Bella Romano expected the Moretti charity gala to be difficult. She did not expect twelve ruined cannoli, a terrified teenage employee, and Chicago’s most feared businessman standing between her and an elevator button.
When Adriano Moretti demanded to know who had shoved her young server into a dessert table, Bella reluctantly gave him the name.
“Marco Bellini. And don’t kill him over cannoli.”
Adriano almost smiled.
“I was thinking termination.”
Bella assumed that would be the end of it.
She was wrong.
Twenty minutes later, Sophia rushed into the kitchen carrying one of the broken cannoli shells.
“Bella, look at this.”
Something tiny was wedged beneath the cream.
A black electronic chip.
Bella frowned. “That wasn’t in my kitchen.”
Adriano appeared behind them, and the moment he saw it, his expression hardened.
He ordered security to inspect the remaining desserts.
Three more devices were discovered.
They were miniature transmitters.
Someone had deliberately placed them inside trays destined for the private dining room where Adriano would meet several business partners after the gala.
Marco Bellini was immediately brought upstairs.
At first, he denied everything.
Then security footage revealed him entering Bella’s preparation area earlier that afternoon. The same footage showed him intentionally knocking her server into the dessert table after the teenager had noticed him touching the trays.
The ruined cannoli hadn’t been an accident.
They had destroyed the evidence before Marco could retrieve it.
Adriano stared at the man he had trusted for nearly ten years.
“Who are you working for?”
Marco remained silent until Adriano’s security chief placed photographs on the table showing payments from one of Moretti’s biggest corporate rivals.
Bella suddenly understood.
Marco had planned to record the private meeting, steal confidential information, and sell it.
Her employee had unknowingly caught him.
Adriano had Marco escorted from the estate and turned the evidence over to his attorneys and investigators.
Later, after the gala ended, Bella found Adriano alone on the terrace overlooking Lake Michigan.
“You saved me tonight,” he said.
Bella crossed her arms.
“My cannoli saved you.”
“Then I owe them an apology.”
“They’re dead. It’s too late.”
He laughed quietly.
Bella smiled despite herself.
Adriano looked toward the ballroom, where her staff were packing up.
“I’ve spent years wondering which enemies were outside my walls.”
“And?”
“Apparently I should have been looking inside.”
Bella handed him the final surviving cannoli.
“For emotional recovery.”
He accepted it carefully.
“Dinner tomorrow?”
Bella raised an eyebrow.
“Is that an order?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She started walking away, then glanced back.
“Seven-thirty. And if you block another elevator, I’m charging extra.”
For the first time that evening, Adriano Moretti looked completely harmless.
He smiled.
And Bella realized the most dangerous thing she had discovered inside the Moretti house might not have been the betrayal at all.
