Chapter 3: Letters From the D*ad
Nobody moved.
Claudia's fingers were still wrapped around the doorframe.
Her knuckles had gone white.
Valentino looked at his sister.
"You were there for what?"
"Don't," Loretta said, her voice dropping low.
"Not in front of the child."
Valentino turned to the housekeeper standing near the staircase.
"Mrs.
Holt.
Please take Isolde upstairs."
"Daddy—"
"I'll come up in ten minutes, sweetheart.
I promise."
Mrs.
Holt crossed the floor and gently took Isolde's hand.
The little girl looked back once at her grandmother.
Loretta didn't look at her at all.
The moment they were gone, Valentino closed the distance to his sister in four steps.
"Claudia.
Talk."
Claudia finally released the doorframe.
She walked into the room slowly, like someone entering a courtroom.
She didn't look at Loretta.
She looked at her brother.
"It was two years before Elena d*ed," she said.
"Mama called me to the house in Verona.
She said Elena was hiding something.
That she'd found proof."
"Proof of what?"
"That Elena had been in contact with Father's business partner.
Renato Voss." Claudia paused.
"Mama said the letters showed Elena had been passing information.
Financial records.
Internal documents.
She said Elena was planning to leave you and take Isolde."
Valentino went very still.
"And you believed her," he said.
"I was twenty-four, Valentino.
Mama showed me the letters.
They had Elena's handwriting.
Her signature."
"Where are they now?"
Loretta moved toward the writing desk near the window.
She pulled open the lower drawer and removed a small wooden box.
She set it on the desk without opening it.
"Everything is here," she said.
"Everything Elena was.
Everything she was hiding from you."
Valentino didn't touch the box.
"Why are you showing me this now?"
"Because you just tried to throw me out of this house." Loretta's voice was steady again.
Controlled.
"I want you to understand what I've been protecting you from.
What I've been carrying alone for years so you wouldn't fall apart."
"Protecting me." He repeated the words slowly.
"You had a newborn.
A broken leg.
You were barely holding the company together after your father passed.
What would knowing the truth have done to you?"
"It would have been the truth."
"It would have destroyed you."
Valentino looked at the box for a long moment.
Then he looked at Claudia.
"Did you read them yourself?
Every letter?"
Claudia hesitated.
One second too long.
"Claudia."
"Mama read them to me," she said quietly.
"She said it would be easier that way."
Something shifted in Valentino's face.
Not grief.
Not anger.
Something more careful than either.
He picked up the box.
Opened it.
Removed the first letter.
The handwriting was Elena's.
He would know it anywhere — the slight leftward lean, the way she looped her lowercase g.
He read the first paragraph.
Then the second.
He set the letter down.
"This isn't Elena's signature," he said.
Loretta didn't blink.
"Of course it is."
"Elena signed her name with a double loop on the E.
She did it since she was a girl.
Her mother taught her." He held the letter up.
"This signature has one loop.
One."
The room went quiet.
Claudia stepped closer.
She looked at the signature.
Her face changed.
"Mama," she said softly.
"Where did you actually get these letters?"
Loretta said nothing.
Valentino placed the letter back in the box and closed the lid.
"I'm going to have these examined," he said.
"Every page.
By a forensic document specialist." He picked up the box.
"And until I have that report, you will not set foot in this house."
"You're making a mistake—"
"The bodyguards are still outside." His voice was flat.
"Don't make me call them back in."
Loretta picked up her handbag from the chair.
She moved toward the door with the careful dignity of someone who has not yet decided they've lost.
At the threshold she stopped.
"When the report comes back," she said, "and you realize I was right — don't call me.
I won't answer."
She walked out.
The front door closed.
Claudia stood in the center of the room, staring at the space where their mother had been.
"Valentino," she said.
"What if the letters are real?"
He looked at her.
"Then I'll grieve it.
But I won't grieve it based on her word alone."
He started toward the stairs.
"And Claudia — find out who Renato Voss is.
Find out what he actually had to do with this family."
He was halfway up the staircase when his phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
Unknown number.
One message.
*I have the originals.
May you like
All of them.
Meet me before your mother does.*
