Chapter 3 - The Fiancée Behind the Perfect Smile
Matteo’s guesthouse was larger than my entire apartment building.
It sat behind a stone mansion in Lake Forest, surrounded by iron gates, winter gardens, and security cameras positioned so discreetly that I only noticed them because Matteo pointed them out.
“You expect me to believe this is temporary?” I asked.
“I expect you to remain alive long enough to complain about it.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It was not meant to be.”
Nora refused to leave until she had inspected every room, threatened three guards, and obtained Matteo’s personal phone number.
“If she calls me and you don’t answer,” Nora told him, “I will drive through your gates.”
“They are reinforced steel.”
“I work in an emergency room. I know people with ambulances.”
Matteo glanced at me.
“Is she always like this?”
“She’s being polite.”
After Nora left, I sat at the guesthouse dining table with the forged documents spread in front of me.
Matteo remained standing near the window.
He had changed from his black suit into dark trousers and a charcoal sweater. Without the formal clothing, he looked younger than I had expected, perhaps thirty-seven or thirty-eight. But nothing softened the authority in his posture.
Victor Salazar arrived twenty minutes later.
He was in his late fifties, silver-haired and impeccably dressed. His voice carried the warmth of a favorite uncle.
“Miss Rhodes, I’m sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances.”
“You authorized an account in my name.”
His expression remained calm.
“Someone copied my signature.”
“The approval used your private access code.”
“Codes can be stolen.”
“Can fingerprints?”
Matteo looked at me.
I removed a clear plastic sleeve from the folder.
The bank had scanned the original paperwork. A partial fingerprint had been visible beside Victor’s authorization.
His smile disappeared.
“I handle hundreds of documents,” Victor said. “My print could have transferred from another page.”
“That is possible.”
“You sound unconvinced.”
“I teach twelve-year-olds. I know when someone adds unnecessary explanations.”
Matteo stepped between us before Victor could answer.
“Find out who created the account.”
“I already have people working on it,” Victor said.
“Not your people. Mine.”
A flicker of irritation crossed Victor’s face.
He recovered quickly.
“Of course.”
After he left, I looked at Matteo.
“You wanted him to know you suspect him.”
“I wanted to see whether he would run.”
“And if he does?”
“He won’t get far.”
That afternoon, Matteo’s investigators uncovered something worse.
The fifty-thousand-dollar transfer had been scheduled to move from a charitable trust controlled by Matteo’s family into the account created under my name. Once the money arrived, it would be redirected to an offshore corporation.
On paper, I would appear to have stolen from the Falcone Children’s Medical Fund.
The charity supported treatment for children with neurological disorders.
No jury would sympathize with a piano teacher who robbed sick children.
“Why me?” I asked.
Matteo stood beside the fireplace in his library.
“Your music center received a grant from the fund two years ago.”
“I applied through a public program.”
“Your records created a legitimate financial connection.”
Someone had selected me carefully.
Not because I was close to Matteo.
Because I was ordinary enough to frame.
The mistaken proposal had placed me in front of cameras before the money moved. Once the fraudulent transfer was discovered, the headlines would tell a simple story: ambitious piano teacher seduced powerful man, accepted his ring, and stole from his charity.
The public would convict me before the police finished breakfast.
I spent the evening studying event photographs.
Most focused on Matteo, Isabella, or me. In the background of one image, the stage coordinator stood near the curtain with a headset pressed to her ear.
A man’s hand rested on her shoulder.
Only part of him was visible, but I recognized the silver cuff link shaped like a compass.
Victor had worn the same pair at the diner.
“I found him,” I said.
Matteo came behind me.
His shoulder almost touched mine as he studied the screen.
“That proves he was backstage.”
“It proves he lied. He told your investigator he arrived after the proposal.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
Before he could respond, one of his men entered.
“Mr. Falcone, we found the stage coordinator.”
“Bring her here.”
The man hesitated.
“She died this morning.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“How?” Matteo asked.
“Her car went through a barrier near Joliet. Police reported it as an accident.”
I looked at the photograph again.
The coordinator’s face was turned toward Victor.
She looked frightened.
“She knew who changed the cue,” I said.
Matteo’s phone rang.
He answered without taking his eyes from the screen.
His expression changed.
“When?”
A pause.
“Secure every entrance.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Someone entered your music center.”
My heart lurched.
“What did they take?”
“Nothing.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“They left something.”
We drove into the city with two SUVs surrounding us.
The front window of the Rhodes Community Music Center had been broken. Police tape crossed the doorway. Several piano keys had been smashed, and sheet music covered the floor like fallen leaves.
On the bench of my mother’s old upright piano sat a black velvet box.
The same kind Matteo had carried at the gala.
Inside was a cheap imitation of Isabella’s engagement ring.
Beneath it lay a photograph of me leaving the ballroom.
Someone had drawn a red circle around my face.
