CHAPTER THREE
Later in the evening, Alessia stood in the east wing of the villa — the air still and undisturbed. The old study smelled faintly of varnished wood and time. Her father hadn’t used this room in years, but he hadn’t stripped it either. He’d left it intact, as though expecting to return. Or maybe daring someone to look. She knelt by the lower cabinet and pulled open a carved panel. Behind it: hard drives, tapes, and a modest console. The villa’s private surveillance archive. She powered it on. The monitor blinked to life, flickering softly. Files lined the screen, dated and logged like obedient soldiers. She scrolled to the footage from the week before her father's death.
Nothing but routine movement.
Giuliana leaving late again, always on the phone.
A groundskeeper smoking behind the garage.
The fountain flickering off too early.
She went back further.Three months. Six. A year.
Then she noticed it.
Entire days missing. Blank folders. Time-stamped files with no video. As if someone had erased the house’s memory selectively, but not carefully. Her fingers hovered over the mouse. She clicked one of the surviving clips.
A hallway.
Nighttime.
Dim.
A figure passed quickly — too quickly — but not unfamiliar.She froze the frame. Zoomed.
There.
Sharp jawline. Dark coat. Eyes just slightly toward the lens.
“Matteo,” she murmured aloud, the word tasting foreign on her tongue.
She rewound the tape. There he was again. Another year. Another hallway. She sat back, whispering to the empty room, “Why were you here?”
No one answered, of course. The only voice in the room now was hers. She stared at the paused screen. Her father had known him. Long before the funeral. Long before her. And clearly, Matteo had known this house well enough to leave no footprints.
She spent the next hour scrubbing through years of footage. Birthday months. Winters. Even dates she couldn’t explain why she remembered — just that something had felt off. And he was there. Not always clearly. Not always facing the camera. But enough.
A shoulder disappearing down a corridor.
A flash of a ringed hand at the garden gate.
Once, a full silhouette reflected in the glass as Giuliana passed by, unaware.
Alessia paused again. This frame was clearer — the side of his face visible, hair slightly longer, skin smoother. Younger. But it was him. Same quiet posture. Same calculated distance.
“What were you doing here?” she whispered, narrowing her eyes. “How far back does this go?”
A beep sounded as the next file refused to load — corrupted. She clicked another. Matteo again. This time, walking behind her father. This wasn’t coincidence. She reached for her phone and dialed Vallenti’s private line. It rang twice before he answered.
“Miss Moretti?”
“Matteo Bianchi,” she said, not bothering with pleasantries. “Was he employed by my father?”
A pause.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“I didn’t ask for permission,” Alessia replied coldly. “I asked for confirmation.”
“I’ll… look into it,” Vallenti said, his tone measured.
She hung up without responding. The screen still showed the frame — Matteo in shadow, just behind her father, gaze tilted toward the camera like he knew exactly where it was. Whatever Matteo was, he hadn’t just appeared.
He’d been waiting.
Alessia sat in silence, the room around her dimming as the sun finally disappeared behind the hills of Florence. The glow from the monitor cast long shadows across the walls, making everything feel older — haunted, almost. She let the final clip play out, the faint hum of static filling the room as Matteo’s figure faded into the dark.
No timestamp.
No explanation.
Just presence.
She closed the footage and shut the cabinet, the soft click echoing like a lock sealing shut. Her father was dead. The will was incomplete. Giuliana was still breathing. And Matteo Bianchi had been in her house long before the grave was dug. She didn’t know what it meant yet. But whatever this was, it hadn’t started with her. And it wouldn’t end kindly.
A private car pulled up just after noon, slow and sleek against the rain-washed gravel. The staff hesitated at the door when they saw her — not quite surprised, but not eager either. Giuliana De Luca stepped out dressed in mourning black, tailored and deliberate. Not a hair out of place. Alessia watched from the upstairs window as the woman walked into the house she once ruled like it still belonged to her.
She arrived without calling first.
She didn’t knock.
Later, Alessia found her in the sunroom with a glass of white wine and a fashion magazine she wasn’t reading. As if she had always been there.
“I need to speak with you,” Alessia said, voice controlled.
Giuliana smiled, the expression just wide enough to pass for warmth. “Of course, cara. You’re home now. Ask anything.”
“I’m not here for hospitality.”
“Clearly,” Giuliana murmured, folding the magazine. “But go on.”
Alessia didn’t sit. “How did you meet my father?”
Giuliana raised an eyebrow, as if amused by the question. “Ah. You want the beginning.”
“I want the truth.”
Giuliana rested her glass on the arm of the chair. “I was nineteen. Your father needed a translator in Milan. I was fluent, ambitious, and inconveniently attractive. What was meant to be three days turned into… well, this.”
“You were hired.”
Giuliana gave a light laugh. “We were all hired, Alessia. At one point or another.”
“You moved in before my mother was gone.”
“She left long before her luggage did,” Giuliana said, lifting her glass again. “Dario couldn’t stand silence. He filled it with people. I simply lasted longer than most.”
“And Matteo?”
Giuliana’s eyes flickered, just for a second.
“He was around. On the payroll, off the books. I never asked questions that wouldn’t be answered.”
“You were that loyal?”
“I was that smart.”
She stood, smooth and unbothered, and began walking toward the door. “You want answers, Alessia, but your father buried them deeper than you know. Dig if you must. Just don’t be surprised when you don’t like what you find.”
Alessia said nothing. She just watched her go, the echo of her heels disappearing into the corridor behind her.