Chapter 4 - VALENTINA SAID EMMA WAS THE TARGET
Valentina could barely speak.
Her throat was raw from the breathing tube.
Her face, once carefully composed for cameras, looked pale and swollen beneath hospital light.
Aleandro stood at the end of her bed.
Detective Marina Cole sat beside him.
Sophia was not there.
Aleandro had asked.
Sophia refused.
“She mocked my daughter, then someone tried to kill her. I don’t need to stand beside her bed to hear evidence.”
Aleandro had not argued.
Valentina looked at him.
“You know.”
He did not pretend otherwise.
“Emma is my daughter.”
Her eyes closed.
One tear slid sideways toward her ear.
“How long did you know?”
“Since last night.”
“I knew six weeks.”
Aleandro’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“You hate me.”
“I don’t have time yet.”
That answer hurt her more.
Marina leaned forward.
“You told medical staff the toast was meant to kill Emma.”
Valentina nodded.
“How do you know?”
Her hand trembled.
“Because I received a message.”
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“From who?”
“Unknown.”
“What did it say?”
Valentina looked at Aleandro.
“Tonight the hidden heir disappears.”
Silence.
Aleandro’s face hardened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it meant Sophia.”
Marina frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I had already confirmed Emma was yours.”
“That makes Emma the heir.”
“Yes.”
Valentina looked ashamed.
“I thought whoever sent it didn’t know.”
Aleandro stared.
“So you said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Because?”
She looked away.
“Because part of me wanted Sophia gone.”
There.
Ugly.
Direct.
Marina watched.
“Did you want her dead?”
“No.”
“Did you consider the threat serious?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I thought someone was trying to scare me into canceling the engagement.”
Aleandro laughed once.
“You receive a threat saying hidden heir disappears and decide it’s wedding drama.”
Valentina’s eyes filled.
“I was angry.”
“Not an excuse.”
“No.”
“Did you challenge Emma to dance because of the message?”
Valentina hesitated.
“Yes.”
Aleandro went still.
Sophia had been right about cruelty.
But the challenge had another layer.
“Explain.”
“I wanted her in the open.”
Marina frowned.
“To protect her?”
Valentina shook her head.
“No.”
“Then?”
“To see who reacted.”
Silence.
Aleandro stared.
“You used a three-year-old as bait.”
Valentina began crying.
“I thought the threat was fake.”
“You still used her.”
“Yes.”
That mattered.
Whatever else happened, she chose.
Marina continued.
“What reactions were you watching?”
“Luca.”
“Your uncle.”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
“Frank Bellini.”
Aleandro turned.
“Frank?”
Valentina nodded.
“Your security chief.”
“Why?”
“Because he had been asking questions about Sophia for weeks.”
Aleandro frowned.
Frank had told him he knew nothing.
Another possible lie.
Marina said:
“What questions?”
“Where Sophia lived. Why Emma sometimes came to the estate. Who approved staff-child access.”
Aleandro felt cold.
“Why would he ask?”
“I don’t know.”
Valentina continued:
“I thought Frank had discovered Emma before you.”
That was plausible.
Security noticed patterns.
Children.
Visitors.
Backgrounds.
“And Luca?”
“He told me six months ago that if you ever had an illegitimate child, the engagement should end.”
Aleandro’s face changed.
“Why six months ago?”
Valentina looked at him.
“He asked whether you and I planned children.”
That had been ordinary.
Maybe not.
“I said eventually.”
“And?”
“He said your first recognized child would outrank spouse protections in several Moretti trusts.”
Aleandro knew that.
He had not cared.
Valentina had.
“So you investigated Sophia.”
“Yes.”
“How did you know to investigate her?”
Valentina looked down.
“This is the part you’re going to hate.”
Aleandro waited.
“Your mother.”
Silence.
His mother, Isabella Moretti, had died five years earlier.
“What?”
“She left a sealed file with my father.”
Aleandro stared.
“Why would your father have my mother’s file?”
“Our families negotiated the engagement before you and I agreed to it.”
Of course.
Old families.
Old arrangements.
“She told my father that if a woman named Sophia Martinez or Sophia Carter ever appeared near you with a child, the wedding should stop until paternity was checked.”
Aleandro stopped breathing.
His mother knew.
Before dying.
Before Emma was conceived?
Timeline.
Isabella died five years ago.
