Chapter 9 - The Engagement Party That Became a Trial
The invitation arrived in a cream envelope embossed with two gold initials: D and C.
Lena wanted to tear it in half.
Instead, she laid it on Dante's desk and watched him read the elegant script. The Bellini family requested his presence at a private reception in the ballroom of the Saint Aurelia Hotel, where the engagement party would proceed as planned.
“That's not an invitation,” Lena said. “It's a threat in expensive stationery.”
Dante looked up. “You have a way with words.”
“I'm serious.”
“So am I.”
His attorneys had warned him not to attend. Marco had warned him that the ballroom could be secured only with difficulty. Isabella had begged him to stay away. Yet Celeste's photograph of the ledger page contained something no one could explain: Dante's signature authorizing a transfer made two days after the yacht explosion, when he had been unconscious in a hospital.
Someone had forged his name. Someone had used his companies to move money while he fought for his life. And the evidence could connect the Bellinis to the original attack.
Lena helped Marco assemble a different plan. Investigators would receive copies of everything before the event. A neutral security firm would handle the perimeter. Dante would enter with his attorneys, and no one would be permitted to separate him from his team.
“You're not going as a maid,” Dante told Lena.
“Good. I quit being invisible.”
He smiled. “I noticed.”
She chose a midnight-blue dress that fit her body without apology. The fabric followed her curves, and for once she did not spend an hour trying to disguise them. When she emerged from the dressing room, Dante looked at her for a long moment.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No.” His voice grew rough. “You look like yourself. I don't think I've ever seen anything more beautiful.”
Lena's cheeks warmed. “Careful, Mr. Vale. People will talk.”
“Let them talk about something true.”
The Saint Aurelia ballroom glittered with chandeliers and polished silver. A string quartet played near the windows. Politicians, financiers, and wealthy families stood in clusters, their smiles tightening when Dante entered with Lena beside him.
Celeste approached in a red gown, a diamond necklace at her throat. Her gaze moved from Dante to Lena and stopped.
“You brought the help,” she said.
Lena held her gaze. “I came as a guest.”
Celeste gave a brittle laugh. “Of course you did.”
Dante's expression remained calm. “Where is the original ledger?”
“You always were impatient.”
“And you always mistook delay for control.”
Celeste stepped closer. “If you want answers, dance with me.”
The request was so cruelly calculated that Lena felt her stomach twist. Several guests turned to watch. Celeste knew Dante could not stand. She had chosen a public room, music, and an audience to make refusal look like humiliation.
Dante did not lower his eyes.
“No,” he said. “You don't get to use my disability as a spectacle.”
A hush fell over the nearby tables.
Celeste's smile faltered. “Dante, I only meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
He turned his chair toward the center of the ballroom, where a large screen had been prepared for a montage of the couple's happier years. Marco spoke quietly into his earpiece. The music stopped.
On the screen appeared a document: the forged transfer, followed by a hospital record showing Dante was unconscious at the time of the supposed signature. Then came an image of a payment from a Bellini-controlled account to Dr. Soren's consulting firm.
The guests began murmuring.
Dante addressed the room. “These records have already been provided to independent investigators. I am not asking you to decide guilt tonight. I am asking you to stop treating rumors as proof and wealth as immunity.”
Victor Bellini rose from the head table, his face crimson.
“You have no idea what you're doing,” he shouted.
“I'm telling the truth in a room where you've bought too much silence.”
Victor's hand moved toward his pocket. Security closed in before he could take anything out. He drew a phone and began shouting into it, demanding that the hotel shut down the presentation.
Celeste remained motionless. Then she turned toward Lena.
“You think he loves you?” she whispered. “You think a man like Dante Vale knows how to love anyone?”
Lena felt the old instinct to shrink. Instead, she answered quietly.
“I don't need to win him from you. He gets to choose his own life.”
Celeste's eyes filled with something more complicated than anger.
“You don't understand,” she said. “My father doesn't lose.”
Before Lena could respond, the ballroom doors opened. Two investigators entered with a court-authorized warrant for records held by the hotel. Victor began protesting. Guests moved back, some reaching for their phones, others fleeing toward the elevators.
In the confusion, Celeste seized Lena's arm.
“Listen to me. If you want Isabella alive, don't let her go back to that house.”
Lena stared. “What have you done?”
Celeste released her. “I tried to save her once. That's why my father kept me close.”
Then she disappeared through a service door.
By the time Marco reached it, she was gone.
May you like
Dante's phone rang. Isabella's security detail was calling from the safe house.
“Sir,” the guard said, breathless, “we have a problem. Mrs. Vale is missing.”
