Chapter 3 - The Night Isabella Died
The accusation worked.
Lucas looked at Elena differently.
Not as an enemy.
Not yet.
But as a person who had withheld something enormous.
“When did you last see my mother?”
Elena’s hands folded slowly.
“Eleven forty that night.”
Bianca leaned back.
“Mom collapsed before one.”
Lucas’s jaw tightened.
“What happened?”
Elena looked at the notebook.
“Isabella called me at nine seventeen.”
“You remember the time?”
“I remember everything about that night.”
Isabella had sounded frightened.
Not physically ill.
Angry.
She told Elena to come to the old Mercer Street atelier.
Moretti Atelier had already moved most operations uptown, but Isabella kept the first studio because she could not bring herself to sell it.
Elena arrived at ten.
Isabella was alone.
“She showed me the stock ledger.”
Elena’s voice softened.
“She apologized.”
“For what?”
“For waiting twenty years to admit she knew her father had cheated me.”
Bianca interrupted.
“That’s not what happened.”
Elena ignored her.
Lucas said, “Keep going.”
Isabella had discovered more than the redemption agreement.
She found correspondence showing Carlo instructed counsel to prepare two versions of the company history for an early lender.
One included Elena as co-founder.
The other did not.
She also found unpaid profit participation schedules.
“What did she want to do?” Lucas asked.
“Restore part of my ownership.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-five percent.”
Bianca scoffed.
“She was going to give away a quarter of our company?”
“It wasn’t yours.”
Bianca’s face flashed with rage.
Elena continued.
Isabella had already asked outside counsel to prepare a settlement and stock-transfer package.
“She wanted to sign it the next morning.”
Lucas frowned.
“Then why the notebook?”
“She said Bianca had found out.”
Lucas looked toward his sister.
Bianca’s face remained still.
Elena continued.
“Isabella was afraid documents would disappear.”
“Why would Bianca take them?”
Bianca stood.
“Because there were no documents!”
Lucas snapped, “Sit down.”
Bianca stared.
He had rarely spoken to her that way.
She slowly sat.
Elena said, “Your mother gave me the notebook because it contained the original sketches, payment records, photographs, and notes.”
“And the envelope for me?”
“She added that before I left.”
Lucas looked at the sealed yellow envelope.
“You never delivered it.”
Elena lowered her eyes.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because she died.”
“That seems like a reason to deliver it.”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt.
Elena continued.
“At twelve thirty, Bianca called me.”
Lucas turned.
Bianca said nothing.
“She told me Isabella had collapsed.”
Elena went to NewYork-Presbyterian.
Isabella was unconscious.
A cerebral aneurysm had ruptured.
Doctors operated.
She died at 4:18 a.m.
No poison.
No assault.
No mystery in the medical record.
Just catastrophic bleeding.
Lucas remembered the night.
He had been twenty-six, living in London, overseeing European licensing.
By the time he reached New York, Isabella was dead.
Bianca had been in the city.
Bianca had handled the apartment.
The atelier.
The private files.
The funeral.
Lucas had thanked her for being strong.
Elena continued.
“The morning after Isabella died, Bianca came to my apartment.”
Lucas’s face tightened.
“What did you want?” he asked his sister.
Bianca said nothing.
Elena answered.
“The notebook.”
“Why?”
“She said it belonged to the family.”
“It did,” Bianca said.
Elena looked at her.
“Isabella gave it to me.”
“You cannot prove that.”
“I can.”
Elena turned to a page near the back.
Isabella had written:
10:58 p.m. — Gave Elena black notebook and Lucas envelope. She keeps both until settlement executed or counsel directs otherwise.
Below it was Isabella’s signature.
Lucas touched the page.
Bianca laughed.
“My mother wrote notes constantly. That doesn’t establish delivery.”
Lucas looked up.
“You came to Elena’s apartment?”
Bianca folded her arms.
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“That she should return family property.”
“Anything else?”
Elena answered before Bianca could.
“She said if I went to Lucas, she would tell police I stole archival designs the night Isabella died.”
Lucas stared.
Bianca’s voice hardened.
“You did take company property.”
“Your mother handed it to me.”
“You had no right.”
“And you knew what was inside.”
“No.”
Elena opened another page.
A note from Isabella:
B confronted me about ER settlement. Says restoring shares will destroy Lucas’s financing plan and dilute her inheritance. Told her this is not inheritance. It is correction.
Lucas read slowly.
He remembered the financing plan.
He had been negotiating a major licensing expansion in Europe.
The deal depended on family retaining a certain ownership percentage.
If Isabella had transferred twenty-five percent to Elena, the structure would have changed.
Not necessarily killed.
Changed.
Bianca had known.
Lucas looked at his sister.
“You thought Elena’s ownership would jeopardize my deal?”
“I thought Mom was panicking.”
“About what?”
“Guilt.”
Bianca finally leaned forward.
“You want context? Fine. Mom was sick with guilt because Grandpa died six months earlier. She went through his files and decided every ugly thing he ever did had to be repaired immediately.”
“Elena’s forged signature was an ugly thing,” Lucas said.
“If it was forged.”
Elena’s eyes narrowed.
Bianca turned to Lucas.
“And Mom was going to destabilize the company days before your European financing closed.”
“So you stopped her?”
“I argued with her.”
“What else?”
“Nothing.”
Elena whispered, “You took the blue folder.”
Bianca froze.
Lucas noticed.
“What blue folder?”
“The stock-transfer papers.”
Bianca laughed.
“There was no folder.”
“There was.”
“Where?”
“On Isabella’s desk when I left.”
Lucas leaned forward.
“And after she died?”
“Gone.”
He looked at Bianca.
She stood again.
“This woman is accusing me of theft based on something supposedly missing for seventeen years.”
Elena said, “Not theft.”
Bianca turned.
“What?”
“Concealment.”
Bianca’s face tightened.
Lucas stood.
“Enough for tonight.”
He took the notebook.
Elena immediately reached for it.
“No.”
“It stays with me.”
“Isabella gave it to me.”
“And it concerns my company.”
Elena rose.
“Your company?”
The words stopped him.
She had been quiet for years.
Not anymore.
Lucas looked at the notebook.
Then back at her.
“Our company,” he corrected.
Elena stared.
Lucas continued.
“Until we know otherwise.”
Bianca laughed bitterly.
“That’s all it takes? An old woman walks in with a scrapbook and suddenly she owns Moretti?”
Elena looked at her.
“No.”
She picked up the torn ivory fabric.
“This is what it took.”
She held up the hidden label.
“You tore open the one seam nobody had opened since 1990.”
And Bianca finally understood the cruel symmetry.
May you like
She had tried to humiliate Elena.
Instead, she had torn open the first piece of evidence herself.
