Chapter 2
Matteo ended the dinner before midnight.
Not the engagement.
Not yet.
He did not trust himself to make that decision while his mother’s rosary was still lying open on the sideboard.
He asked everyone to leave except Elena, Beatrice, Sophie, Camilla, and the house manager.
Sophie tried to go.
Matteo stopped her only long enough to say:
“You need medical attention.”
“I’m okay.”
“You hit a brass door edge.”
The house manager stepped in.
“We’ll arrange a clinic.”
Sophie nodded.
Matteo did not hand her money.
Did not tell her to take a week off.
The manager handled workplace care.
Good.
Then an outside lawyer arrived.
Not the Bellucci family firm.
A woman named Priya Shah.
Matteo knew her through hotel acquisitions.
She had never represented Carlo Bellucci or Bellucci Gardens.
That mattered.
Priya photographed the suitcase before anything moved.
The wooden box.
The rosary.
The key.
The photograph.
The binders.
Then she asked Beatrice where the materials had been.
“In my apartment.”
“For how long?”
“Some twelve years. Some eleven.”
“Who had access?”
“My daughter knew they existed.”
“Camilla?”
“No.”
Then Priya asked:
“Why did Lucia give them to you?”
Beatrice looked at the rosary.
“Because she did not trust Carlo’s office.”
Matteo closed his eyes.
That sentence felt brutal.
Not:
she hated him.
Not:
she feared him physically.
She did not trust his office.
A professional betrayal inside a marriage.
Then Priya asked:
“What did Lucia believe had happened?”
Beatrice answered carefully.
“She believed Carlo converted Verona Dawn into an asset of Bellucci Gardens without honoring a written royalty understanding.”
Matteo frowned.
“What royalty understanding?”
Beatrice opened a notebook.
A handwritten page.
Lucia’s script.
If V.D. licenses commercially, 2% of net breeder royalties split:
L.B. 60
B.C. 20
M.S. 20
Below:
Discussed with Carlo — agrees in principle, formal paperwork after trial certification.
Matteo stared.
“In principle.”
Priya nodded.
“Not a contract yet.”
Important.
Beatrice said:
“There was also an email.”
“Where?”
“In the cabinet.”
The brass key.
Then Camilla’s lawyer arrived.
His name was Aaron Feld.
Camilla sat opposite Matteo.
The engagement ring still on her hand.
Nobody mentioned it.
Priya began with the current incident.
“Did you grab the suitcase?”
Camilla said:
“Yes.”
“Did you make physical contact with Sophie?”
“I grabbed her sleeve.”
“Where?”
“Upper arm.”
“Did you push her?”
“No.”
“Did she hit the door because you moved past her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Matteo she hit the greenhouse door without explaining you were there?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Camilla looked at the wooden box.
“Because I panicked.”
Priya moved on.
“You worked at Bellucci Gardens?”
“Yes.”
“Role?”
“Licensing administrator.”
Not assistant now.
Matteo noticed.
Camilla looked at him.
“I started administrative. Then licensing.”
“How long?”
“Eighteen months.”
“Did you report to Carlo Bellucci?”
“Functionally, yes.”
“Did you work with Lucia Bellucci?”
“Sometimes.”
Then:
“Did you know she opposed the Verona Dawn ownership paperwork?”
“Yes.”
There.
Matteo’s throat tightened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Priya glanced at him.
Let counsel ask.
Camilla continued.
“At first, I thought it was a disagreement about credits and royalties.”
“Was it?”
“Partly.”
Then:
“Did Lucia claim legal ownership?”
“She claimed breeder rights.”
“Did company counsel disagree?”
“Yes.”
The legal structure mattered.
Bellucci Gardens paid salaries.
Greenhouses.
Trial materials.
registration fees.
Licensing office.
Company counsel argued anything bred within employment belonged to company unless separate written agreement existed.
Lucia disagreed because:
she had started cross-breeding line privately before company project.
Beatrice and Marco contributed outside assigned roles.
Carlo had promised royalty participation.
Not simple theft.
A disputed ownership and attribution issue.
Then the sale.
A Dutch horticultural group called Floranova Holdings offered to buy Bellucci Gardens.
Their valuation gave heavy weight to Verona Dawn’s early licensing potential.
Carlo wanted clean title.
The buyer required:
employee declarations,
breeding records,
rights chain.
Lucia refused to sign the broad assignment.
Why?
She wanted a carve-out:
breeder credits.
royalty participation.
control over certain future crosses.
Carlo refused.
Then he told counsel to proceed on employment ownership theory.
The legal theory could have been defensible.
But he also removed Lucia’s name from marketing history.
That was not necessary.
Beatrice said:
“He wanted no dispute in the sale room.”
Camilla looked down.
Priya asked:
“What did you do?”
Camilla answered:
“I collected declarations from everyone who would sign.”
“Did you pressure anyone?”
