Chapter 4
By the end of the week, the story had split into two separate wars.
The first was public.
Celeste Moreau had been removed from the townhouse, her access to Bellucci property revoked, her accounts frozen pending investigation, and every document connected to the engagement put under review. The papers called it a “sudden postponement.” The gossip pages called it a scandal. By Friday morning, photographs of the slashed portrait and the ruined engagement cake from the earlier dinner rumors had merged into a single ugly myth about chaos inside the Bellucci family.
The second war was private.
That one mattered.
That was the war over how Elena had disappeared in the first place.
My injuries meant I moved through it slowly.
Too slowly for my liking. The doctor had forbidden me from returning to work, climbing stairs without help, or pretending bruised ribs were an inconvenience rather than an injury.
Marco took his instructions from the medical team with offensive seriousness, assigning one of the female security staff to accompany me every time I left the townhouse.
Her name was Gia.
She had a scar along one eyebrow, the patience of a saint, and absolutely no sympathy for stubborn maids.
“You limp faster when you’re annoyed,” she told me the first time she caught me trying to carry a file box on my own.
“That isn’t a medical observation.”
“It’s a security one.”
Elena liked her immediately.
Elena liked almost everyone immediately, which only made the lost years harder to think about.
She was curious, observant, and polite in a way that suggested she had learned early that adults could decide a child’s future based on how easy she was to keep around.
That realization broke my heart more than once.
Every morning since the reunion, Matteo spent breakfast with her at the townhouse before going to the office for legal meetings.
Every evening he came back no matter how late.
Sometimes I saw them in the music room, where Elena sat at the piano bench picking out halting melodies while Matteo leaned against the instrument listening as if each wrong note were sacred.
Sometimes they worked through school papers together.
Sometimes he simply read to her from one of the nursery books, his rough voice stumbling over the voices of rabbits and queens and stubborn children who ran away into the forest.
He was not naturally gentle.
That was what made his gentleness with her so overwhelming.
It was chosen. Learned in real time. Fierce in its effort.
On Saturday afternoon, Alessandra returned with what she called “the unpleasant part.”
She spread documents across the dining room table while Matteo, Marco, Gia, and I listened.
Elena had been sent upstairs with paints and strict instructions not to come down unless summoned.
“The care agency’s first inquiries six years ago never reached Matteo personally,” Alessandra said. “We’ve confirmed the letters were routed through a private correspondence office then overseen by Matteo’s father’s former estate manager, Philip Sorrento.”
“Philip’s been retired for years,” Marco said.
“Retired does not mean harmless,” Alessandra replied.
She slid over a copied ledger. Several entries had been highlighted.
Personal courier fees. Archive retrieval. Discretionary settlement payments.
One regular payee appeared again and again:
Sorrento Administrative Holdings.
Matteo frowned. “Why would Philip still be handling anything after my father died?”
“He wasn’t officially,” Alessandra said. “But he maintained control over several legacy storage accounts. Enough to intercept private mail if someone wanted him to.”
“And Celeste?” I asked.
“She begins showing up in related records only within the last year. That means Philip may have helped bury Isabella’s earliest letters, while Celeste revived the concealment once she learned Elena existed.”
Matteo’s face went grim.
“So there are two betrayals.”
“Possibly connected,” Alessandra said. “Possibly opportunistic. We don’t know yet.”
“What about the little girl’s name changes?” I asked.
Sister Agnes had already explained that Elena lived under another surname for years. Alessandra now handed me the supporting page.
“After the accident, Isabella used the surname Hartwell in some records,” she said. “Later, when she fell ill and needed long-term support, Elena was placed temporarily under the surname of a guardian approved by the agency. That made her harder to find—but it also protected her.”
Matteo rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Protected from whom?”
Alessandra looked at him directly.
“From someone Isabella clearly believed had reach inside your family’s administrative system.”
The room went quiet.
Matteo’s phone rang then.
He listened for less than thirty seconds before ending the call.
“Philip Sorrento just arrived at the townhouse,” he said.
Marco rose at once. “He asked for you?”
“No. He asked to speak with Elena.”
That set every nerve in my body on fire.
Matteo’s gaze hardened. “He will not.”
Philip Sorrento was older than I expected.
Silver hair, immaculate navy suit, the kind of face that seemed trained into civility. If I had passed him in the street, I would have taken him for a retired banker or museum donor.
Not a man who might have helped sever a child from her father for nearly a decade.
He stood in the formal sitting room when we entered.
