Chapter 2 - THE EMPTY CHAIRAt 8:14 p.m., Adriano discovered that the most dangerous person at the Valente family dinner was the one who had not arrived.
Bella's chair was empty.
So was his mother's.
The dining room at the ancestral estate had hosted baptisms, engagements, negotiations, funerals, and enough carefully disguised threats to qualify as its own branch of government. Tonight, twenty-four candles burned beneath two crystal chandeliers. Porcelain gleamed. Wine breathed in decanters.
Nobody touched anything.
Marco Valente stood near the fireplace with a glass in his hand.
"Where is Mama?"
Adriano looked toward the staircase.
"I thought she was upstairs."
Marco's expression changed.
Bianca put down her portfolio.
Adriano crossed the room and took the stairs two at a time.
Lucia's bedroom door stood open.
The bed was made.
Her medication box was gone.
So was the brown leather suitcase she had owned since Adriano was a teenager.
On the dresser lay a white envelope.
His name was written across it.
ADRIANO.
He tore it open.
There was only one sentence.
I am safe because Bella listened when I said no.
Adriano read it twice.
Marco appeared behind him.
"What does it say?"
Adriano folded the note.
"Where are they?"
"I don't know."
Marco gave a humorless laugh. "Your wife kidnapped our mother?"
Adriano turned.
The look in his eyes erased the smile immediately.
"Say that again."
Marco did not.
Adriano pulled out his phone and called Bella.
Once.
Twice.
Five times.
Voicemail.
He called his security chief.
"Find my wife's car."
A pause.
Then an answer Adriano had not expected.
"Sir, Mrs. Valente dismissed her driver at seven thirty-eight."
"Track the vehicle."
"She didn't take a Valente vehicle."
That stopped him.
"Then what did she take?"
"We don't know."
Adriano lowered the phone.
Bella had planned nothing when he left.
Which meant she had managed to disappear from one of the most closely monitored households in New York in less than half an hour.
He should have been furious.
Instead, something far less familiar entered his chest.
Fear.
Downstairs, Bianca was gathering documents when Adriano returned.
"What exactly was my mother supposed to sign?"
"Nothing final."
"Show me."
She hesitated.
That was enough.
"Now."
Bianca opened the portfolio.
Adriano read the first page.
Temporary authorization.
The second.
Medical information release.
The third.
A financial management consent form.
His expression hardened.
"I didn't authorize this."
"No. Marco did."
Marco stepped forward. "It was precautionary."
"You brought financial papers to my mother?"
"She's seventy-one."
"She's not dead."
"Nobody said she was."
Adriano flipped another page.
Then stopped.
The document bore Lucia's signature.
Except Adriano knew his mother's handwriting.
This was close.
Too close.
But the L curved the wrong way.
He looked up slowly.
"Who signed this?"
Marco went pale.
Bianca moved first.
"That wasn't in the packet I prepared."
Adriano looked at her.
For the first time that evening, she seemed genuinely alarmed.
Marco set his glass down.
"We can discuss this privately."
"We are private."
"Not with Bianca here."
Adriano stared at his brother.
"Interesting. An hour ago everyone thought Bianca belonged in my mother's decisions."
Nobody answered.
Adriano photographed the page.
Then his phone vibrated.
A message from Bella.
Lucia is safe. She chose to leave. Do not look for her tonight.
He called immediately.
Rejected.
Another message appeared.
If you love your mother, give her one night in which nobody tells her what she needs.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
He typed: Are you safe?
Three dots appeared.
Yes.
The tension in his shoulders loosened by perhaps one inch.
And our daughter?
Bella's answer came seconds later.
Also safe.
Adriano closed his eyes.
Then he typed the question that mattered more than he wanted to admit.
Are you coming home?
No answer.
He stared at the screen until it went dark.
Across the city, Bella sat beside Lucia in the back of a taxi headed north.
She had chosen the vehicle because it was ordinary.
No Valente plates.
No security detail.
No driver who reported to Adriano.
Lucia had said almost nothing since climbing inside.
Her hands remained folded around her handbag.
Finally Bella asked, "Are you frightened?"
"Terrified."
"We can stop."
"No."
Lucia turned toward her.
"I should have done this twenty years ago."
Bella frowned.
"Done what?"
"Made my sons understand that loving someone doesn't mean owning every decision they make."
The taxi passed beneath a streetlight.
For one second Bella saw something unexpected in Lucia's expression.
Guilt.
"There's something else," Bella said.
Lucia looked out the window.
"What happened before I arrived?"
No answer.
"Mama."
"Marco wanted my signature."
"I know."
"Not only for Villa Serena."
Bella waited.
Lucia reached into her handbag and removed a small brass key.
"He wanted this."
"What does it open?"
"A safe-deposit box."
Bella's stomach tightened.
"What is inside?"
Lucia looked at her.
"Something my husband left before he died."
Bella knew Adriano's father, Vittorio, had died nine years earlier. Officially, a heart attack had killed him in a hotel suite during a business trip.
Adriano had never forgiven himself for not answering his father's last phone call.
"What did he leave?"
"Evidence."
Bella went still.
"Of what?"
Lucia looked toward the taxi driver before lowering her voice.
"That someone inside our family was stealing from Adriano before Adriano even became Don."
Bella's pulse accelerated.
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Why didn't you tell him?"
"Because Vittorio told me not to trust anyone until I understood the whole thing."
"Nine years, Lucia."
"I know."
"Why now?"
"Because three weeks ago, somebody searched my bedroom."
Bella stared at her.
Lucia's fingers closed around the brass key.
"The next day Bianca Riccai appeared with brochures for Villa Serena."
Bella felt the baby move.
Coincidence was possible.
But suddenly it felt expensive.
"Does Bianca know about the box?"
"I don't know."
"Marco?"
Lucia swallowed.
"I don't know that either."
The taxi turned onto a quieter road.
Bella's phone vibrated again.
Adriano.
She ignored it.
The driver looked at them through the mirror.
"Ten minutes."
Bella nodded.
Lucia had chosen the destination herself: a modest guesthouse in Westchester belonging to Elena Moretti, Lucia's widowed childhood friend. Almost nobody in the Valente organization knew Elena existed.
They would be safe for one night.
After that, Bella had no plan.
Her marriage might be over.
She had left without clothing beyond what fit inside one overnight bag. Her husband probably had half the city searching for her.
Yet strangely, Bella could breathe.
Lucia reached across the seat.
"You should go home tomorrow."
Bella looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because this is my fight."
Bella rested a hand over her stomach.
"No. This became my fight when my husband used my pregnancy to explain away my judgment."
Lucia's eyes softened.
"Adriano loves you."
"I know."
That was the tragedy.
Bella looked through the rain-streaked window.
"He just hasn't learned that love without respect eventually feels like a locked door."
The taxi slowed outside a small stone house.
A porch light flickered on.
Elena was waiting.
Bella helped Lucia from the car.
Before following her toward the house, Bella glanced at her phone one last time.
Seven missed calls from Adriano.
Then a new message.
I found the forged signature.
Bella froze.
Another message appeared.
Bella, whatever you think is happening, it's worse.
And then a third.
May you like
Marco is gone.
So is Bianca.
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