Chapter 3 - THE SISTER WHO KEPT THE KEYS
The accountants had asked me to remain at the mansion only long enough to check my statement against the event records. They had no reason to assume I knew anything about the company's internal accounts, and I was grateful for that. I could translate a conversation, but I wasn't a financial investigator.
Rebecca worked with a kind of calm that made complicated documents seem manageable. She numbered every invoice, recorded where it had come from, and placed uncertainties in a separate column. When Luca wanted a conclusion, she asked him to wait for the bank statements. When Marco remembered an old vendor dispute, she wrote it down without treating it as proof.
"You probably expected something more exciting," she told me.
"I expected somebody to say they found the thief."
She smiled. "The hard part is finding out exactly what happened, including the things that don't fit the first theory."
I knew Sofia would arrive soon. I had known her as a gracious visitor who thanked the staff and sent holiday cards. I did not know she had signed papers that might have helped money leave the scholarship account.
Seeing her enter with a shopping bag reminded me that a person could be kind in one moment and careless in another. I didn't want that to be true. It was easier to imagine the world divided into the people who lied and the people who did not. But the evidence did not care what would make the story easier to tell.
Sofia Moretti arrived at the mansion carrying a paper shopping bag and looking as though we had interrupted an ordinary Thursday.
She was forty-five, three years older than Luca, with dark hair cut sharply at her jaw and a gray coat that probably cost more than my monthly salary. I knew her from holiday visits. She always remembered the names of the kitchen staff and never allowed anyone to clear her plate before she finished. In a house where people often treated employees like furniture, that was enough to make her seem kind.
She stopped when she saw the accountants.
"Luca, what is going on?"
"We need to talk about Bellini Family Advisory."
The bag slipped slightly in her hand.
"Why?"
"You're listed as an authorized signatory."
She looked toward Rebecca Shaw. "I signed documents for Vanessa's fundraiser. I didn't realize there was a problem."
"There is," Luca said. "Scholarship money is missing."
Sofia pressed her fingers against her mouth.
"How much?"
"We don't know what happened to all of it yet."
Rebecca asked whether Sofia had approved any transfers herself. Sofia replied that Vanessa had given her paperwork during a charity planning meeting the previous spring.
"She said the account existed because the scholarship trust couldn't pay vendors directly," Sofia explained. "I signed a banking resolution. Vanessa promised it was temporary."
"Did you review the bank statements?" Rebecca asked.
"No."
"Did you receive compensation?"
"No."
"Did you give anyone access to your signature or identity documents?"
Sofia looked away. "I sent Vanessa a scan of my driver's license. She said the bank needed it."
Luca sat heavily in his chair.
"Sofia."
"I know," she whispered. "I should have called you."
He rubbed his forehead. "Why didn't you?"
Her eyes filled. "Because you've spent ten years telling me you don't want me involved in the company. Vanessa said the charity would give me something worthwhile to do. I thought I was helping."
I saw the hurt on Luca's face. Their disagreement was apparently older than this investigation.
Rebecca asked Sofia to provide every email and message she had exchanged with Vanessa. She agreed, but requested her own lawyer before giving a formal statement.
"That's sensible," Rebecca said. "This is a serious matter."
The room became less hostile once nobody expected Sofia to defend herself immediately.
The attorney accompanying Sofia asked whether the banking documents could have been drafted with her genuine signature but without her understanding the account's purpose. Rebecca answered that the question was legal as well as factual. They needed the original forms, the communications surrounding them, and the bank's verification process.
Sofia sat very straight during the exchange. She was accustomed to charitable boards, ceremonial speeches and photographs with donors. This was different. No one was asking her to smile and lend her surname to an invitation. They were asking whether she'd read a document before placing that surname on it.
When the meeting paused, she whispered to Luca that she had only wanted him to see her as capable. He replied that capability was not measured by whether she could sign a form without asking questions. She nodded, though the disappointment between them remained.
I was returning coffee cups to the kitchen when she followed me into the corridor.
"Emma."
I stopped.
"Vanessa says you invented the whole conversation."
"I didn't."
