Chapter 4
Evelyn corrected Bianca’s version.
Of course.
“She wants you to think I discovered something about your temper or your business.”
I sat beside the open window in her room.
“What did you actually find?”
She pointed toward her ruined wedding dress.
“The hem.”
I frowned.
She reached down and carefully opened a stitched section near the inside seam.
Empty now.
But the thread was different.
Repaired.
“Something was hidden there.”
“What?”
“A key.”
I stared.
“Whose?”
“Your father’s.”
That made no sense.
My father had died four years before the wedding.
Evelyn continued.
“Matteo gave me the veil two days before the ceremony. He said it belonged to your mother.”
It didn’t.
I knew that immediately.
My mother never wore a cathedral veil.
“She told me to keep it safe.”
“Bianca?”
“No. Matteo.”
Now it made even less sense.
“Why give you a key?”
“He didn’t know it was inside.”
Interesting.
Someone else had sewn it there.
“Who?”
“Your father.”
My chest tightened.
Evelyn had found a small brass key stitched into the veil lining.
With it, she found a locked compartment inside an old chapel cabinet.
Inside was not money.
Not documents.
A voice recorder.
My father’s voice.
Recorded weeks before he died.
I stopped breathing.
“What did he say?”
Evelyn looked toward the door.
“That Matteo had been building a second chain of loyalty inside Moretti.”
No—Castellano. My family.
Inside Castellano.
Men loyal to Matteo first.
Me second.
My father discovered it late.
He hid the recording because he did not know which staff were compromised.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Evelyn’s eyes softened.
“He was dying.”
I looked away.
My father had died from illness faster than any of us expected.
Maybe he believed he still had time.
Maybe he did what powerful men always do.
Protected through secrecy until secrecy outlived him.
“What happened to the recorder?”
Evelyn’s face tightened.
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“I never told them.”
There.
Reason enough to keep her alive.
Not love.
Not mercy.
Information.
May you like
Bianca and Matteo needed the recorder.
Evelyn needed to survive long enough not to reveal it.
