Chapter 6 - THE TRAITOR INSIDE RICCI HOUSE
Ricci House stood on the western shore of Lake Como.
I knew that because every news article about Vittorio Ricci eventually showed the same photograph.
Stone villa.
Private dock.
Mountains.
Old money disguised as architecture.
I remained at the clinic.
That had been my choice.
Barely.
Sofia paced.
Francesca sat near the window wearing borrowed clothes.
Her father called thirteen times.
She ignored twelve.
On the thirteenth she answered.
“Papa.”
Lorenzo Bellandi’s voice was loud enough that I heard anger from across the room.
Francesca put him on speaker.
“You stabbed one of my men.”
“He grabbed me.”
“I was removing you from a gunfight.”
“You knew the gunfight was coming.”
Silence.
Francesca’s face hardened.
“What did Giacomo tell you?”
Another silence.
There.
Lorenzo finally said:
“He warned me Vittorio had discovered a violation in the succession agreement.”
“What violation?”
“He said Vittorio had fathered a child during the negotiation period.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
Vittorio did not know about me.
Giacomo did.
Francesca asked:
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it was leverage.”
Against Vittorio.
Of course.
“Did you know Elena’s identity?”
“No.”
“Did you know she worked at Stellato?”
“No.”
“Did you order men there?”
“I had surveillance outside.”
Francesca closed her eyes.
Vittorio had been right about Bellandi men nearby.
“Why?”
“To see who Vittorio met.”
“So your men did not shoot.”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I believe Giacomo.”
“Believe?”
“He asked me three days ago whether I would support an emergency trustee vote if Vittorio died before the marriage.”
The room went cold.
Francesca whispered:
“You said?”
“No.”
Good.
Why?
“Because I may dislike Ricci, but I am not handing eight hundred million euros to Giacomo because his nephew conveniently dies.”
Sofia muttered:
“Heartwarming.”
Lorenzo heard.
“Who is that?”
“No one.”
I almost smiled.
Francesca continued.
“Paolo Moretti is inside Ricci House.”
Lorenzo went quiet.
“How do you know that name?”
He had heard of Paolo.
Interesting.
Francesca asked:
“Papa.”
A sigh.
“Giacomo asked my people to research Elena Moretti’s family after learning she was pregnant.”
My blood turned cold.
“You helped him?”
“I provided addresses.”
Francesca stood.
“You gave him Paolo?”
“I did not know he would take anyone.”
“You gave a criminal addresses and are surprised he committed a crime?”
Sofia looked at me.
“I definitely like her.”
Lorenzo’s voice hardened.
“Do not speak to me like—”
Francesca ended the call.
Then immediately texted him:
SEND EVERYTHING YOU GAVE GIACOMO TO POLICE AND VITTORIO’S LAWYER OR I WILL DO IT FOR YOU.
I looked at her.
“You just threatened your father.”
She shrugged.
“He taught me negotiation.”
At Ricci House, Vittorio arrived to darkness.
We learned details later.
Security system disabled from inside.
Three loyal guards drugged.
Not killed.
Giacomo still believed he might control the family afterward.
Massacring Ricci employees would make that difficult.
Vittorio entered with Antonio and six men.
Police units waited farther down the road because Vittorio insisted family hostages complicated direct entry.
The plan lasted ninety seconds.
Then gunfire started.
At the clinic, Antonio’s status messages stopped.
Sofia cried.
I did not.
Not because I was calm.
Because fear had become too large for tears.
Twenty minutes.
Thirty.
Forty.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Elena?”
Paolo.
I stood so fast dizziness hit.
“Paolo?”
Sofia grabbed my arm.
He sounded breathless.
“I’m okay.”
She began sobbing.
“Where are you?”
“Outside.”
“Vittorio?”
Silence.
My heart stopped.
“Paolo.”
“He was shot.”
Everything disappeared.
“What?”
“Not bad. Shoulder.”
I sat.
Sofia caught the phone.
“How are you?”
Paolo spoke rapidly.
He had been held inside the archive room.
Giacomo wanted access codes Vittorio alone possessed.
When Vittorio entered, Giacomo threatened Paolo.
Then something went wrong.
One of Giacomo’s men turned against him.
Security firefight.
Vittorio took a bullet through the upper shoulder while pulling Paolo behind a stone wall.
Alive.
Conscious.
Furious.
Of course.
Giacomo escaped through the lake tunnel.
There was another tunnel.
I would never enter a wealthy building again without assuming secret tunnels.
Paolo was safe.
The archive partially burned.
But documents survived in a fireproof vault.
Two hours later Vittorio returned to the clinic.
He refused hospital admission after the bullet passed cleanly through soft tissue.
Dr. Ferraro called him an idiot in three languages.
I stood in the hallway.
When I saw him, anger and relief collided so violently I could not move.
His left arm rested in a sling.
His shirt had been replaced.
He looked exhausted.
He stopped several feet from me.
“Paolo is with Sofia.”
“I know.”
“He’s okay.”
“I know.”
Vittorio looked at me.
“I’m okay.”
“I can see.”
A pause.
Then I slapped him.
Not hard.
His expression became surprised.
“That was for getting shot.”
“I’m not sure that’s medically—”
I kissed him.
I do not know why.
Fear.
Relief.
Memory.
Love I had spent six months trying to kill.
It lasted perhaps two seconds.
Then I stepped back in horror.
Vittorio stared.
“Do not interpret that.”
His mouth almost smiled.
“I would never.”
“Good.”
“I’m terrified to breathe.”
“Excellent.”
Then I cried.
He opened his good arm.
Waited.
I stepped into it.
This time I chose.
My face pressed against his chest.
His heartbeat was fast.
Alive.
He rested his cheek against my hair.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Try explaining what happened.”
He laughed weakly.
Fair.
Inside the archive, they found the original trust documents.
Francesca had been correct.
Five percent to a biological child conceived before age thirty-five.
But there was another document.
A handwritten codicil from Vittorio’s father.
Never filed.
Never executed formally.
It named Giacomo as temporary trustee if Vittorio died before producing an heir.
Paolo had been kidnapped because Giacomo needed Vittorio to open the vault and retrieve it.
Why?
To destroy it?
No.
To authenticate it.
Because another copy had surfaced.
Where?
Inside Lorenzo Bellandi’s private archive.
Giacomo planned to use the codicil to seize control after arranging Vittorio’s death.
Then blame Bellandi for the killing.
War would eliminate both competing branches.
He almost succeeded.
But the archive yielded something worse.
Payment ledgers.
Giacomo had paid the man accused of killing Vittorio’s father.
Not Lorenzo.
Not Bellandi.
Giacomo.
Vittorio sat motionless when Antonio told us.
His father’s murderer had been inside his own family.
The Bellandi war.
The engagement.
The threats.
Years of hatred.
All engineered by the uncle who stood to gain if both families destroyed each other.
Then Antonio placed one final photograph on the table.
Giacomo with Lorenzo Bellandi.
Taken eight years earlier.
Shaking hands.
Francesca stared.
“My father knew him.”
Vittorio looked at her.
“They all knew each other.”
No family feud was ever as simple as the stories men told about it.
May you like
And if Giacomo escaped alive, he still had one advantage.
He knew the child inside me was the easiest way to make Vittorio Ricci stop thinking like a boss and start thinking like a terrified father.
