Chapter 6: The Brother Who Came Early
I moved back from the window before he looked up.
My heart was going too fast.
I pressed myself against the wall beside the glass and counted to five and then looked again, carefully, from the edge of the frame.
Dante Bellini was shorter than his sister.
Broader.
He had the same dark hair and the same quality of stillness, but where Vanessa's stillness felt like performance, his felt like patience.
The kind of patience that comes from being willing to wait as long as necessary.
He was here two days before the wedding.
He was not supposed to be here at all.
I picked up my phone and typed to the number Luca had used.
*Dante Bellini just arrived at the front gate.
He has a briefcase.*
The reply came in forty seconds.
*I see him.
Don't come downstairs.
Don't open your door unless it's Mrs.
Patel.*
I sat on the edge of the bed.
Downstairs, I heard the front door open.
Heard Vanessa's voice — higher than usual, surprised — and then Dante's voice, lower, saying something I couldn't make out.
Then footsteps moving toward the back of the house.
Toward Luca's study.
I thought about the document.
The one Vanessa had taken from the bottom drawer.
The one with the wedding date written on the back and six words underneath it that I hadn't been able to stop thinking about since I'd first heard them described.
*Do it before he says I do.*
I'd assumed it meant Luca.
That the plan was to do something to Luca before Saturday.
But sitting in that room, listening to Dante's footsteps move through the house below me, I started to wonder if I'd understood it correctly.
*Do it.* Sign it.
Transfer it.
Force it.
Not a threat against a person.
A deadline on a document.
The briefcase.
I stood up.
I knew I wasn't supposed to leave the room.
I knew Luca had been clear.
But I also knew that whatever was in that briefcase, Dante hadn't driven to this house two days early to drop it off and leave.
He was here to watch it happen.
To make sure Vanessa finished what she'd started.
I opened the door quietly and moved into the corridor.
Mrs.
Patel's room was at the far end.
Her door was closed.
I didn't knock.
The back staircase was narrower than the main one and came out near the kitchen.
I'd used it a hundred times carrying trays.
I knew which step creaked — the fourth from the bottom — and I skipped it.
The kitchen was empty.
The door to the study was closed.
But the hallway that ran beside it had a heating vent near the floor, and sound traveled through old houses in ways the people who built them never intended.
I crouched beside the vent.
Dante's voice first.
"—can't wait until Saturday.
He's already asking questions."
Vanessa: "He doesn't know anything."
"He pulled the hallway cameras, Vanessa."
A pause.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I have someone on his security team.
I've had someone on his security team for four months." Dante's voice was flat.
Not angry.
Informational.
"He pulled footage from yesterday afternoon.
He knows about the linen room."
Silence.
Then Vanessa, quieter: "He hasn't said anything."
"That's worse.
That means he's waiting." The briefcase clicked open.
"Which is why we're doing this today.
Not Saturday.
Today."
"The document isn't—"
"I had it redrawn.
It's in here.
All it needs is his signature."
"He won't sign it."
"He will," Dante said, "if the alternative is worse."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"What alternative?" Vanessa asked.
"The housemaid," Dante said.
"Claire Dawson.
She took those photographs.
That makes her a liability.
And Luca Moretti has a very specific weakness when it comes to people he feels responsible for." The briefcase clicked again.
"We use her.
He signs.
We're done by tonight."
My hand was flat against the wall.
I could feel my pulse in my bandaged fingers.
Upstairs, a door opened.
Luca's footsteps on the main staircase.
Measured.
May you like
Unhurried.
Coming down.
