Chapter 3 - The Collapse of the Bellini Empire
While Luca and I sat discussing corporate logistics and past vendettas, absolute chaos was erupting across the Bellini household in Providence. According to real-time security reports fed into Luca’s private monitors, federal agents accompanied by Moretti’s legal enforcers had simultaneously raided my father’s downtown office and his Newport residence. The "locked cabinet" behind my father’s desk—the one where I had originally discovered the hidden debt records—was pried open by federal marshals, exposing years of systematic tax evasion, wire fraud, and illegal asset stripping orchestrated by my father and my brother Nicholas.
On the living room screen, we watched via a hidden surveillance feed as my mother shrieked hysterically, clutching her pearls while federal agents slapped steel handcuffs onto Nicholas for operating an illegal underground betting ring funded by company capital. My father looked ten years older, his face hollow and weeping as he realized the magnificent waterfront properties, the freight trucks, and the Newport estate were all being seized immediately by federal asset forfeiture and Moretti-backed commercial liens.
“They’re going to lose everything,” I whispered, watching my family’s crumbling illusion of upper-class respectability vanish into thin air.
“They never actually owned it, Gianna,” Luca said quietly, standing up and walking over to stand beside my chair. He placed a warm, steady hand on my shoulder. “They were just borrowing time financed by your labor and protected by lies. Now, the ledger has been balanced.”
My phone buzzed loudly on the coffee table. I glanced down. It was a text message from my mother—the first time she had texted me directly in three years.
Gianna! Where are you?! Your father and brother are arrested, the house is seized, we have nothing left! Call Vincent, call whoever you’re with, tell them to fix this! You owe us this much!
I stared at the screen, a bitter, liberating laugh escaping my lips. I didn't feel anger. I didn't feel guilt. I just felt an overwhelming sense of absolute emptiness toward the people who had discarded me so easily. Without a second thought, I tapped my screen, blocked my mother’s number permanently, and tossed the phone back onto the table.
Luca watched me silently, a subtle, approving smile touching the corners of his lips. “Feel better?”
May you like
“I feel like I just took off a pair of lead boots I’ve been wearing for twenty-six years,” I said, looking up into his dark, steady eyes.
“Good,” Luca murmured, his voice dropping an octave as he stepped slightly closer. “Because now that you’re free of them, it’s time we talked about what comes next for you.”
