Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN WHO WATCHED MY MOTHER SLEEP
Celia Hart’s real name was Cecilia Bellaforte.
Gabriel’s niece.
Paolo’s cousin.
She had entered my mother’s life one year after my father died.
Nine years.
Nine years inside the house.
Monitoring Isabella.
Monitoring me.
Monitoring every attempt to find Alessandra.
I wanted to destroy something.
Ortiz gave me a task instead.
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
“No. You’re raging.”
She placed Celia’s employment file in front of me.
“What does she want?”
“Alessandra.”
“Why?”
“Control of Paolo.”
“Why now?”
“Because the network is collapsing.”
“Then where does she go?”
I stared.
Celia had money.
Contacts.
Medical experience.
But her power came from hiding inside respectable places.
Hospitals.
Foundations.
Private recovery centers.
Then I remembered Saint Agnes.
“They had another facility.”
Ortiz looked up.
“What?”
“Victor once mentioned Vermont.”
We searched.
Saint Agnes Foundation owned an abandoned neurological retreat near the Vermont border.
Police flew.
I went with Ortiz.
The building was almost empty.
One van outside.
Inside:
Mother.
Alive.
Tied to a chair.
No Celia.
A speaker crackled.
Celia’s voice.
“Luca.”
I looked around.
“Come out.”
“No.”
Mother cried.
“I’m sorry.”
I stared.
“For what?”
“Celia used me.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Mother shook her head.
“I knew she had Bellaforte connections.”
I froze.
“What?”
Ortiz stared too.
Mother sobbed.
“She said she could keep track of Alessandra.”
“You hired her knowingly?”
“Yes.”
I laughed in disbelief.
“You brought a Bellaforte into our house to monitor another Bellaforte operation?”
“I thought I could control her.”
“That appears to be the family disease.”
The speaker clicked.
Celia laughed.
“Isabella always overestimated herself.”
I shouted:
“What do you want?”
“Paolo.”
“He isn’t here.”
“Then bring Alessandra.”
“No.”
Mother whispered:
“Luca.”
I looked at her.
She nodded.
“Don’t.”
Finally.
A parent telling me not to sacrifice one child for another.
Growth came late.
But it came.
Ortiz’s team traced the speaker wiring.
Celia wasn’t inside.
Remote.
Then the building alarm sounded.
Fire doors locked.
Smoke began spilling through vents.
“Move!”
We cut Mother free.
Fire suppression failed.
Celia had rigged it.
We escaped through a service exit seconds before flames reached the hallway.
Outside, my phone rang.
Alessandra.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Mom?”
“Alive.”
She breathed out.
Then:
“I know where Celia is.”
“How?”
“Paolo tracked her.”
“Where?”
“Moretti Maritime headquarters.”
My own building.
“What is she doing?”
“Destroying records.”
Of course.
We returned to New York.
Smoke poured from the fourteenth floor when we arrived.
Celia had set records rooms on fire.
Employees evacuated.
Firefighters moved in.
I ran toward the security entrance.
Ortiz grabbed me.
“No.”
“My father’s ledger is in there.”
“Paper is not worth dying for.”
“She’s destroying proof.”
Ortiz looked at me.
“Digital backups exist.”
I stopped.
Victor always made backups.
Even criminals loved redundancy.
Then Marco called.
“Luca.”
“What?”
“I’m in the server room.”
“What?”
He had entered before evacuation.
Idiot.
“Get out.”
“I copied everything.”
“Then leave.”
“Celia locked the door.”
My stomach dropped.
Smoke alarm screamed through the phone.
“Marco.”
“I know.”
“Break the glass.”
“Reinforced.”
I looked toward firefighters.
Ortiz relayed location.
Then Marco said:
“There’s someone else here.”
“What?”
A cough.
Then a woman’s voice.
“Luca?”
I froze.
“Ali?”
Alessandra was inside.
No.
“No.”
She had come to retrieve records herself.
Of course she had.
“I’m fine.”
“You are in a burning building.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Same sister.
Impossible.
Firefighters reached the floor.
But Celia appeared on camera.
She had sealed the server suite and stood outside it.
Then she spoke over internal PA.
“Paolo comes here, or they burn.”
Alessandra shouted through the phone:
“Do not call him.”
Too late.
Paolo called me.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“My wife and daughter are safe because Alessandra helped me.”
“Paolo—”
“This is mine.”
“No.”
I had learned enough.
“No more people sacrificing themselves to solve family secrets.”
Silence.
“What’s your plan?”
He hesitated.
Good question.
Ortiz said:
“We give Celia what she thinks she wants.”
Paolo arrived.
Police wired him.
He entered the lobby alone.
Celia descended.
Gun hidden under her coat.
We watched through cameras.
She smiled.
“Cousin.”
Paolo said:
“Open the server room.”
“First you come with me.”
“No.”
She laughed.
“You were always weak.”
“No.”
Paolo looked directly at her.
“I was the first one who stopped being afraid of you.”
That distracted her.
Long enough.
Firefighters breached the server-room wall from the adjacent office.
Marco crawled out.
Then Alessandra.
On camera, Celia saw.
She raised her gun.
Paolo ducked.
Police fired.
Celia went down.
Alive.
Wounded.
Arrested.
I ran upstairs.
Alessandra stood in the hallway covered in soot.
For eight years, I had imagined reunion a thousand ways.
None looked like this.
We stared.
Then she whispered:
“You got old.”
I laughed.
Then cried.
She did too.
I stepped forward.
Stopped.
“Can I?”
She nodded.
I hugged my sister.
Carefully.
She clung to me.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I should have found you.”
“You couldn’t.”
“I should have asked more questions.”
She pulled back.
“Yes.”
That hurt.
But truth should.
She continued.
“And now you are.”
Then Marco emerged carrying a portable drive.
He coughed.
“Sorry to interrupt the family moment.”
Alessandra laughed.
“What?”
Marco held it up.
“I found the master account.”
My chest tightened.
“What master account?”
“The Bellaforte laundering reserve.”
“How much?”
Marco looked almost shocked.
“Four hundred twelve million.”
Silence.
I stared.
“Whose name?”
He turned the screen.
The beneficial owner wasn’t Dominic.
Victor.
Gabriel.
Celia.
Or Paolo.
It was:
ALESSANDRA MORETTI.
My sister stopped breathing.
Someone had spent eight years laundering money through the identity of a woman officially dead.
May you like
And if investigators believed the documents—
Alessandra could come home only to be arrested.
