Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN IN THE RED DRESS
The security chief’s voice crackled through Luca’s phone.
“Boss, the woman inside the transport is refusing to let us see her
face.”
Luca Moretti stood in the empty sewing room, staring at the blanket on
the floor. The wheelchair was gone. So was his mother. The room smelled
faintly of lavender and lemon polish.
“Keep the gates closed,” Luca ordered. “Nobody leaves this property.
Nobody touches that vehicle until I get there.”
He ended the call and turned to me.
“Sophie, stay behind me.”
I shook my head. “If that’s Mrs. Moretti, she needs help.”
“I know.”
He moved quickly down the corridor. I followed, trying not to let him
see how much my arm hurt. The bandage was damp again, and the scrape
across my back burned every time I breathed.
At the top of the staircase, the party continued below us. A string
quartet played something cheerful. Guests laughed beneath the
chandeliers. Vanessa’s voice floated above the music, bright and
polished, welcoming people into a celebration that had become a crime
scene.
Luca stopped halfway down.
“Don’t look at her,” he said quietly.
But I did.
Vanessa stood beside the champagne tower in her red evening gown, one
hand resting on the arm of a guest. She looked up and saw Luca. Her
smile widened.
“Darling! There you are. Your mother is being taken care of. The medical
team is waiting outside.”
Luca continued toward the entrance.
“Which medical team?”
“The one I arranged.”
“Name the company.”
Vanessa blinked. “What?”
“The transport company. Name it.”
She laughed softly, as if he were teasing her. “Luca, not now. We have
guests.”
He stopped in front of her. “You said my mother was upstairs resting.
Then a transport arrived under your authority. The security chief says
there’s a passenger inside who refuses to show her face. Why?”
Vanessa’s smile faltered.
“You’re frightening everyone.”
“Good. Maybe they’ll start paying attention.”
One of the guests shifted awkwardly. A man near the fireplace lowered
his glass. The music continued, but the room had begun to notice that
the engagement party was no longer an ordinary celebration.
Vanessa reached for Luca’s sleeve.
“Can we speak privately?”
“No.”
Her fingers fell away.
I stood a few steps behind him. I wanted to tell him everything at once:
how the two men had arrived that afternoon, how they had pushed
Mrs. Moretti’s wheelchair toward the service elevator, how one of them
had grabbed my injured arm when I tried to stop them. But my mouth had
gone dry.
Luca glanced back at me.
“Tell them what you told me.”
Vanessa’s eyes snapped toward me.
“Sophie is confused. She’s been overworked.”
I forced myself to speak.
“You said Mrs. Moretti was going to a rehabilitation center. She told
you she didn’t want to leave. You told the men to take her anyway.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“Be careful.”
Luca stepped between us.
“Don’t speak to her.”
For a moment, Vanessa looked as if she might slap me. Then she lowered
her chin and returned to her public smile.
“Darling, your mother has been ill for months. She needs professional
care. I was only trying to help.”
“Then why did you hide it from me?”
“Because you never listen when it comes to her.”
The words struck harder than she intended. Luca’s expression changed. I
knew the story of his mother only in pieces. After his father died,
Mrs. Moretti had suffered a stroke. Her speech returned slowly, but her
right side remained weak. Luca had hired therapists and nurses, but she
had refused to move from the mansion. She wanted her own room, her own
garden, and the familiar sound of the kitchen staff in the morning.
Vanessa had called that stubbornness.
Luca called it home.
“Open the front doors,” he ordered.
Marco, his security chief, appeared from the corridor.
“Already done, boss. The transport is still outside.”
“Bring the driver in. Separate him from the passenger. No one speaks to
my mother until I do.”
Marco nodded and left.
Vanessa watched him go. Then she turned toward me.
“You have no idea what you’ve done.”
I looked at the floor.
“I know what I saw.”
Luca heard me. His shoulders squared.
“That’s enough, Vanessa.”
He turned and walked toward the entrance. I followed. Vanessa remained
beneath the chandelier, surrounded by guests who were suddenly very
interested in their champagne glasses.
Outside, the black medical van idled beneath the stone archway. Two
guards stood on either side. The driver wore a white polo shirt and a
medical identification badge. He looked more irritated than concerned.
“Who authorized this transport?” Luca asked.
The driver held up a clipboard. “Ms. Bellini. We were told the patient
had consented.”
“Where is the consent form?”
The driver handed it over.
