CHAPTER 17
ELENA
My forged signature was better than the real one.
The letters were evenly spaced. The final stroke curved upward with deliberate confidence. Whoever created it had removed the small hesitation I developed after breaking my thumb at nineteen.
It looked like my name written by someone who understood the idea of me better than the physical act.
I placed the transport order beneath the lamp in the Long Island study.
Nico stood behind the desk. He had changed from his gala clothes into dark trousers and a black shirt with the sleeves folded back. The open collar made him look less armored.
That did not mean he was.
“It was copied from a digital source,” I said.
“Can you identify which one?”
“Possibly.”
“How?”
“My signature changed after the accident.”
“You mentioned your thumb.”
“It never returned to the same angle. Documents signed before I was nineteen have a cleaner final stroke.”
Nico looked at the forged order again.
“This version is older.”
“Yes.”
“Where would someone find it?”
“School documents. Early company records. Legal filings.”
“Family archives.”
I did not answer.
The Bellandi archives were not accessible to ordinary employees. My father, Marco, Vittorio and several attorneys could enter them. I had access as well, though I rarely used it.
I had spent years building authority through work while the documents defining my legal existence remained in rooms controlled by men who believed they knew me.
“Which document has this exact version?” Nico asked.
“I need comparison software.”
“You have it?”
“The hotels do.”
“You are not returning tonight.”
I looked up.
He stopped.
The correction appeared visibly.
“You could access it remotely,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Would that be safe?”
“Safer than allowing whoever did this to know we found the difference.”
Nico nodded.
The ease of agreement felt new enough to distrust.
I opened my laptop and connected to the hotel’s internal archive through the secure line installed in the house.
The system required my credentials, a security key and confirmation from the operations office. At two in the morning, Thomas answered on the second ring.
“Are you alive?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. That simplifies tomorrow’s schedule.”
“I need archival access.”
“Of course you do.”
His exhaustion had eroded the professional tone.
I preferred him that way.
Thomas authorized the session. I searched scanned contracts containing my signature before the age of nineteen.
Hundreds appeared.
Nico moved to the window and spoke quietly with security while I compared the forged image against older files. The process was slow enough to encourage thoughts I did not want.
His hand at my waist.
His mouth against mine.
The care with which he asked how much.
I had expected desire from Nico to feel like another form of control.
Instead, the danger came from how carefully he gave it back to me.
I disliked the gratitude this created.
No woman should be grateful because a man respected the limits she stated.
The fact that the standard was low did not make the experience meaningless.
“Elena.”
I looked up.
Nico had returned to the desk.
“You stopped moving.”
“I was thinking.”
“About the document?”
“Yes.”
The lie was not convincing.
He did not challenge it.
I searched another group of files.
One signature matched almost perfectly.
A construction agreement from nine years earlier, authorizing renovation of the Bellandi Grand’s executive floors.
The office that accessed it most recently appeared in the document history.
Vittorio Bellandi — Executive Counsel.
My stomach tightened.
“He opened it,” Nico said.
“Six months ago.”
“Why?”
“The renovation agreement includes service routes.”
“And your signature.”
“Yes.”
Nico moved closer but did not touch me.
“Vittorio’s office also approved the temporary maintenance staff, the gala sponsorship and the furniture delivery.”
“I know.”
“You are defending him.”
“I am listing facts.”
“You are separating them so you do not need to see the shape.”
I closed the document.
“He raised me when my father was absent.”
“That does not make him innocent.”
“I am aware.”
“Are you?”
The question hurt because I had asked him versions of it for days.
I stood.
“Do not use my own arguments as evidence that I am weak.”
“I am not.”
“It sounds similar.”
Nico rested both hands on the desk, lowering his height without coming closer.
“I think you are trying to remain fair to a man you love.”
The word love made the suspicion feel indecent.
“He was at the hotel when the card was created,” I said. “His office requested false staff and approved deliveries. He accessed the document used to copy my signature.”
“Yes.”
“He also had legitimate reasons to access all three.”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps matters.”
“It does.”
His willingness to agree removed the resistance I needed.
I looked at the forged signature again.
“What was hidden in Marco’s phone besides the audio?”
“Encrypted messages.”
“And?”
“A file that would not open.”
