Chapter 10 - The Other T.M.
Bianca had never seen Luca look at her the way he did on the Rialto roof.
Not with affection.
Not with anger.
With calculation.
She understood why people found it frightening.
“Say it,” he told her.
Rain struck the metal railing around them.
Bianca pulled a damp folder from beneath her coat.
“Tomas Mercer.”
Luca’s expression did not change.
The name meant nothing to him.
“Who is that?”
“He was my father’s accountant fifteen years ago.”
“Was?”
“He supposedly died in 2012.”
“Supposedly?”
Bianca handed him the folder.
Inside was an old Bellini Foundation employee roster.
Tomas Mercer appeared beside a grainy photograph of a thin man with dark hair and wire-rim glasses.
“He handled charitable imports,” Bianca said.
“Medical equipment.”
“Food relief.”
“Building supplies after storms.”
Luca looked at the date.
“He worked with your father before Harbor Twelve.”
“Yes.”
“What does he have to do with my foundation?”
“After he ‘died,’ someone with the same tax identification pattern began authorizing transfers through partner charities connected to the Moretti Foundation.”
Luca looked at her sharply.
“You found that today?”
“No.”
Bianca’s voice tightened.
“I found it three years ago.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“Because my father told me it was a clerical overlap.”
“And you believed him.”
“I wanted to.”
The answer carried more shame than defensiveness.
Luca looked down at Sofia’s old letter.
“The initials T.M.”
“Tomas Mercer.”
“Maybe.”
Bianca nodded.
“Maybe.”
“Where is he?”
“I do not know.”
“You said he died.”
“There was an obituary.”
“No funeral photographs.”
“No public death certificate I could find.”
“No grave listed under his name.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“You looked.”
“After last night, yes.”
“Why are you helping me?”
Bianca stared at him.
“Do not flatter yourself.”
One of the security men looked away to hide a reaction.
Bianca continued.
“I am helping the little girl I laughed at.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“At least you know that was cruel.”
“Yes.”
“I do.”
For once, Bianca did not defend herself.
“She asked if her mother could stop working.”
“I laughed because everyone else was laughing and because I wanted to make a maid’s child feel small in my room.”
She swallowed.
“There is no elegant version of that.”
Luca studied her.
Bianca had spent most of their relationship refusing vulnerability.
Tonight she looked stripped of performance.
“You said Marco disappeared.”
“He called me from somewhere downtown.”
“He admitted taking a box from locker 317.”
Luca’s attention sharpened.
“What box?”
“He did not say.”
“Why did he take it?”
“He said he was keeping it away from the wrong person.”
“Who?”
“He said my father was not first.”
Luca looked toward the city beyond the roof.
“So Marco knows someone above Vittorio.”
“Or he wanted me to believe that.”
“You sound like Elena.”
Bianca’s jaw tightened.
“Do not compare me to her.”
Luca looked at her.
She exhaled.
“Fine.”
“Maybe compare me to her a little.”
The admission almost amused him.
“Where is your father now?”
“I do not know.”
“That is hard to believe.”
“He stopped taking my calls after I confronted him.”
“About the farmhouse?”
Bianca froze.
Luca’s expression changed.
“How do you know about the farmhouse?”
“My father received a message that said it was quiet.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Who sent it?”
“I did not see the number.”
“Did you tell anyone where I was?”
“I did not know where it was.”
“Marco?”
“He knew there was a farmhouse.”
“Did he know the location?”
“He refused to tell me.”
Luca took out the secure phone Grace had issued.
No signal.
He frowned.
The rooftop should have had coverage.
One of his men checked his radio.
“Interference.”
Bianca looked around.
“Is that normal?”
“No.”
Luca grabbed the blue box and moved toward the stairwell.
“Inside.”
They descended quickly.
On the third-floor landing, one security radio crackled to life.
Grace’s voice broke through in fragments.
“Luca… farmhouse… vehicle…”
Then static.
Elena’s voice followed.
“Do not come back by the main road.”
The transmission died.
Luca ran.
Bianca followed without being invited.
Outside the theater, rain blurred the streetlights.
Luca’s driver opened the rear door.
Before he could get in, Bianca caught his arm.
“If someone found the farmhouse, your convoy will lead them straight there.”
Luca stared at her.
She was right.
He looked at his security chief.
“Split.”
“Two vehicles north.”
“One west.”
“We take the sedan.”
Bianca started toward her car.
Luca stopped her.
“You are not leaving alone.”
She laughed in disbelief.
“You ended our engagement twelve hours ago and now you are assigning me security?”
“Your father is being watched.”
“Marco is missing.”
“You received a threat.”
“How do you know about the threat?”
“You just described the look of someone who got one.”
She stared at him.
“That is annoyingly specific.”
“Get in.”
The drive toward Wisconsin took ninety minutes using county roads.
Luca spent most of it trying to reach Grace.
No answer.
Then a single text arrived.
SAFE. DO NOT APPROACH YET.
No explanation.
Elena sent another five minutes later.
LILY IS WITH ME. WE MOVED.
Luca finally breathed.
Bianca watched him from the opposite seat.
“You really did not know.”
He looked up.
“About Lily.”
“No.”
“She is definitely yours.”
“The lab agrees.”
Bianca stared out the window.
“I thought I knew what losing you would feel like.”
Luca said nothing.
“I was angry last night because I thought she had taken something from me.”
“Elena did not take me.”
“I know that now.”
“She did not come back for me.”
“That part is somehow worse.”
He almost smiled.
Bianca looked down at her hands.
“I do not love you enough to forgive being second to a ghost.”
Luca’s expression softened slightly.
“That is probably the healthiest thing you have ever said to me.”
“Do not ruin it.”
