Chapter 4 - A Wife With Her Own Army|
By seven the next morning, Tomasso had ordered a complete security review of the mansion.
Every entrance was checked. Every employee was interviewed. Every vehicle that had entered the grounds during the wedding was identified. He also instructed his attorney to locate the original inventory of Vittorio Barbieri's personal effects.
His chief of security, Marco Bellini, arrived in the study carrying a tablet.
"Nothing unusual on the perimeter," Marco reported. "No unauthorized vehicles. No weapons discovered among the staff."
"Search again."
"We already searched twice."
"Then search a third time."
Marco hesitated.
"Is this about the bride?"
Tomasso looked up.
"Do you have something to say about my wife?"
"No, Don."
"Good. Because I don't pay you to have opinions about her face."
Marco lowered his eyes.
Tomasso regretted the sharpness almost immediately. Marco had been with the family for fifteen years and had saved his life twice. But the sight of Caterina standing beneath that veil, surrounded by people who laughed at her, had unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
He found her in the library.
She wore a simple black dress and had gathered her dark hair into a loose knot. The silver key lay beside a stack of books. She was reading an old shipping ledger as if she had lived in the mansion for years.
"You read Italian accounting records for pleasure?" he asked.
"I read them for survival."
He walked around the desk.
"That ledger belongs to my father."
"Then your father had excellent taste in hiding evidence."
She turned the book toward him. Several pages contained handwritten marks that did not match the printed entries.
"These shipments were recorded twice," she explained. "One set was delivered to the official ports. The other was redirected to private warehouses. The money was divided among companies that don't appear in your current records."
"Who controlled them?"
"That's what I'm trying to determine."
Tomasso leaned over the page.
The handwriting belonged to his father.
He recognized the sharp angle of the capital letters, the small hooks at the ends of certain numbers. As a boy, he had watched Vittorio write business notes at the breakfast table.
"What are you suggesting?"
"That our fathers may have been working together before the war."
"And someone killed them to keep the arrangement secret."
Caterina closed the ledger.
"Now you're thinking."
Tomasso disliked the satisfaction in her voice.
"Don't confuse cooperation with trust."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
A knock sounded at the door. Marco entered carrying a sealed envelope.
"This arrived through the east gate. No return address."
Tomasso opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Caterina leaving the cathedral. Someone had drawn a red circle around her face. On the back, six words had been written in black ink.
Return the bride before midnight.
Marco reached for his radio.
"Lock down the estate."
"Not yet," Tomasso ordered.
He studied the photograph. The picture had been taken from inside the cathedral grounds, meaning the sender had attended the wedding or had access to someone who did.
Caterina took the photograph from him.
"They want me frightened."
"They'll get something else."
"That's the problem with powerful men," she said. "You believe every threat is an invitation to prove you're stronger."
"And you believe every threat is a puzzle."
"At least puzzles can be solved."
She walked to the window and examined the garden below. A groundskeeper was trimming the hedges while two guards patrolled the gravel path.
Then Caterina noticed a black sedan parked outside the far wall.
It had no visible license plate.
"Tomasso."
He followed her gaze.
The sedan's headlights flashed twice.
Then the driver raised a hand to the window.
A small white object appeared between two fingers.
A wedding glove.
Caterina's face lost its color.
Tomasso drew his gun.
The sedan accelerated away before the guards could reach the gate.
Caterina remained motionless.
"Who was that?" he asked.
She swallowed.
"My mother's driver."
"I thought he died years ago."
"So did I."
May you like
She looked down at the glove.
"Which means somebody has been lying to me longer than I thought."