Aleandro met Sophia four years ago.
So no.
“She couldn’t know Sophia from me.”
Valentina shook her head.
“She knew her family.”
Vincenzo.
Elena.
Old Moretti history.
“Did your father give you the file?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After we got engaged.”
“Why wait?”
“He thought it was irrelevant.”
“Then?”
“I saw Sophia in the house.”
Aleandro stared.
“You recognized her.”
“From an old photograph.”
“And said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“You waited two years?”
“No.”
Valentina looked embarrassed.
“I didn’t realize who she was immediately. Different surname. Different hair.”
“Then when?”
“Six months ago.”
Same time Luca raised illegitimate heirs.
“Coincidence?”
“I don’t think so.”
Marina wrote.
“Who knew you had identified Sophia?”
“My assistant, Bianca. My father. Luca.”
“And?”
Valentina looked at Aleandro.
“Frank.”
Silence.
Aleandro’s chest tightened.
“You told Frank.”
“I asked him to discreetly confirm whether Sophia had a child.”
Frank had definitely known.
Aleandro’s anger became precise.
“When did he confirm?”
“Five weeks ago.”
Same time Valentina obtained hair for DNA.
“So Frank knew before the test.”
“Yes.”
“Did he know result?”
“I sent it.”
Marina looked toward Aleandro.
He was already dialing.
Frank answered.
“Aleandro.”
“Come to hospital.”
Pause.
“Why?”
“Because Valentina says you knew Emma was mine five weeks ago.”
Silence.
Frank did not deny immediately.
Aleandro closed his eyes.
“Now.”
Frank arrived twenty minutes later.
No security entourage.
He knew better.
Marina interviewed him separately.
“Did you know Emma was Aleandro’s biological daughter?”
Frank answered:
“I suspected.”
“Did you see the DNA result?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Five weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell Aleandro?”
Frank looked at the glass.
Aleandro stood behind it.
“Because of Dominic.”
Aleandro’s father.
Again.
“What does that mean?”
Frank sighed.
“My father left instructions from Dominic.”
“About Sophia?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Twenty-four years ago.”
Silence.
Aleandro stared.
Frank continued:
“If Sophia Martinez ever reentered Moretti life, we were not to reveal her lineage until Vincenzo’s old share claims were audited.”
“Why?”
“Because there was a traitor inside Moretti Holdings.”
Aleandro felt cold.
“Who?”
“Dominic never knew.”
“So your father kept this from me.”
“Yes.”
“And you inherited the instruction.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t explain Emma.”
Frank looked down.
“When Valentina asked me to investigate Sophia, I found the old instruction.”
“You still should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because recognizing Emma immediately would trigger automatic trust notice to every Moretti branch.”
Aleandro understood.
The family’s digital trust registry would alert legal representatives.
Including rivals.
If someone was watching for Sophia’s line, recognition could endanger Emma.
Frank said:
“I wanted to identify the threat first.”
“And failed.”
“Yes.”
“Worse.”
Frank nodded.
“Yes.”
Aleandro looked at Marina.
“Anything else?”
She continued.
“Did you tell Luca Romano?”
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“My deputy.”
“Name.”
“Marco Bell.”
Aleandro frowned.
Marco had worked security ten years.
Reliable.
Or appeared so.
“Where is he?”
Frank went pale.
“He’s missing.”
When?
After the ballroom lockdown.
Marco’s badge was found near the service tunnel.
His car remained.
Phone off.
Marina’s team pulled camera.
Marco had escorted two caterers through security earlier that afternoon.
One matched the unconscious real bartender.
The other—
unknown.
Could be the disguised attacker.
Frank stared.
“No.”
Aleandro’s face hardened.
“Your deputy brought him in.”
“Looks like.”
Then Marina returned to Valentina.
“Why do you believe Emma, not you, was the target?”
Valentina requested her phone.
Police had it.
Message history.
Unknown sender.
First:
THE HIDDEN HEIR DISAPPEARS TONIGHT.
Second, after dance began:
GOOD. KEEP HER IN THE CENTER.
Silence.
Aleandro stared.
The sender was watching live.
Valentina’s challenge placed Emma exactly where they wanted.
Then:
THE TOAST ENDS IT.
Valentina had received that at 9:13.
One minute before disguised server entered.
“Why drink?” Marina asked.
Valentina cried.
