Chapter 3 - THE LETTER ENZO NEVER SENT
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Vittorio stared at the photograph until the words blurred.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, DO NOT TRUST MY WIFE.
His father had written them.
Not an enemy.
Not an investigator.
Not a jealous relative.
Enzo DeLuca.
A man who had shared a bedroom, a home, a family, and forty-one years of marriage with Bernadette.
Vittorio sent Marco one message.
Open it.
Two minutes later, photographs of the letter arrived.
The handwriting was shaky in places, but unmistakable.
Sofia,
If you are reading this, then either I finally found the courage to give it to you, or somebody found it after I failed.
You asked me three weeks ago whether Bernadette was capable of hurting someone to protect the family.
I lied.
I told you no.
The truth is I no longer know what she is capable of.
For years I believed the strange illnesses, accidents, and disappearances around this family were coincidences.
I do not believe that anymore.
The page ended.
Vittorio’s fingers became cold.
A second photograph arrived.
Enzo continued.
Bernadette keeps records.
Blue ledger. Brass lock.
I saw names inside.
Dates.
Medications.
Payments.
Your name was there.
So was Vittorio’s.
So was mine.
I confronted her and she laughed at me.
She said every great family survives because someone is willing to do what weaker people cannot.
Do not confront her alone.
Do not tell Vittorio until you have proof.
He loves his mother and will not believe you.
That sentence hurt because it was true.
Nine years earlier, Vittorio would not have believed it.
Three years earlier, before Sofia died, perhaps he still would not have believed it.
A third page.
There is something else you need to know about Matteo.
Vittorio stopped reading.
His older brother.
Matteo had disappeared when Vittorio was seventeen.
The official family story was simple.
Matteo had taken money.
Left the country.
Cut contact.
Bernadette refused to discuss him.
Enzo had once told Vittorio that his brother had chosen greed over family.
Vittorio had spent twenty-eight years hating Matteo for abandoning them.
The next photograph loaded.
Matteo did not steal from us.
He discovered something.
Bernadette knows what.
I helped her bury the truth because I was a coward.
For that, God will judge me.
If I can correct even one thing before I die, I will.
There is a storage unit in Queens registered through St. Alden Holdings.
Unit 314.
Key taped beneath the third drawer of my workshop desk.
Whatever remains there belongs to Matteo.
Please find it before Bernadette does.
The letter ended.
Vittorio sat motionless.
Matteo.
His brother.
The name he had not spoken aloud in years.
The man Bernadette referred to only as “the one who betrayed us.”
A nurse entered.
“Mr. DeLuca?”
He immediately locked his phone.
“Yes?”
“Your son is sleeping comfortably. His repeat numbers are improving.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled gently.
“He’s lucky.”
Vittorio looked at Luca.
“No.”
The nurse paused.
“He has people who love him.”
“Yes,” Vittorio said quietly.
“He does.”
After she left, Vittorio called Marco.
“Unit 314.”
“I saw it.”
“Find out whether it still exists.”
“I have someone checking.”
“Not someone. You.”
Marco understood.
“You want me there personally.”
“I trust exactly three people tonight.”
“Who are the other two?”
“My son.”
Marco almost smiled.
“And?”
Vittorio stared through the window.
“I haven’t decided.”
At the estate, Bernadette remained confined to the library.
But she was no longer asking politely to leave.
She was making calls.
Security had already taken her phone, but Bernadette knew how to turn servants into messengers.
Twice she had asked a housekeeper to contact her attorney.
Once she had ordered a gardener to bring her car keys.
When Marco’s deputy refused, Bernadette threatened to fire every member of the security staff.
She seemed increasingly desperate.
At 2:12 a.m., Marco called again.
“The storage company still exists.”
“The unit?”
“Active.”
“Who pays for it?”
“St. Alden Holdings. Automatic annual payment.”
“Who owns St. Alden?”
“A shell corporation.”
“Beneficial owner?”
“We’re tracing it.”
“Go.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“Take two men.”
Marco hesitated.
“Police?”
“Not yet.”
“Vittorio, if the letter is real and your mother harmed Luca—”
“I said not yet.”
Marco fell silent.
Vittorio lowered his voice.
“I am not protecting her. I am protecting the evidence. If Bernadette has survived this long by controlling stories, I want the full story before she knows what we have.”
“Understood.”
At 4:41 a.m., Vittorio’s phone rang.
Marco.
“We opened the unit.”
“What’s there?”
“Boxes.”
“How many?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Documents?”
“Yes. Photographs. Bank records. Old tapes. Medical files.”
Vittorio closed his eyes.
“Matteo?”
“We found his passport.”
Vittorio’s heart stopped.
“What?”
“Old passport. Driver’s license. College identification.”
“Anything recent?”
“No.”
“Any indication where he went?”
“Not yet.”
Marco’s tone shifted.
“But there’s something you need to know.”
“What?”
“Some of these boxes aren’t Matteo’s.”
“Whose?”
