Chapter 4 - THE ENGAGEMENT THAT BECAME A TRAP
Luca did not cancel the party immediately.
That surprised me.
After hearing the recording, I expected him to storm downstairs and
confront Vanessa in front of every guest. Instead, he asked Marco to
keep the ballroom open, collect every printed program, and make sure the
guests did not leave until the police had been called.
“Why are we keeping them here?” I asked.
“Because Vanessa believes the evening is still under her control.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“It would be more dangerous to let her know how much we have found.”
He looked at the recorder.
“She thinks my mother is on the way to a facility. She thinks the papers
are still in her hands. She doesn’t know we have the letter or the
recording.”
I understood. He wanted to see what she would do next.
Mrs. Moretti was taken to the hospital under the protection of two
trusted guards. The doctor confirmed that she had been given an
inappropriate sedative, though the exact substance would require
laboratory testing. Her wrist was bruised, and she was dehydrated.
Thankfully, she had no life-threatening injuries.
Before she left, she asked Luca to find the original ledger.
“Your father hid it somewhere only I would think to look,” she said.
“Where?”
“In the room where I used to sew.”
Luca looked toward the old sewing room.
“We searched it.”
“Not the room. The machine.”
I remembered the heavy black sewing machine that sat under a dust cover.
Mrs. Moretti had not used it in years. It had belonged to Luca’s
grandmother.
When we returned to the mansion, Marco had secured the machine. Luca
removed the cover and examined the wooden cabinet beneath it. There was
a small brass latch hidden behind a drawer.
Inside was a narrow metal box.
The original ledger was wrapped in oilcloth.
Luca opened it carefully. Page after page listed payments, account
numbers, and names. Carlo Rinaldi’s signature appeared on some entries,
but the handwriting on the transfer approvals was different.
Peter Walsh’s name appeared repeatedly.
So did the name of a company called Northbridge Holdings.
“Who owns it?” I asked.
“Not clear yet,” Luca said.
He turned another page and found a handwritten note from his father.
“If Peter returns, assume he has help from inside the family.”
Luca looked toward the ballroom.
“Vanessa.”
“And perhaps someone else,” I said.
He nodded.
A knock sounded at the door. Marco entered.
“Boss, Vanessa has asked to speak with you. She says the guests are
becoming restless.”
“Tell her I’ll join them.”
Marco hesitated. “She also asked for Sophie.”
My stomach tightened.
Luca looked at me.
“Did she say why?”
“No. She said the housemaid needs to apologize for disrupting the
event.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“Tell her Sophie will not be speaking to her.”
I could have stayed upstairs. But I wanted to understand what Vanessa
had planned. I also wanted to stop being the frightened girl who looked
at the floor whenever she entered a room.
“I want to go down,” I said.
Luca studied me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then stay beside Marco. If anything feels wrong, leave immediately.”
We entered the ballroom together.
The guests stood in small groups beneath the chandeliers. The champagne
tower had been removed. Vanessa stood near the stage, still wearing her
red gown. Her expression brightened when she saw Luca.
“Darling. Finally.”
He walked toward her.
“Where is the announcement?”
She smiled.
“Right here.”
She gestured toward the stage. A large screen displayed the Moretti
family foundation logo.
“I was going to tell everyone that you had agreed to let me oversee the
foundation’s new housing initiative.”
“I never agreed to that.”
Her smile tightened.
“You said we would discuss it.”
“We did. I said no.”
A murmur moved through the room.
Vanessa stepped closer and lowered her voice.
“Don’t embarrass me.”
“You tried to remove my mother from her home without my consent.”
Her face changed.
“Your mother needs care.”
“She needs a doctor. Not a forged transport order.”
Vanessa looked around at the guests.
“Luca, you’re upset. We can talk privately.”
“No. You wanted an audience. You can have one.”
He turned to the room.
“This engagement is over.”
The words landed like a dropped glass.
Vanessa stared at him.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
She laughed, but the sound was thin.
“Because of a housemaid’s story?”
Luca nodded toward me.
“Because of evidence. The forged consent form. The recording. The
financial documents. And the fact that you tried to have my mother taken
from this house.”