“I told them the sale depended on clean paperwork.”
“That can be pressure.”
“I know.”
“Did you threaten jobs?”
“No.”
“Did Carlo?”
“Not in front of me.”
Then Marco Serri.
The third breeder.
He signed.
Why?
He was retiring.
Got bonus.
Beatrice refused.
Lucia refused.
Company proceeded anyway.
Then a side agreement appeared.
Priya held up a photocopy from suitcase.
BELLUCCI GARDENS — CONSULTING AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
Lucia would receive €240,000 consulting fee after sale.
No admission of personal IP ownership.
Mutual non-disparagement.
No challenge to Verona Dawn title.
Signed?
No.
Lucia had crossed out:
No challenge.
Wrote:
Credit and royalty question unresolved.
Then no final agreement.
Matteo stared.
“So she never settled.”
“Not that we know.”
Then Camilla whispered:
“She got sick.”
Lucia was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer months later.
Everything changed.
Carlo and Lucia stopped fighting publicly.
The garden business sold.
Lucia focused treatment.
Beatrice said:
“She still asked about the archive.”
Then:
“Three weeks before she died, she gave me the box.”
Matteo stared at rosary.
“Why not give it to me?”
“You were twenty.”
“And?”
“You were furious at your father already.”
Matteo looked.
He had been.
For other reasons:
Lucia’s illness.
Carlo’s work.
Family distance.
Beatrice continued:
“She did not want you turning her dispute into war while she was dying.”
Then why leave a letter?
There was one.
Not in box.
In cabinet.
The key.
Matteo asked:
“Did she tell you what it said?”
“No.”
Good.
No inherited script.
Then Priya asked Camilla:
“Did you know about private cabinet?”
“Yes.”
Matteo looked sharply.
“How?”
“Lucia asked me once to bring her copies of trial files.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
That surprised Beatrice.
Camilla continued.
“I gave her printouts.”
Then:
“I also told Carlo she had asked.”
Beatrice closed eyes.
Matteo looked.
“Why?”
“He was my boss.”
There.
Then Carlo moved some files out of licensing office.
Lucia lost access.
Did Camilla help?
“Yes.”
She boxed.
Transferred to legal archive.
That was why Lucia rented private cabinet.
Then the present.
Why did Camilla contact Beatrice six weeks ago?
She learned Floranova’s digitization team had found conflicting breeder notes.
The Lake Como hotel project needed updated story rights for marketing.
Floranova asked Matteo’s company:
Can family confirm Lucia Bellucci’s formal role in cultivar development?
Camilla saw email because she was helping with engagement-season events and the hotel concept.
But she had no formal role in legal review.
She answered informally:
Lucia supported early trials but Bellucci Gardens owned breeding program.
That was misleading.
Matteo stared.
“You answered them?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
Then she contacted Beatrice.
Asked whether old notes still existed.
Beatrice said yes.
Camilla offered to “organize” them.
Then asked for key.
Beatrice refused.
Camilla called twice more.
Finally Beatrice decided to bring everything to Matteo.
Then Priya asked:
“Were you planning to destroy anything?”
Camilla shook her head violently.
“No.”
“Hide?”
She stopped.
“I wanted to see what was there before Matteo did.”
There.
Not destruction.
Control.
Again.
Matteo looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because I thought if the papers showed I had done something worse than I remembered, you would leave.”
He almost laughed.
“You thought checking first would change what happened?”
“No.”
Then:
“I thought I could explain it better.”
That sentence.
Cleaner context before truth.
Then Matteo asked:
“Did you recognize me the night we met?”
Camilla nodded.
“Yes.”
“Did you speak to me because of my family?”
“At first, yes.”
His face tightened.
Where did they meet?
An architecture fundraiser.
Camilla saw him across room.
Recognized Carlo’s son.
She was curious.
Wanted to know whether Carlo had ever told him about Verona Dawn.
She approached.
They talked.
Matteo knew nothing.
Then she liked him.
Then loved him.
Then silence became harder.
Same human pattern.
Matteo asked:
“Did you ever use me to access Bellucci files?”
Camilla hesitated.
Everyone noticed.
“Yes.”
Once.
She asked him to show her the old greenhouse renovation plans.
She wanted to see whether licensing cabinets had been removed.
He thought she was interested in design.
She was checking whether records might still be there.
Matteo closed his eyes.
“That was two years ago.”
“Yes.”
“And you still didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
He looked at the ring.
Then at her.
“Our engagement is over.”
Camilla shut her eyes.
No shouting.
No dramatic removal.
She slid the ring off.
Set it on the table.
Matteo did not touch it.
Then Priya looked at the brass key.
“Tomorrow we open the cabinet.”
Beatrice nodded.
Matteo looked at the key.
His mother had not left him an inheritance.
May you like
She had left him a question.
And now, finally, he would have to read what everyone else had spent twelve years deciding he did not need to know.