Nora arrived before the police finished taking photographs.
She wrapped her arms around me.
“I told you to stop accepting glamorous work.”
“I was playing Debussy.”
“Debussy clearly has enemies.”
Behind us, Matteo examined the damaged piano.
He ran one tattooed finger over a shattered key.
“This belonged to your mother?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll replace it.”
“You can’t.”
“I can purchase another.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
He looked at me.
For once, he had no answer.
The police found no usable fingerprints. The security system had been disabled with an administrative code.
Only three people knew that code.
I was one.
Nora was another.
The third was Martin Hale, the accountant who had helped establish the music center.
Martin had not answered my calls all day.
We found him that evening in his office.
He was alive, but barely conscious, slumped behind his desk beside an empty bottle of whiskey.
A typed confession waited on his computer screen.
It claimed he and I had conspired to steal from Matteo’s charity.
I rushed toward him.
Matteo’s guard held me back while Nora checked Martin’s pulse.
“He’s breathing,” she said. “Call an ambulance.”
On the floor beneath Martin’s hand was a photograph of his daughter.
Written across the back were the words:
SIGN OR SHE DISAPPEARS.
Martin had not betrayed me willingly.
Someone had threatened his child.
At the hospital, Nora confirmed that Martin had been drugged before the alcohol was poured over him. He would recover, but he remained unconscious.
I sat in the waiting room, exhausted and furious.
Matteo took the chair beside me.
“You should sleep.”
“My friend almost died.”
“You cannot help him by collapsing.”
“I can’t help anyone by hiding in your guesthouse.”
“You can help by staying alive.”
I turned toward him.
“Do you say that to everyone, or only women you accidentally propose to?”
He looked at my empty left hand.
“The ring was not a proposal.”
“I’m relieved we cleared that up.”
“Yet you keep mentioning it.”
“Because it ruined my life.”
His face hardened.
“You believe I don’t understand that?”
“You returned to your mansion. I lost students, money, and the reputation I spent ten years building.”
“You think my life remained unchanged?”
“You’re still Matteo Falcone.”
“And that name is the reason someone selected you.”
The anger left his voice.
For the first time, I heard guilt.
He looked toward Martin’s hospital room.
“My father built his power by making people fear our name. I believed I could use that fear to protect the innocent. Instead, it gave our enemies a weapon.”
I had expected arrogance.
I had not expected regret.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We prove you were framed.”
“And Isabella?”
His gaze became distant.
“Our engagement was a business arrangement between families. I believed she understood the boundaries.”
“Romantic.”
“I was not seeking romance.”
“Clearly.”
He almost smiled again.
Then his phone vibrated.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph taken through the guesthouse window.
I was visible inside, standing at the dining table.
Beneath the image was a single sentence.
The next mistake will cost her life.
Matteo read it twice.
Then he called his security chief.
“Move Amelia into the main house.”
“No,” I said.
He ignored me.
“Double the guards. No one enters without my approval.”
“I said no.”
He ended the call and faced me.
“This is not a negotiation.”
“That sentence may work with your employees.”
“It works with everyone.”
“Then everyone you know needs more self-respect.”
His eyes narrowed.
I stood.
“I will stay because someone threatened Martin’s daughter, not because you ordered me. And I will continue investigating.”
“You are a music teacher.”
“I’m also the person whose name is on every forged document.”
“You could be killed.”
“So could anyone who helps me. That means hiding won’t stop them.”
We stared at each other until Nora stepped between us.
“I have a solution,” she said.
Neither of us looked away.
“What?” I asked.
“Amelia moves into the main house. I stay too. Matteo stops giving orders unless the building is on fire.”
“That is not—” Matteo began.
Nora raised one finger.
“And if the building is on fire, I still want a second opinion.”
The following morning, Martin regained consciousness.
His first words were not about the confession or his daughter.
He asked for me.
When I entered his hospital room, tears filled his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“You protected your child.”
“They already had your records,” he whispered. “They only needed my password to make the account look legitimate.”
“Who threatened you?”
“I never saw his face.”
“Did you hear his voice?”
Martin nodded weakly.
“He said the money had to move before the wedding.”
“What wedding?”
“Matteo and Isabella’s. He said once the families joined, no one could stop them.”
A nurse entered and adjusted Martin’s medication.
As she moved aside, I noticed something taped beneath his bed rail.
A key.
Martin followed my gaze.
“He dropped it,” he whispered. “The man who came to my office.”
The key bore the emblem of a private bank in Zurich.
Matteo took one look at it and went still.
“What is it?” I asked.
“That bank holds accounts my father created before he died.”
“Could Victor access them?”
“No.”
“Could Isabella?”
“No.”
“Then who could?”
Matteo’s eyes darkened.
“Only a member of my family.”
May you like
That night, someone tried to enter the hospital room using Matteo’s dead brother’s security credentials.
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