Chapter 2 - Helena’s Last Warning
Emilio stared at his father as if the words had changed the shape of the room.
“That’s a lie.”
Giovanni did not react.
Clarissa did.
Her eyes flicked to the side door.
Lucia saw it.
So did Marco.
He quietly moved in front of the exit.
Emilio laughed once, sharp and nervous. “Mom was on morphine. She barely knew what day it was.”
Lucia stepped toward him. “She knew my name.”
“She always knew your name.”
“She knew yours too.”
The words landed harder than the slap.
Father Matteo, the old priest who had known Helena for thirty years, closed his prayer book. “She was lucid for several minutes on Tuesday night.”
Emilio turned. “You were there?”
“I gave her the sacrament.”
“And she talked about suitcases?”
“No.” Matteo’s face was tired. “She talked about fear.”
Clarissa shifted again.
Giovanni pointed to a long table beside the chapel wall. “Open the bags.”
Emilio’s expression changed. “You don’t get to search me like some employee.”
“You walked into my wife’s funeral carrying something she warned me about. Today, I get to do whatever keeps this family alive.”
“Alive?” Emilio scoffed. “Listen to yourself.”
Lucia looked down at the portrait she was holding.
Her mother’s smile stared back at her from a photograph taken the previous Christmas. Helena had been wearing a dark green dress and a small gold cross.
Lucia suddenly remembered something.
Tuesday night, in the hospital, Helena had gripped her wrist and whispered, “Keep my picture close.”
At the time, Lucia thought she meant emotionally.
Now she looked at the back of the frame.
There was a tiny brass latch that had not been there before.
“Dad.”
Giovanni turned.
Lucia set the portrait on a chair and opened the latch with trembling fingers.
A narrow compartment popped loose.
Inside was a blue key.
Not a house key.
A bank-deposit key with the number 314 stamped into the metal.
Giovanni’s face changed.
Clarissa whispered, “Oh my God.”
Lucia looked up.
“You know what this is?”
“No.”
“You sounded like you did.”
“I was surprised.”
Giovanni held out his hand.
Lucia gave him the key.
He turned it over once, then looked at Father Matteo.
“Did Helena give you anything?”
The priest hesitated.
Emilio noticed. “What is going on?”
Matteo walked toward the altar and reached beneath the folded cloth on a small side table. He removed a sealed envelope.
Helena’s handwriting was on the front.
FOR GIOVANNI, LUCIA, AND EMILIO — TOGETHER.
Emilio went pale.
Clarissa tried to step closer.
Giovanni stopped her with one look.
“This is family.”
“I’m his fiancée.”
“You are not my wife’s child.”
Emilio clenched his fists. “She stays.”
Lucia snapped, “Then open the suitcase.”
“Stop talking to her like she’s a criminal.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
Emilio moved toward Lucia.
Giovanni stepped between them.
“Enough.”
He broke the seal.
Inside was a single sheet of cream paper.
His eyes moved across Helena’s handwriting.
Then he read aloud.
“My loves. If you are reading this before I come home, then I was right to be afraid.”
Nobody breathed.
“Three months ago, I discovered money missing from the Vescari Family Foundation. Not thousands. Millions.”
Emilio’s face emptied.
Lucia stared at him.
Giovanni continued.
“The transfers were authorized using my signature and Emilio’s access code.”
Emilio exploded. “I didn’t steal from her!”
Helena’s letter continued in Giovanni’s hand.
“I did not confront Emilio because I no longer know whether he is the thief, the victim, or the door someone else is using.”
Clarissa’s lips parted.
Then Giovanni reached the final paragraph.
His voice slowed.
“The proof is in Box 314. But if Clarissa is still beside my son when this is opened, do not trust anything she says about the island.”
Emilio turned toward Clarissa.
Her face had become unreadable.
“The island?” he whispered.
Clarissa said nothing.
Giovanni folded the letter.
Then, from inside Clarissa’s suitcase, a cell phone began to ring.
Not Clarissa’s phone.
A second phone.
A hidden one.
And the ringtone was a recording of Helena’s voice.
The next chapters are on the left side of your screen.
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