Chapter 4 - The Suitcase Contained Almost No Clothes
Damiano opened the suitcase only after Marina had been taken home to rest.
Helena protested.
“That is my private property.”
Damiano looked at her.
“You packed it inside my warehouse while making my wife search through family records.”
“It contains clothes.”
It did not.
There were two blouses.
One pair of trousers.
Underwear.
A toiletry bag.
Enough clothing for perhaps two days.
Everything else was paperwork.
Photocopies.
Bank statements.
Old company records.
Three passports—only one belonging to Helena.
A stack of cash.
And a velvet pouch containing several pieces of jewelry Damiano recognized immediately.
His late grandmother’s.
Those pieces were supposed to remain inside a family safe.
Helena had no authority to remove them.
Then came the strangest item.
An empty blue document folder.
On its cover, written in Damiano’s late father’s handwriting:
MARINA BELLINI — BENEFICIAL INTEREST / PERSONAL
Damiano stared at the name.
Marina had never met his father.
She married Damiano two years after Carlo Bellini died.
How could Carlo have created a folder concerning a woman he had never known as his daughter-in-law?
Helena saw Damiano reading it.
Her face changed.
That was the reaction he remembered later.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
The folder mattered.
May you like
And whatever had originally been inside it was the thing Helena had been forcing Marina to search for.
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