His eyes moved over me, lingered briefly on my limp, then shifted to Matteo.
“I heard there had been confusion,” he began.
“Confusion,” Matteo repeated. “That’s one word for it.”
Philip folded his hands. “I came because old correspondence may have been mishandled in the transition after your father’s death.”
“Mishandled by whom?”
Philip sighed. “By me, perhaps. But not in the way you think.”
Matteo took one deliberate step closer.
“Then explain it in the way I should think.”
The older man’s expression cracked for the first time.
“Your father believed Isabella’s return would put the child in danger.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Danger from whom?” Matteo asked.
“From people who still wanted leverage after the accident.”
“What people?”
Philip shook his head. “I don’t know names. Not all of them. But your father received threats tied to business disputes after the crash. Isabella wrote. He read the letters. Some he answered. Some he held.”
Matteo went utterly still.
“My father knew Elena was alive.”
Philip closed his eyes briefly. “For a time, yes.”
I made a broken sound before I could stop myself.
Matteo turned his head slightly toward me, as if reminding himself I was there, then faced Philip again.
“And instead of telling me, he hid that from me.”
“Because he believed you were too exposed at the time,” Philip said quickly. “You were reckless. Angry. Surrounded by enemies. He thought if anyone knew about the girl, they would use her.”
Matteo’s voice became almost too quiet to hear.
“So he let me mourn her.
And let her grow up without me.”
Philip’s hands trembled.
“I’m not defending the choice. I’m telling you the fear behind it.”
“Fear,” Matteo said. “Always fear. Never trust.”
I watched the betrayal land in him like another blow.
The dead kept wounding him.
First Isabella’s supposed abandonment.
Then Elena’s supposed death.
Now his father’s silence.
The past was not content to remain buried. It was tearing open everything.
“Where are the letters?” I asked before anyone could stop me.
Philip looked startled.
“The original letters,” I said. “If Matteo’s father answered them, then there were originals or copies. Where are they?”
He looked at me more carefully then, perhaps reassessing me from servant to threat.
“Some are in storage. Some were destroyed.”
“By whom?” Matteo demanded.
Philip hesitated.
Marco moved half a step forward.
That was enough.
“By your father,” Philip said at last. “And by me, later. At his instruction. Until the last year. Then someone else accessed the legacy files.”
“Celeste,” I whispered.
Philip nodded once.
“She asked questions about unresolved Bellucci family assets. She was particularly interested in Isabella’s art and any surviving beneficiary.”
Matteo laughed then, one harsh syllable.
“She was building my future while looting my past.”
Before Philip left, Alessandra extracted signed statements, dates, and the location of the remaining storage unit.
Afterward, Matteo stood in the empty sitting room with both hands braced on the mantel and said nothing for so long that I finally crossed to him.
“Matteo.”
He did not look up.
“My father robbed me,” he said.
The sentence was so simple that it hollowed the room.
I wanted to comfort him, but nothing I had felt large enough.
So I stood beside him in silence.
After a moment, he spoke again.
“And I am furious with a dead man.”
“You’re allowed.”
“He thought he was protecting me.”
“People cause the deepest harm with that word.”
He turned then, face tired, eyes dark with grief and rage. “What if he was right?”
“About the danger?”
“Yes.”
I thought of Elena upstairs with her paints.
Of Isabella running from city to city with a child and a secret.
Of a man who used his son’s life as a shield without trusting him with the truth.
“Then he was right about the danger,” I said carefully. “But wrong about the answer.”
Matteo stared at me.
“The answer should have been helping you protect them,” I continued, my pulse racing at my own boldness. “Not deciding you were unworthy of the choice.”
Something shifted in his face.
Pain remained. So did anger. But beneath both, I saw gratitude.
Maybe even relief.
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Elena stood at the door in the hallway, small and solemn in a blue sweater.
She must have heard at least part of it.
“Papa?” she asked.
Matteo held out his hand at once.
She came to him and slipped her fingers into his.
“Did somebody else make a bad decision?” she asked.
His mouth twitched.
“Yes.”
Elena thought about that.
Then she nodded very seriously.
“Then maybe we should make a better one now.”
I had to press my lips together not to cry.
Matteo crouched in front of her.
“What better one do you recommend?”
“That you stay home tonight,” she said. “And we make grilled cheese.”
He laughed then, a real laugh this time.
May you like
For the first time since I had known him, it sounded almost carefree.
“Counselor,” he said, glancing at me over Elena’s shoulder, “that may be the best advice I’ve had all week.”
