Chapter 3 - THE IMPRESIO OF GREED
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The silence in the ballroom was so heavy that the faint humming of the air conditioner sounded like a jet engine.
Luca turned away from the guards and looked down at his mother.
He gently tucked a stray wisp of silver hair behind her ear, his touch surprisingly soft for a man known for ruthless violence.
“Marco,” Luca said without looking back.
“Bring the projector screen down.”
The security chief tapped a tablet, and the massive high-definition screen behind the bridal stage hummed to life.
Usually, this screen was reserved for showing romantic montages of the newlyweds during the champagne toast.
Instead, grainy black-and-white surveillance footage from the mansion's private corridors flickered across the canvas.
The timestamp in the corner read yesterday evening, 11:42 p.m.
The guests gasped in unison as the video played.
On the screen, Vanessa was seen walking down the quiet east wing corridor outside Rosa’s private suite.
She wasn't wearing her elegant bridal robe; she wore dark athletic clothes and carried a leather folder.
Behind her crept her younger sister Mia, holding a duplicate of my black maid uniform over her arm.
The camera showed Vanessa slipping a keycard into Rosa’s suite door, unlocking it without knocking.
Two minutes later, the footage captured Mia exiting the room, holding Rosa’s vintage jewelry box and a velvet pouch containing the safe key.
The entire ballroom witnessed the calculated burglary.
Vanessa’s father, Arthur Bellini, a down-on-his-luck real estate developer who had begged Luca for this alliance, stumbled out of his chair.
“Vanessa!” the older man croaked, his hands shaking violently as he looked at his daughter.
“What in God’s name have you done?”
“You told me this marriage was to save our family firm from bankruptcy!”
“You told me Luca offered to absorb our debts as a wedding gift!”
Vanessa sneered, completely dropping the innocent, angelic facade she had maintained for six months.
“Shut up, Father!” she snapped, her voice turning harsh and raspy.
“You were always too weak to take what belonged to you!”
“Luca was never going to give us the Bellini firm back!”
“He was going to control us, just like he controls every other business family in Chicago!”
Luca listened to her outburst without shifting his posture.
“I gave your father ten million dollars last month to clear his gambling debts,” Luca stated evenly.
“I bought your family’s ancestral home off the auction block and put it in your name yesterday.”
“I gave you my name, my protection, and the keys to this estate.”
“And you repay me by robbing a defenseless eighty-three-year-old woman who welcomed you with open arms?”
Vanessa laughed bitterly, a hysterical, ugly sound that echoed off the chandeliers.
“Welcomed me?”
“That old peasant woman sat in her corner smelling of lavender and cheap tomato sauce!”
“She constantly reminded you of your poor childhood!”
“She didn't belong in a palace like this!”
“I am a Bellini!”
“I deserve real power, not scraps tossed from your blood-soaked table!”
Rosa began to weep silently, hiding her face against my shoulder.
“I only wanted her to have some of my homemade cannoli,” Rosa sobbed softly into my uniform.
“I baked them for her yesterday morning to make her feel loved.”
The heartbreak in the elderly woman’s voice struck the entire room like a physical blow.
Even the hardened mafia lieutenants standing near the bar looked down in disgust at Vanessa.
Luca stepped closer to his bride until their eyes were level.
“My mother cleaned motel rooms with bleeding fingers so I could go to private school,” he whispered, his voice deadly quiet.
“She ate stale bread so I could have fresh milk.”
“Every brick in this empire was paid for by her sacrifice.”
“You aren't fit to sweep the dust from beneath her shoes.”
Vanessa crossed her arms, defying him with desperate arrogance.
“It doesn't matter what you say now, Luca.”
“The money is already gone.”
“Mia is boarding a private jet chartered under a shell corporation as we speak.”
“The funds have been split into four foreign accounts that your thugs can’t touch.”
“By midnight, the Bellini name will be untouchable in Zurich.”
Luca looked at his watch.
“It is currently 9:15 p.m., Vanessa.”
“You think you are clever because you used a forged power of attorney and a corrupt notary.”
“You think you understand how this world works because your father ran bankrupt country clubs.”
Luca snapped his fingers toward Marco.
“Bring in the estate notary.”
The rear side door opened, and two guards dragged in a sweating, disheveled man in a wrinkled gray suit.
It was Harold Finch, the prominent city notary whose official seal appeared on the document declaring Rosa incompetent.
Finch fell to his knees on the marble, shaking so hard his spectacles slipped off his nose.
“Mr. Moretti, please!” Finch wailed, clutching his hands together in prayer.
“They threatened my family!”
“Mia showed me photos of my daughter’s school!”
“I had no choice!”
Luca didn't look at Finch; his eyes remained fixed on Vanessa’s freezing face.
“In my world, Vanessa, there is one rule that rises above all laws and all contracts,” Luca said softly.
May you like
“You never, under any circumstance, touch a mother.”
“Now, tell me where your sister is heading, or we will discover how durable the Bellini family truly is.”
