calling police?”
“Yes.”
“Raffaele has people everywhere.”
“Then we document everything before anyone can bury it.”
He looked at me.
“I won’t ask you to trust me.”
Good.
Because I didn’t.
“But I am asking permission to turn this over.”
The fact he asked mattered.
It would have been easy for a man like him to decide.
I looked at the video.
My mother’s car.
Isabella’s.
The crash.
“Mia first.”
“What?”
“She gets protection that does not depend only on your people.”
Alessandro nodded.
“Agreed.”
“Independent attorney for me.”
“Agreed.”
“I choose.”
“Yes.”
“No moving us without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“No secrets about evidence that affects us.”
He hesitated.
I stared.
He nodded.
“Yes.”
Greta laughed softly.
“What?”
She looked at him.
“Isabella used to make you agree to rules too.”
Pain crossed his face.
Then the door opened.
Rosa appeared.
“Sir?”
“What?”
“Mia is awake.”
I stood.
Rosa looked nervous.
“She says someone was in her room.”
My blood froze.
Alessandro was already moving.
We ran upstairs.
Mia sat on the bed holding Bunny without one ear.
Window locked.
Door had been guarded.
No one should have entered.
I grabbed her.
“Who?”
She pointed toward the closet.
Dom opened it.
Empty.
Then Mia whispered, “Old lady.”
Alessandro went still.
“What old lady?”
Mia looked at him.
“She said she’s your mommy.”
Nobody breathed.
Elena Conti.
In New York.
Inside the mansion.
Without anyone announcing her arrival.
Mia held out something the woman had left.
A black rosary.
Alessandro took one look.
His face changed.
“My mother is here.”
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A woman’s voice spoke.
Even from where I stood, I heard her clearly.
“Alessandro, if you want the maid and her child to live, stop digging into your wife’s death.”
May you like
The call ended.
And suddenly Greta was no longer the most frightening woman in the Conti family.