“Why?”
“It may require a network or location trigger.”
I took the signal case from the table.
The phone’s screen still showed the damaged audio and a series of unreadable files. One icon near the bottom had changed.
A circle had begun filling.
“Was that downloading before?” I asked.
Nico came beside me.
“No.”
The progress indicator moved slowly.
“What changed?”
“We connected to the Bellandi archive.”
“The file recognized the network.”
“Or your credentials.”
I set the phone inside the signal case and placed it near the laptop.
The circle advanced.
Twenty-three percent.
Thirty-one.
Nico called Adrian and instructed him to isolate the house network from every nonessential device. He did not take the phone from me.
The absence of struggle felt almost as intimate as the kitchen.
At sixty-eight percent, an error appeared.
AUTHORIZATION SOURCE REQUIRED.
“What source?” I asked.
Nico examined the prompt.
“Possibly a hardware key.”
“Marco’s key.”
“The cufflink?”
I looked at him.
He had brought it to Long Island inside a small evidence case. He retrieved it from the secure room and placed it beside the phone.
The silver cufflink was engraved only with an M on the visible side.
I turned it over.
A narrow seam crossed the back.
“This opens,” I said.
Nico used a thin blade to separate the casing.
Inside was a memory chip no larger than my fingernail.
Proof.
Marco had tried to say more before he died.
Nico placed the chip inside an adapter.
The phone recognized it immediately.
The file resumed downloading.
My chest hurt in a way that had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with hope becoming dangerous again.
“What will it contain?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“If it names the killer—”
“It may.”
“And if it names someone in my family?”
Nico was quiet.
I turned toward him.
“Say it.”
“We follow the evidence.”
“Even if it is my father?”
“Yes.”
“Vittorio?”
“Yes.”
“Sofia?”
His mouth tightened at the possibility.
“That is not plausible.”
“It was a test.”
“I know.”
“You failed.”
“I refused to pretend all suspicions are equal.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
The file reached ninety percent.
A new alert appeared on my laptop.
ACCOUNT ACCESS DETECTED.
Someone else had entered the Bellandi archive using my credentials.
At that moment.
I shut the connection.
The phone download stalled at ninety-four percent.
Nico reached for his own device.
“Can you identify the location?”
“Not without reconnecting.”
“Do it through a separate line.”
“That will tell them we are watching.”
“They already know. They triggered the alert.”
I looked at the access record captured before disconnection.
The login came from the Bellandi family residence.
Not the hotel.
Not Vittorio’s office.
My father’s house.
“Sofia is there,” I said.
Nico was already calling Adrian.
The line rang.
No answer.
He called the security team assigned to the house.
One guard answered.
“Report.”
A pause.
Nico’s face hardened.
“When?”
He listened again.
“Lock the property. No one leaves.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
“One security officer was found unconscious near the archive room.”
“Sofia?”
“In her bedroom.”
“Did anyone check?”
“Elena.”
“Did anyone see her?”
He called again.
A guard answered on the second call.
Nico listened, then held the phone toward me.
A guard’s voice came through.
“Ms. Bellandi, your sister is safe. She is with your father.”
Relief arrived first.
Suspicion followed.
“Who accessed the archive?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Where is Vittorio?”
No answer.
“Where is my uncle?”
“He left twenty minutes ago.”
The phone file remained frozen at ninety-four percent.
Vittorio had left my father’s house immediately after someone entered the archive using my name.
Coincidence had become an expensive belief.
Nico looked at me.
“We finish the file offline.”
“How long?”
“Adrian will bring the equipment.”
“I want Sofia moved.”
“To where?”
“Here.”
“Your father will object.”
“My father offered her for marriage yesterday. His objections are no longer decisive.”
Nico’s gaze held mine.
“All right.”
No condition.
No attempt to replace my decision.
The change should not have surprised me.
It did.
I reopened the archived signature on the disconnected laptop and compared the timestamps.
The forged transport order had been created three hours after Marco was shot.
It authorized the van retroactively.
Someone had not merely used my name to move his body.
They had waited until my brother lay dead and created a record that could make me responsible for the vehicle.
I looked at the beautiful version of my signature.
The person who made it did not want only Nico blamed.
They were preparing every available heir to fall.