They drove in silence.
At a crossroads ten miles from the farmhouse, Grace finally called.
“We are at the secondary location.”
“What happened?”
“A delivery van came down the farm road twice.”
“No plates.”
“Driver never approached.”
“Then someone disabled the exterior camera for nineteen seconds.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“You moved immediately?”
“Elena insisted before I finished the sentence.”
Luca looked out the window.
“Where are you?”
Grace gave him coordinates to an old lakeside ranger cabin owned by the same trust as the farmhouse.
Bianca leaned forward.
“Who knows about that cabin?”
Grace answered through the speaker.
“Dominic.”
Luca went still.
Elena’s voice came from the background.
“And now Bianca.”
Bianca winced.
“Fair.”
They reached the cabin after dark.
Lily ran toward Luca before Elena could stop her.
“Dad-Luca!”
Bianca froze.
Luca crouched and caught Lily as she collided with him.
The movement was awkward.
He did not yet know how to hold her naturally.
Lily did not care.
“You were gone a long time.”
“I know.”
“Did you find the blue chair?”
“Yes.”
“Secret?”
“Yes.”
“Good secret or bad secret?”
Luca looked at Elena.
“Complicated secret.”
Lily nodded wisely.
“Mommy has those.”
Bianca made a sound that might have been a laugh.
Lily looked over Luca’s shoulder and recognized her.
The child became quiet.
Bianca visibly prepared herself.
She knelt several feet away.
“Hi, Lily.”
Lily did not answer.
Bianca swallowed.
“I said something mean at the party.”
Elena watched carefully.
Bianca continued.
“I laughed when I should not have.”
“And I made you feel like you had to prove something.”
“That was wrong.”
Lily looked at Elena.
Elena did not rescue Bianca from the moment.
Lily looked back.
“You do not look like Mommy.”
Bianca blinked.
Then she laughed softly.
“No.”
“I definitely do not.”
Lily considered her apology.
“Do I still get a million dollars?”
Luca closed his eyes.
Grace walked into the kitchen.
Elena bit the inside of her cheek.
Bianca stared at Lily.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, she nodded.
“I did make a promise.”
Luca opened his eyes.
“Bianca.”
She held up a hand.
“I am not handing a four-year-old a briefcase of cash.”
She looked at Elena.
“But I will fund a trust for her education if her mother agrees.”
Elena stared at her.
“That is not necessary.”
“I know.”
Bianca looked at Lily.
“That is why it is an apology and not a settlement.”
Elena said nothing.
Luca almost respected the answer.
Almost.
Grace brought the blue box to the dining table.
They spread Sofia’s old documents beside Bianca’s folder.
One authorization sheet carried the initials T.M.
Bianca pointed to the signature style.
“That is Tomas Mercer.”
Elena examined it.
“How can you be sure?”
“My father used to make me sign holiday cards for staff when I was a teenager.”
“Tomas had a strange M.”
“He lifted the second stroke.”
She pointed.
“Like that.”
Luca looked at the old roster photograph.
“Why would a supposedly dead accountant have access to Moretti Foundation shipments?”
Grace answered.
“Because someone gave it to him.”
Elena looked at Luca.
“Your aunt?”
Bianca shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
“You sound certain,” Luca said.
“I am.”
“How?”
Bianca opened the folder and removed a photograph.
It showed Teresa Moretti at a charity warehouse twelve years earlier.
Beside her stood Tomas Mercer.
Behind them, half-obscured by a stack of boxes, was another man.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Smiling at the camera.
Dominic Russo.
Luca stared at the image.
Bianca pointed to the handwritten note on the back.
Tomas, Teresa, Dominic - Harbor Twelve inspection.
The date was six years before Sofia disappeared.
Luca’s face went still.
Then Grace’s secure phone rang.
Dominic’s name appeared on the screen.
No one moved.
It rang again.
Luca answered.
Dominic did not say hello.
“Do not trust the photograph Bianca brought you.”
Luca looked at Bianca.
Her face drained of color.
Dominic continued.
“And whatever you do, do not let Teresa know you found Tomas Mercer’s name.”
That night at the ranger cabin, after Lily went to bed, Bianca and Elena sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table while Luca took a call outside.
Neither woman knew what to say.
They had been positioned as rivals before they had ever spoken honestly.
Bianca broke the silence.
“For what it is worth, I did not know about you.”
“I assumed that.”
“I knew Luca had lost someone.”
“He never told me details.”
“He barely told anyone.”
Elena wrapped her hands around tea.
“That sounds like him.”
Bianca looked toward the porch where Luca paced during the call.
“I used to think if I waited long enough, he would eventually become emotionally convenient.”
Elena almost smiled.
“That does not sound like him.”
“No.”
Bianca’s expression turned rueful.
“I may have confused patience with denial.”
Elena studied her.
“Why did you agree to marry him?”
“Because our lives fit on paper.”
“And because he never lied about not being in love.”
“That sounds romantic.”
“It was not.”
Bianca looked down.
“But it was honest.”
Elena thought about the young Luca who once told her he did not know how to be normal but wanted to learn.
Honesty had always been easier for him when the truth did not make him vulnerable.
Bianca continued.
“Did you love him?”
Elena’s eyes lifted.
Bianca immediately held up a hand.
“You do not have to answer.”
“Yes.”
The word surprised both of them.
Elena looked toward the porch.
“I loved him enough to believe losing him was the price of keeping him alive.”
Bianca’s expression softened.
“That is terrible.”
“Yes.”
“And probably why he never really moved on.”
Elena did not answer.
Bianca leaned back.
“I suppose this is the part where I am supposed to hate you.”
“You are welcome to try.”
Bianca laughed.
It was the first moment their future alliance became possible.
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