Chapter 4 - AUNT BIANCA’S SECOND FUNERALAunt Bianca was gone before we returned to the house.
Her driver said she had left shortly after the blackout.
Her phone went straight to voicemail.
Her bedroom had been cleared of two suitcases.
Her passport was missing.
That did not make her guilty.
It made her interesting.
By sunrise, Marcus had teams watching every airport, train station, and property we could legally monitor.
I took Elisa home.
She slept through the drive with one hand wrapped around a stuffed rabbit Sofia had found in the estate nursery.
I sat beside her rather than in front.
For seventeen years, somebody had made decisions supposedly to protect me.
I would not repeat that mistake with my daughter.
I would protect her, yes.
But I would not build her childhood on lies.
When she woke around seven, she stared at me sleepily.
“Are you mad about the pot?”
“No.”
“Aunt Lucinda was.”
“Aunt Lucinda gets mad when the wind changes direction.”
“Why?”
I smiled despite myself.
“I’ve been asking that for thirty years.”
She reached for my hand.
“Did I make wedding bad?”
“No, sweetheart.”
In some strange way, she might have saved all of us.
By nine, Marcus arrived.
“Bianca’s car was found at Teterboro.”
“She flew?”
“No flight plan under her name.”
“Private jet?”
“Maybe. But we’ve got something better.”
He handed me a copy of a property record.
“A storage facility in Queens. Unit has been paid annually for eighteen years.”
“Whose name?”
“Eleanor Bell.”
“Never heard of her.”
“Neither had I. But the billing address traces to a law office your father used.”
We drove to Queens.
The storage manager refused access until my attorneys obtained an emergency court order tied to estate assets.
Inside Unit 317 sat one steel trunk.
Locker 317.
The Grand Central key had not been for Grand Central anymore.
Someone had moved the contents and deliberately preserved the number.
The trunk opened with the old key.
Inside were documents, photographs, cassette tapes, and a red leather ledger.
Lucinda had described a ledger.
My mother had supposedly found one.
I stared at it.
Marcus pulled on gloves.
“Don’t touch anything yet.”
“This could be it.”
“Or it could be bait.”
We photographed everything.
The ledger listed corporations, dates, transfers, coded payments.
Some names I recognized.
Others meant nothing.
Then I found my grandfather’s signature.
Vittorio Moretti.
Not beside the payments.
Beside handwritten objections.
STOP.
UNAUTHORIZED.
WHO APPROVED THIS?
I had always assumed Vittorio was the darkest man in the family.
Perhaps that was what someone wanted us to believe.
Beneath the ledger sat a cassette labeled:
E.M. — JULY 14.
My mother’s initials.
Marcus found an old player in the office.
The tape hissed.
Then my mother spoke.
“If Anthony is hearing this, I failed to reach him.”
My throat tightened.
“I found the transfers. Vittorio didn’t authorize them. Somebody has been using his companies without his knowledge. I know who.”
Marcus and I exchanged a glance.
On the tape, my mother began to say a name.
A loud click interrupted.
Then static.
The recording had been damaged.
“Of course,” Marcus muttered.
But she continued.
“He has been inside the family from the beginning. Everyone trusts him because he makes himself useful. He solves problems he secretly creates.”
Another pause.
“If anything happens to me, Anthony must look at the foundation.”
“What foundation?” I said.
Marcus was already searching.
The Moretti Children’s Foundation.
A charity created by my grandfather.
For twenty-five years it had funded hospitals, scholarships, shelters.
Its director for most of that time had been Aunt Bianca.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Sebastian.”
Bianca.
“Where are you?”
“You found the storage unit.”
Not a question.
“Where are you?”
“Listen carefully. You’re in danger.”
“You ran.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because they think I took page four.”
“Did you?”
Silence.
Then:
“Yes.”
I gripped the phone.
“Why?”
“To keep you alive.”
“Everybody keeps using that sentence.”
“Because Anthony used it first.”
“Where is the page?”
“With me.”
“Who is ‘he,’ Bianca?”
Another silence.
Then she said something I never expected.
“I don’t know.”
“You stole the identifying page and don’t know?”
“Page four doesn’t contain a name.”
“What does it contain?”
“A photograph.”
“Of whom?”
“Meet me and I’ll show you.”
“Where?”
“No.”
“You called me.”
“I’m setting terms.”
“You’re not in a position to.”
“You’re wrong. I have page four, and I know where Elena went after that photograph.”
My chest tightened.
“You know where my mother is?”
“I know where she was.”
“Tell me.”
“Come alone.”
“No.”
“Then you’ll never see the page.”
She gave me an address in Connecticut.
An abandoned church.
Midnight.
The line disconnected.
Marcus had heard enough.
“You’re not going alone.”
“She’ll run.”
“She may be baiting you.”
“Probably.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“It bothers me less than seventeen years of unanswered questions.”
We spent the day preparing.
At eleven that night, I parked half a mile from the church.
I entered alone.
Marcus and his team stayed hidden outside.
Bianca stood near the altar wearing a dark coat.
She looked exhausted.
“You brought men.”
“Of course.”
She almost smiled.
“Anthony would have done the same.”
“You have ten seconds.”
She reached inside her coat slowly.
Pulled out a folded page.
Page four.
There was indeed a photograph attached.
Black-and-white.
Taken from a security camera.
It showed my mother entering an office.
Beside her stood a man whose face had been circled in ink.
I stared.
“I know him.”
“Yes.”
“Everyone knows him.”
The man was Charles Renner.
The Moretti family attorney.
My grandfather’s closest adviser.
My father’s godfather.
The man who had delivered the eulogy at both my parents’ funerals.
Still alive.
Still practicing law.
Still handling portions of our family trust.
But Bianca shook her head.
“Charles isn’t the man your mother feared.”
“Then why is he circled?”
“Look behind him.”
I did.
In the reflection of the glass door stood another figure.
A woman.
Young.
Partially hidden.
But recognizable.
Lucinda.
I looked at Bianca.
“My aunt?”
“No.”
“Then what am I looking at?”
“Evidence that Lucinda was there the night Elena discovered the ledger.”
“She admitted being at the crash.”
“She lied about when she first saw your mother.”
Before I could respond, the church windows exploded.
Bianca dropped.
I hit the floor.
A bullet struck the altar.
Marcus shouted outside.
More shots.
I crawled toward Bianca.
Blood covered her shoulder.
“Bianca!”
She grabbed my coat.
“There’s something else.”
“Save your strength.”
“Elena was pregnant.”
I froze.
“What?”
“When she disappeared.”
Another shot shattered a pew.
Bianca’s eyes locked onto mine.
“You didn’t just lose your mother, Sebastian.”
May you like
Her fingers tightened.
“You had a brother.”
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