Sofia nodded slowly. "I believe you. Marco has never lied to me, and you don't seem like someone who enjoys being in the center of a scandal."
I didn't know whether to thank her.
"She told me you speak Italian," Sofia added.
"My mother was born here, but her parents were from Naples. We spoke it at home."
Sofia smiled sadly. "Our father used to say a person reveals who they are when they think nobody understands them."
I glanced toward the library door.
"Was your father in the restaurant business?"
"He owned the first Moretti dining room. He was also involved in things we don't discuss proudly." She paused. "Luca believes he can build something different. I've never known whether to admire him for that or resent him for refusing to look at the rest of us."
She went back inside, leaving me with a question I couldn't answer.
***
That evening, Dad asked why I had arrived home with a security escort. Daniel Price had insisted on driving me after another anonymous message came to my phone.
DON'T THINK YOUR FATHER IS OUT OF REACH.
I'd given Daniel the screenshot and tried not to panic.
"They mentioned you," I told Dad. "I think somebody is trying to scare me."
He looked at the message with an expression I hadn't seen since Mom's funeral.
"Emma, there's something I never told you about the Morettis."
I sat down.
Dad stared at his hands. He had worked on industrial refrigeration systems for almost forty years. At sixty-three, the joints in his fingers were swollen, and since his stroke they didn't always obey him.
"I repaired the refrigeration units at Luca's first restaurant," he said. "Before he bought it, when his father still owned the property."
"You knew the family?"
"Not well. I knew the manager. I knew the chef. And I knew a young waiter named Paolo Bellini."
The name made me sit straighter.
"Vanessa's family?"
"Her uncle. He was a good kid until he decided he deserved more than he earned. He started hiding bottles and charging suppliers for deliveries they never made. I complained when the numbers didn't match the stock in the cold room."
"What happened?"
"He said I was accusing him because I was jealous. Then he tried to make me sign a repair report admitting I'd damaged the cooling system. I refused. He disappeared from the restaurant a week later."
I stared at him. "Why didn't you tell me before I took the job?"
"Because that was twenty years ago. I didn't know he was related to Luca's fiancée until you mentioned the name at Christmas."
Dad looked embarrassed.
"I thought it was an old story."
I took his hand. "Do you remember anything else?"
He hesitated. "Paolo said one thing the day he left. He told me the Morettis never pay their debts twice. I thought he meant Luca's father. Maybe I misunderstood."
I called Daniel and told him.
"Paolo Bellini," he repeated. "I'll pass it to Rebecca. Don't contact him yourself."
I promised.
***
The next morning, Luca met Sofia at his downtown office. I was asked to accompany Rebecca because I had been present when the original schedule was discovered. The office smelled of coffee and furniture polish. On the wall behind Luca's desk hung a photograph of his first restaurant. The cook stood beside him beneath a faded red awning.
Sofia arrived with her attorney and two folders of emails.
Rebecca examined them quietly. Then she pointed to a message sent six months earlier.
"Vanessa asked you to approve a payment described as family care support. What was that?"
Sofia looked confused. "She said it covered emergency expenses for an elderly former employee."
"Which employee?"
"I don't remember."
"The beneficiary was Paolo Bellini," Rebecca said.
Sofia looked at her brother.
"I didn't know."
Luca leaned forward. "How much?"
"Forty-seven thousand dollars, paid in three installments."
I felt a strange pressure behind my eyes. The man Dad remembered had received charity money intended for employees' children.
Rebecca continued. "Two of those installments were funded through the education outreach account."
Sofia shook her head. "Vanessa told me it was a separate family support fund."
Luca's voice was quiet. "She lied to you. And to me."
For the first time since the dinner, I saw Sofia look genuinely frightened.
"Then what did I sign?" she asked.
Rebecca turned another page. "A resolution authorizing transfer of control over the scholarship account to Bellini Family Advisory. The signature matches the one you acknowledged signing."
Sofia closed her eyes.
Outside Luca's office, my phone vibrated again.
This time the message contained a photograph of Dad standing outside his physical therapy clinic, taken less than an hour earlier.
May you like
Underneath it were four words.
TELL YOUR EMPLOYER NOTHING ELSE.