Vanessa’s eyes found mine.
“You little fool.”
Marco stepped between us.
She looked back at Luca.
“You have no idea what you’re throwing away.”
“I know exactly what I’m ending.”
For a moment, her expression became something I had never seen before.
Not anger. Not fear.
Recognition.
She knew the game was over.
Then she smiled.
“Not yet.”
She reached into her clutch.
Marco moved immediately, but she only removed a phone.
She pressed the screen and turned it toward Luca.
A live video appeared. Mrs. Moretti was visible in a hospital corridor,
sitting in a wheelchair beside a nurse. A man stood behind them.
Peter Walsh.
Luca’s face went white.
Vanessa whispered, “You should have checked who was following your
mother.”
The guests were not the only people waiting for Luca’s announcement.
Several had invested in the family foundation’s housing program, and
they had been told that Vanessa would become its public director after
the engagement. A few were older donors who had known Luca’s father.
They looked confused when the screen displayed the foundation logo.
Luca asked the events manager to switch it off.
Then he explained, without revealing every detail of the investigation,
that the announcement had never been approved and that the engagement
was ending. He apologized to the guests for inviting them into an event
built around false information.
A woman near the front asked whether the foundation itself was in
trouble.
“No,” Luca said. “The foundation will continue under independent
oversight. No one here is being asked to withdraw a donation. We will
provide a written update once the accounts have been reviewed.”
That answer calmed some of the room, but Vanessa looked furious.
“You’re making me sound like a criminal,” she said.
“I am describing what happened.”
“You’re letting a servant tell you what to believe.”
I felt every eye turn toward me.
Luca did not raise his voice.
“Sophie is a witness. Her job title does not make her observations less
valid.”
Vanessa laughed sharply.
“You have no idea what she wants. Maybe she wants your attention. Maybe
she wants my place.”
I felt my cheeks burn. I had never wanted anything from Luca except that
he listen to the truth.
Before I could answer, Mrs. Moretti’s nurse stepped into the ballroom.
She had returned briefly to collect the medicine bag and tell Luca the
doctor had ordered further tests. She heard Vanessa’s accusation.
“She stayed with your mother when you were not here,” the nurse said.
“She helped us identify the medication packaging and gave a clear
account of the injuries. That is not attention-seeking. That is
responsible.”
Vanessa’s eyes flashed.
“Stay out of this.”
The nurse did not move.
Luca asked the guests to leave in an orderly way. He arranged cars for
anyone who had traveled from out of town and told the staff they would
be paid for the evening regardless of the canceled event.
As people filed out, one of the older donors approached him.
“Your father would have wanted this handled quietly,” the man said.
Luca looked at him.
“My father handled it quietly once. A man died because of that silence.”
The donor lowered his eyes and left.
I understood then that Luca was not simply ending an engagement. He was
refusing to inherit the same silence that had protected the family
before him.
Vanessa waited until the room was almost empty.
“You will regret humiliating me,” she said.
Luca answered, “I regret not asking who you were before I trusted you.”
For a moment, she looked genuinely wounded.
Then the mask returned.
She reached for her phone, and the live video appeared.
As the first guests began to leave, a woman in a silver shawl approached
me near the ballroom doors. She introduced herself as Mrs. Carver, a
donor to the Moretti foundation.
“I saw what happened in the foyer,” she said quietly. “I should have
said something when Vanessa spoke to you that way.”
I did not know how to answer.
She continued, “She treated the hotel staff the same way at the last
foundation dinner. I assumed someone in management would handle it.”
I told her that people had been afraid to complain.
Mrs. Carver looked ashamed. She promised to give the police a statement
about the foundation announcement and the documents she had received.
That mattered. The more people who described the same pattern, the
harder it would be for Vanessa to claim the entire incident was a
misunderstanding.
When she left, Luca asked whether I was all right.
“I am tired.”
“You should go to the nurse.”
“I will.”
He nodded, then turned back toward the empty stage.
The screen still showed the foundation logo. I watched him order it
switched off.
The party had been designed to make Vanessa look powerful. Instead, it
May you like
had revealed how much of her authority existed only because people were
too uncomfortable to challenge her.