Luca read the page. His mother’s name was printed at the top. At the
bottom was a signature that looked like a shaky version of her
handwriting.
He looked at me.
“Did she sign this?”
“No, sir.”
The driver frowned. “We were given the paperwork.”
“By whom?”
“Ms. Bellini’s assistant. A man called Peter.”
Luca handed the form to Marco.
“Photograph it. Preserve the original. Nobody leaves.”
Then he approached the side door of the van.
“Mother?”
A faint movement came from inside.
“Luca?”
He closed his eyes for one second.
“I’m here.”
The doors opened.
Mrs. Moretti sat in the back, wrapped in a cream blanket. Her silver
hair was disheveled. A small bruise darkened the skin above her wrist.
She was frightened, but her eyes were clear.
Luca climbed inside and took her hand.
“Who did this?”
She looked past him, toward the mansion.
“The woman in red.”
Luca looked up.
Then his mother whispered something that made his face go completely
still.
“She isn’t who she says she is.”
While Luca spoke to the driver, I stayed beside the open van. I could
see the faint outline of a seat belt across Mrs. Moretti’s blanket and a
paper cup wedged near the wheel. The driver kept insisting he had
followed procedure. He said he had been hired for a routine medical
transfer and had no reason to question the paperwork.
I asked whether he had spoken to Mrs. Moretti before leaving the
mansion.
He looked uncomfortable. “She said she didn’t want to go.”
“Then why did you take her?”
“She was told to be confused. The woman who booked the job said the
patient sometimes resisted treatment.”
That answer made my stomach turn. Vanessa had not only forged a
signature. She had prepared an explanation for the exact moment
Mrs. Moretti tried to refuse.
Luca heard him.
“Who told you to describe my mother as confused?”
The driver looked at the clipboard.
“Peter Walsh.”
Marco took the driver’s phone and asked him to identify the number that
had contacted him. The driver cooperated, perhaps realizing that the
story he had been given was not going to protect him.
Luca climbed back into the van and wrapped his mother’s blanket around
her shoulders. He spoke softly, asking whether she could feel her
fingers and whether she was dizzy. His voice was completely different
from the one he used in the ballroom. It was gentle and patient.
Mrs. Moretti touched his cheek.
“You look just like your father when you’re worried.”
“I don’t want to look like him tonight.”
She gave a tired smile. “Then choose what you do next.”
I watched him absorb that sentence. It was the first time I understood
that his anger was not only about the attempted removal. It was also
about the possibility that his family had repeated an old injustice
without his knowledge.
When the nurse arrived, she asked me to describe how Mrs. Moretti had
been positioned in the van and whether I had noticed any unusual smell
or medication. I told her everything I remembered. She wrote it down
without interrupting.
The driver was taken to the security office. Marco arranged for the
vehicle to be photographed and examined. The front gates remained
closed, but the guests were eventually allowed to leave after giving
their names to the police.
The party ended without music, speeches, or a toast.
I stood in the foyer with my injured arm held against my body. The
wheelchair lay on its side near the rug. Its polished handle had a small
scratch where it had struck the marble.
I had been ordered to remove it because Vanessa didn’t want Luca to see
it.
Now it was the first thing he asked the police to preserve.
Before the ambulance doors closed, Mrs. Moretti asked the nurse to let
her keep the small photograph she carried in her cardigan. It showed
Luca as a child, sitting on the floor beside the old sewing machine. She
pressed it against her chest as if it were a promise that the house
still belonged to the people who loved one another there.
Luca watched her leave and then turned to me.
“Did Vanessa ever ask you to move anything from my mother’s room?”
“Only the medicine tray and a small locked case.”
“What case?”
“A leather case with papers. She said it was for the attorney.”
He exchanged a look with Marco.
“Where is it?”
“I saw it in the library yesterday.”
Marco immediately went to check. He returned with the case, still
locked, and Luca asked the attorney to preserve it. Inside were copies
of medical forms, draft trust documents, and a list of appointments that
had been scheduled without Mrs. Moretti’s knowledge.
The list made the plan look even more deliberate. Vanessa had arranged a
medical assessment, a private transport, and a meeting with a trustee.
She had tried to create a paper trail that would make the removal appear
lawful.
Luca closed the case.
“Tomorrow we find out who signed these forms.”
He looked at the empty wheelchair.
May you like
“And tonight we make sure my mother is never moved without her consent
again.”
