Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN IN RED RETURNS
The day Vanessa Bellini appeared in court, I wore a dark green dress that hid the worst of the scars on my leg.
Not because I was ashamed of them. I simply wanted to decide which parts of my body belonged to the public that morning. Aunt Marlene helped me fasten the buttons while I sat in my wheelchair. Maya had arranged an accessible entrance and explained where I could wait if I needed a break.
“You don't have to look at her,” she reminded me.
“I know.”
“And you're not responsible for how the case is handled.”
“I know that too.”
She gave me a skeptical glance. “Do you actually believe it?”
“I'm working on it.”
The courthouse smelled of wet coats and copier toner. Lawyers moved through the corridors carrying files. Families sat on wooden benches, waiting for cases that would never become headlines. I had expected something grander after reading so many articles about the Morettis. Instead there were vending machines, a broken water fountain, and a security officer who told Aunt Marlene her knitting needles couldn't come inside.
“Then what am I supposed to do during all this waiting?” my aunt demanded.
“Talk to your niece,” the officer suggested.
“She'll charge me by the hour.”
I laughed, and the tension loosened just enough for me to breathe.
The public hearing involved certain charges arising from the attempted removal of Lily and the violence at the estate. Other trust matters remained before a separate court with sealed or restricted records. Maya explained those differences twice because reporters in the hallway were already speaking as though one appearance would decide everything.
Vanessa entered wearing a navy suit and a face carefully arranged into injured dignity. Her hair was pulled into a neat knot. Without the red engagement gown, she might have been mistaken for an ordinary professional woman attending an unpleasant appointment. Then she saw me.
Her gaze dropped to the wheelchair, the supported leg, and the scar visible above my ankle.
For a second, something like annoyance crossed her face.
I remembered her shouting that I was disgusting while I crawled across the marble floor. I placed both hands on my lap so she wouldn't see them tremble.
Luca arrived a few minutes later with Rina and Daniel. He didn't approach me until Maya nodded that it was all right. He stopped beside my chair, not behind it.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
“I came because I wanted to hear what's said in my name.”
He nodded. “That makes sense.”
We had not seen each other in person for several weeks. He looked tired. There were new lines beside his mouth, and he had stopped wearing the heavy signet ring that used to flash beneath the dining room lights. He still had wealth and power, but he no longer seemed certain those things could fix everything if he spoke firmly enough.
“Lily stayed home from school today,” he told me. “Dr. Vale suggested a quiet morning. She's making a cardboard town with Mrs. Carter.”
“Does it have roads?”
“She says the roads must belong to everybody.”
“Smart girl.”
He smiled briefly. Then the clerk called the case, and we went inside.
The court did not become a theater for Luca's anger. The attorneys discussed charges, evidence preservation, representation, and dates. Vanessa's counsel challenged the accounts presented by the prosecution and stated that his client denied wrongdoing. He questioned whether the paperwork had been misunderstood and whether the injury in the garage resulted from an unauthorized employee entering a secured area.
I gripped the edge of my chair when he said it.
Maya leaned toward me. “That's their position. You do not have to answer it from this bench.”
The prosecutor summarized the allegations without treating them as a verdict. She referred to the surveillance recording, the injuries documented by doctors, the recovered documents, and the statements of witnesses. The court set conditions and further proceedings. It did not decide every disputed fact that morning.
I was almost disappointed by how ordinary the legal language sounded. Then I understood why it mattered. A serious accusation required more than an angry man and a room willing to applaud him.
Outside, reporters gathered around Luca. He had been advised not to discuss the case in detail. One of them shouted, “Did you sign the authorization that paid for your daughter's removal?”
He stopped walking.
Rina touched his arm, but he raised a hand to indicate he could manage the question.
“I approved a batch of payments without examining the supporting documents properly,” he said. “That was a failure of oversight. Whether my credentials were misused beyond that is under independent review. I did not agree to send Lily away. The alleged crimes are for the courts to examine.”