“I didn’t see it.”
Phone had been in clutch.
Notification muted.
She saw messages only after collapsing? No.
How know?
Her assistant opened phone later? Wait.
Valentina explained:
“The first two I saw. The third was unopened until police recovered.”
Good.
So she knew first threat, then “keep her in center.”
At that point she should have warned.
She didn’t.
Aleandro stared.
“You saw ‘keep her in center’ while my daughter stood beside you.”
Valentina cried.
“I thought it was someone mocking me.”
“That is not believable.”
“It was to me.”
“Because believing danger required you to admit you had used a child as bait.”
Valentina closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
There.
Marina asked:
“What did you do after second message?”
“I told Bianca to find Luca.”
Bianca, assistant.
Where was Bianca now?
Silence.
Aleandro looked up.
No one had seen her since ambulance left.
Her phone remained in bridal suite.
Car gone.
Security camera showed Bianca leaving through greenhouse door at 9:12.
Two minutes before poison tray.
Why?
She carried something.
A small red purse.
Not hers.
Valentina’s second evening bag.
Police recovered it from a trash bin outside estate.
Inside:
an empty velvet jewelry box.
Mark:
VINCENZO MORETTI SIGNET.
Aleandro went still.
“What ring?”
Frank knew.
Vincenzo’s signet ring had disappeared after his death.
Old Moretti seal.
Could authenticate legacy documents.
Sophia’s branch.
Someone had stored it with Valentina?
She looked confused.
“I never saw that box.”
Marina pulled prints.
Bianca.
And Luca Romano.
Aleandro stared.
“What does Luca have to do with Vincenzo’s ring?”
Then Valentina whispered:
“My father.”
“What?”
“My father gave Bianca something yesterday.”
“Who is your father?”
Carlo Romano.
Retired senator.
Publicly respectable.
Privately tied to generations of family deals.
“He told her to keep it safe until after engagement.”
Aleandro felt cold.
“Why not give it to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Call him.”
Carlo Romano did not answer.
His security detail said he left estate before toast.
Destination:
private chapel on Moretti grounds.
Cameras showed him entering at 8:50.
Never leaving.
Police went.
Found him unconscious behind altar.
Alive.
Head wound.
Beside him:
a torn envelope.
Sophia Martinez.
And a handwritten note from Dominic Moretti:
IF SOPHIA HAS A DAUGHTER, THE GIRL IS THE LAST LIVING HEIR TO VINCENZO’S PRIVATE TRUST.
Aleandro stopped breathing.
Emma.
Not simply a Moretti child.
Last heir to a private trust.
Valentina whispered:
“What trust?”
Frank’s face changed.
He knew.
Aleandro saw.
“Frank.”
“It holds more than shares.”
“What?”
Frank answered:
“Names.”
Silence.
“Vincenzo kept a ledger of every politician, judge, union boss, and businessman who paid both Moretti and Romano organizations during the old port wars.”
Aleandro’s chest tightened.
Blackmail archive.
Historical evidence.
Enough to destroy families.
“Where?”
“Unknown.”
Frank looked toward the ring box.
“Signet may be the key.”
Now the motive widened.
Emma inherited access to something dangerous.
Someone wanted her dead before lineage recognition triggered recovery.
And someone had gone through Valentina, Sophia, Carlo, and Moretti security to get there.
Marina’s phone rang.
She listened.
Then looked at Aleandro.
“Marco Bell was found.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Inside an abandoned service garage.”
“What did he say?”
“He says he brought the disguised server into the estate.”
Aleandro’s face hardened.
“Why?”
Marina continued:
“Because someone showed him a live video of his daughter being held at gunpoint.”
Silence.
Frank went pale.
Marco had a sixteen-year-old daughter.
“Is she safe?”
“Police located her at school.”
Everyone froze.
No kidnapping.
The video was fake.
Deepfake or old footage.
Marco had been manipulated.
“Who sent it?”
Unknown.
Then Marco gave one detail.
The person on encrypted call used a phrase:
“Vincenzo’s child must never be recognized.”
Aleandro looked toward Sophia’s location on Marina’s secure map.
Not Emma.
Vincenzo’s child.
Sophia.
Maybe the real target was her.
But the message to Valentina said hidden heir.
Emma.
Two generations.
May you like
One archive.
And someone was willing to poison a ballroom to erase both.
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