“Your father’s.”
“How do you know?”
“His handwriting. Personal records.”
“What kind of records?”
“A private diary.”
Vittorio sat straighter.
“Read it.”
“I only opened the first pages.”
“And?”
“Enzo believed your mother was making him sick.”
Vittorio said nothing.
“He wrote about dizziness. Weakness. Confusion. Then feeling better whenever Bernadette traveled.”
Vittorio remembered his father’s final year.
Enzo had become fragile.
Forgetful.
Sometimes angry.
The family doctor blamed age and heart disease.
Bernadette had insisted Enzo could no longer manage company affairs.
Within months, she gained signing authority.
Six weeks later, Enzo died.
“Anything else?”
“There’s a list of dates.”
“Of what?”
“Every time Enzo became ill.”
“Match them to Bernadette.”
“Already doing it.”
Marco hesitated.
“Vittorio, there’s a photograph in one of the boxes.”
“Of?”
“Matteo.”
“When?”
“The date is twenty-eight years ago.”
“What’s unusual?”
“He isn’t alone.”
“Who’s with him?”
“Your mother.”
Vittorio frowned.
“That proves nothing.”
“They’re outside a motel in Connecticut.”
“So?”
“The family said Matteo disappeared from New York the night before.”
Vittorio went still.
“Meaning my mother saw him after he supposedly vanished.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else in the photograph?”
“A car.”
“Whose?”
“Your father’s.”
“Plate?”
“Visible.”
“So Enzo was there too.”
“Possibly.”
Vittorio’s mind returned to the letter.
I helped her bury the truth because I was a coward.
“What happened to Matteo?”
“We don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Marco remained silent.
“Say it.”
“There’s another box.”
“Go on.”
“Marked M-17.”
“What’s inside?”
“Clothes.”
Vittorio’s throat tightened.
“What kind?”
“A man’s jacket. Shirt. Watch.”
“Matteo’s?”
“The watch has his initials.”
Vittorio stood.
“Anything on the clothes?”
Marco did not answer immediately.
“Marco.”
“There are old brown stains.”
Vittorio’s voice dropped.
“Blood?”
“Could be.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“And somebody stored them for twenty-eight years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Vittorio looked at Luca.
Every instinct told him to go to Queens immediately.
But he could not leave his son.
Not yet.
“What else?”
“A cassette tape.”
“Label?”
“Just one word.”
“What word?”
“Bernadette.”
“Can you play it?”
“We found an old recorder in the unit.”
“Do it.”
Several minutes passed.
Vittorio heard static over the phone.
Then a young man’s voice.
Matteo.
Even after almost three decades, Vittorio recognized him instantly.
The recording was muffled.
Probably made secretly.
Matteo said, “You can’t keep doing this.”
Bernadette’s younger voice answered.
“You don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“I saw the ledger.”
Vittorio stopped breathing.
“What did you see?” Bernadette asked.
“Names. Dad’s business partner. Aunt Rosa. Mr. Larkin. All those people who got sick right before they signed things over.”
“Lower your voice.”
“You did it.”
“Matteo—”
“You hurt them.”
A chair scraped.
Then Bernadette spoke again, colder.
“You are a child who has mistaken fragments for truth.”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“And still stupid.”
“I’m telling Dad.”
“He already knows enough.”
Static.
Then Matteo said something that made Vittorio’s knees weaken.
“If anything happens to me, I already sent copies.”
Silence.
Bernadette replied.
“To whom?”
“I’m not telling you.”
The recording ended.
Marco spoke.
“That’s all.”
Vittorio’s mind raced.
“If Matteo sent copies twenty-eight years ago—”
“They may still exist.”
“Find out who he trusted.”
“We’ll pull school records, friends, attorneys, girlfriends.”
“Everything.”
Vittorio ended the call.
At dawn, Luca woke.
He looked tired but better.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Are we going home?”
“Not yet.”
“Is Grandma there?”
Vittorio paused.
“Yes.”
Luca looked toward the hospital window.
“She gets scary when people find her stuff.”
Vittorio turned slowly.
“What do you mean?”
Luca picked at the blanket.
“Last month I found Mommy’s necklace in Grandma’s closet.”
Vittorio’s blood ran cold.
“What necklace?”
“The silver one with the little moon.”
Sofia had been wearing that necklace the night she died.
It had never been found.
Vittorio had assumed hospital staff lost it.
“Are you sure?”
Luca nodded.
“Grandma said it was hers.”
“What happened after you saw it?”
“She got mad.”
“Did she do anything?”
Luca became quiet.
“Luca.”
“She made me drink medicine because she said I was too excited.”
Vittorio could hear his heartbeat.
“Did you get sick afterward?”
“A little.”
“How many times has Grandma given you medicine?”
His son thought.
“I don’t know.”
“More than once?”
Luca nodded.
And suddenly the horrifying truth expanded again.
May you like
The birthday tea was not Bernadette’s first attempt.
It was only the first time Vittorio had been watching.