The camera lights flashed.
Another reporter asked whether he regretted choosing Vanessa over his daughter.
Luca looked toward the courthouse doors. “I regret failing to listen when my daughter was afraid. That's a different question from any charge a court will decide, and it's one I intend to keep answering with my actions.”
He walked on. I watched a security officer direct pedestrians around the crowd so people with ordinary appointments could get through.
Maya took me to a small cafe across the street. I wasn't hungry, but I ordered toast because the smell reminded me of home. As we ate, Detective Chen called. She asked whether we could meet briefly in a private room at the courthouse. We returned with Aunt Marlene, who insisted on bringing the untouched half of my sandwich.
Detective Chen sat with another investigator and a stack of photographs. She explained that Calvin Rusk had given information while represented by counsel. It needed independent corroboration. She wanted to ask one more question about the garage.
“Did Rusk say anything before he struck your leg?”
“Go back inside. Then when I tried to reach Lily, he said it wasn't my business. After he hit me, he told me I wouldn't be following anyone.”
“Did he say anyone instructed him to injure you?”
“No.”
She nodded and wrote it down. Then she showed me a printed message recovered from the security contractor's dispatch account, sent that afternoon from a device associated with Vanessa's team.
KEEP ALL STAFF CLEAR OF THE TRANSFER. IF THE COLLINS WOMAN INTERFERES, STOP HER BEFORE SHE REACHES THE MAIN HOUSE.
I read it twice. The message didn't explicitly order Rusk to break my leg. It did show that someone expected me to interfere and wanted me kept away from Luca.
“Is that enough?” I asked.
“It's evidence we're evaluating alongside the video, witness accounts, and other records,” Detective Chen replied. “We won't ask the sentence to carry more than it says.”
I looked at Maya. Her expression was grave, but she seemed relieved to have something that explained why the attack hadn't been a random outburst.
Detective Chen continued. “Rusk says he was told the child was being transferred with her father's permission. He also acknowledges striking you. His account of who authorized what differs from other statements. That's why the independent records matter.”
I had imagined hearing him confess would make the garage vanish from my memory. Instead I felt a strange tiredness. The truth required many voices, and some belonged to people who had reason to lie.
As we prepared to leave, the second investigator asked whether I remembered seeing Julian Mercer at the engagement dinner.
“No. I saw him outside the garage in the afternoon.”
“He left the property before guests arrived. Travel records show he booked a flight out of Chicago that evening.”
“Did he take it?”
“That's still being verified.”
My chest tightened. “Could he be gone?”
“We're investigating his movements.”
Outside the courthouse, rain had begun. Luca waited under the awning, his coat open and his hair damp. He asked if I wanted Daniel to arrange a ride. I said Aunt Marlene had already booked an accessible car.
“Of course,” he replied.
There was a time when he might have insisted, believing that accepting his help was the price of his concern. Now he stepped back and waited with us for our driver.
“I heard what you told the reporters,” I said.
“I tried not to make excuses.”
“You didn't.”
He looked toward my wheelchair. “How is therapy going?”
“Slowly.”
“Lily says slow is still going.”
“She would.”
Our car pulled to the curb. Before I left, Luca gave me a sealed envelope from Lily. I opened it later at home. Inside was a drawing of a pink dress hanging on a door, with a large yellow sun painted beside it.
On the back Lily had written: I CAN WEAR IT WHEN I WANT TO.
I pinned it beside her birds.
That evening Rina phoned Luca with news that would alter the next phase of the investigation. Clara Finch's preserved records had been matched to an internal accounting trail. Several Cedar Gate invoices had been approved through Julian Mercer's office, but the original email directing the placement had not come from his account.
It had come from Vanessa's.
May you like
And one of the copied recipients was her father, Vittorio Bellini.
For the first time, the financial trail led beyond the woman who had screamed at me in the ballroom, straight into the office of the man who had introduced her to Luca in the first place.
