Loving You Was the Lie

Chapter One: The Man in the Photograph

The dead had a terrible habit of coming back when you finally learned how to live without them.

Isabella Moretti learned that on a Thursday evening, standing barefoot in her apartment with a glass of wine in one hand and a photograph of her supposedly dead father in the other.

The photograph had arrived in an unmarked envelope.

No stamp. No return address. No explanation.

Just a picture of her father standing outside a café in Florence, wearing the grey coat she had buried with him three years ago.

On the back, someone had written seven words in black ink.

Ask Alessandro what happened that night.

Bella read it again.

Then again.

She laughed once, a small, ugly sound that frightened her more than the photograph did.

Her father was dead. She had watched the flames consume the car. She had identified his watch, his wedding ring, the little silver chain he wore beneath his shirts. She remembered the funeral, the rain, and her mother's hand gripping hers so tightly that their fingers had gone numb.

She remembered going home afterward and throwing up until there was nothing left in her stomach.

You did not come back from that.

You did not get to be alive in a photograph three years later.

Unless someone had made a terrible mistake.

Or unless someone had lied.

Bella put down her wine.

Alessandro.

She had not heard that name spoken in months, not without feeling something sour twist beneath her ribs. The last time she had seen him, he had stood outside a courthouse in a black suit, his expression as unreadable as a locked door. She had asked him whether his father had anything to do with her father's death.

He had looked at her for a long time.

Then he had said, "You should stop asking questions you aren't prepared to have answered."

She had slapped him.

He hadn't stopped her.

That had been the worst part. Not the humiliation, not the way the people around them had gone silent, but the way he had looked at her afterward-as if she had broken something he had been desperately trying to keep intact.

She had hated him for that look.

She had hated herself more for remembering it.

Her phone vibrated on the kitchen counter.

Unknown number.

Don't go to the Moretti mansion tonight.

Bella stared at the message.

A second one arrived.

Especially if Alessandro invites you.

She looked at the photograph again.

Then she did what any sensible person with a possible dead father, a suspicious message, and a deep personal hatred for the Moretti family should have done.

She called a taxi.

The Moretti mansion stood behind iron gates on the outskirts of the city, all pale stone, towering windows, and expensive landscaping designed to make the place look welcoming.

It failed spectacularly.

Bella had been there twice before. Once when she was seventeen, when her father still shook hands with men whose smiles never reached their eyes. And once three years ago, when she came searching for answers and left with a warning she couldn't forget.

Tonight, the gates opened before she could press the intercom.

That should have been her first reason to turn around.

Instead, she stepped out of the taxi, smoothed the black dress she had borrowed from her roommate, and walked toward the entrance.

The doorman recognized her.

His face changed.

"Miss Moretti."

"Good evening, Carlo."

He glanced behind her, as though expecting someone to emerge from the darkness.

"You're expected."

Bella stopped.

"By whom?"

He hesitated.

"Mr. Alessandro."

Of course.

She almost laughed.

Alessandro had spent three years avoiding her, ignoring her messages, and making it perfectly clear that she was a problem he wanted nothing to do with. Now, apparently, he was expecting her.

The universe had a wicked sense of humour.

"Tell him I'm here to see his father."

Carlo looked genuinely uncomfortable.

"His father isn't receiving visitors tonight."

"Then he'll have to learn to make an exception."

She walked past him before he could argue.

Inside, the mansion smelled of polished wood, expensive perfume, and roses.

Bella hated roses.

Her father used to bring them home every Friday. Red ones, always. He would leave them in a vase beside her mother's bed, kiss her forehead, and pretend not to notice when Bella stole one for her bedroom.

After the funeral, she had thrown every rose in their house into the rubbish.

She had never explained why.

A string quartet played somewhere beyond the grand staircase. Men in tailored suits stood in small groups, speaking quietly over glasses of champagne. Women wore diamonds that caught the chandelier light every time they moved.

A party.

Naturally.

The Morettis could turn a funeral into a networking opportunity if there was money to be made.

Bella had barely crossed the entrance hall when she saw him.

Alessandro stood near the windows, dressed in a black suit with his tie loosened and his sleeves buttoned neatly at the wrists. His dark hair was pushed back from his forehead. He held a glass of whisky he hadn't touched.

He was listening to an older man speak.

Then he looked up.

The older man kept talking for another few seconds before realizing he had lost his audience.

Bella watched Alessandro's expression change.

It was subtle. Anyone else might have missed it.

His jaw tightened. His fingers closed around the glass. For one brief, unguarded moment, he looked less like the heir to a criminal empire and more like a man who had just seen a ghost.

Then the mask returned.

He said something to the older man and started toward her.

Bella's heart betrayed her immediately.

Three years, and her body still remembered him before her mind could remind it why she shouldn't.

She remembered his hand at the small of her back when they were younger, guiding her through a crowded room. His laugh when she beat him at cards. The way he used to steal the olives from her plate because he knew she hated them.

She remembered the night he kissed her.

She remembered the morning he disappeared.

And she remembered the last message she had sent him.

Please just tell me if any of it was real.

He had never answered.

Now he stood in front of her, smelling faintly of cedarwood and whisky.

"You shouldn't be here," he said.

Bella smiled without warmth.

"That's a lovely way to greet someone."

"Isabella."

"Alessandro."

His eyes moved over her face, searching for something she couldn't identify.

"Did someone invite you?"

"Do I need an invitation to attend a party?"

"In this house? Yes."

"Then consider me very rude."

He exhaled through his nose. It was almost a laugh, except nothing about his expression was amused.

"You haven't changed."

"You haven't learned how to hold a conversation."

"And you've apparently forgotten how to stay away from trouble."

"Funny. I was about to say the same thing about you."

For a moment, neither spoke.

The orchestra changed songs.

Somewhere behind them, someone dropped a glass, and the sharp crack against the marble made Bella flinch.

Alessandro noticed.

His expression softened before he could stop it.

"Are you all right?"

The question was so ordinary, so painfully familiar, that Bella nearly forgot why she had come.

She wanted to tell him about the photograph. She wanted to grab the front of his expensive shirt and demand that he explain why her father was standing alive outside a café three years after his death.

Instead, she said, "I need to speak to your father."

His expression closed.

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"Does he know something about my father?"

Alessandro went completely still.

There it was.

Not surprise. Not confusion.

Recognition.

Bella felt the room tilt beneath her feet.

"Oh my God," she whispered.

"Lower your voice."

"You know something."

"Bella-"

"Don't call me that."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and she saw something in his eyes she had spent three years trying to forget.

Fear.

Not for himself.

For her.

Before he could speak, a woman's voice interrupted them.

"Alex, darling. Your father is looking for you."

Bella turned.

The woman approaching them was breathtaking in a way that made the room seem suddenly dull. She wore a fitted black dress, a diamond bracelet, and an expression of effortless amusement. Her dark hair fell over one shoulder.

Valentina Russo.

Bella knew her name. Everyone did.

The daughter of the Russo family, whose business interests had collided with the Morettis for decades. The woman who had grown up beside Alessandro and, according to the gossip Bella had tried very hard not to read, had once been expected to marry him.

Val's eyes settled on Bella.

For one strange second, her smile disappeared.

Then she recovered.

"Isabella Moretti," she said. "I've heard so much about you."

"I doubt any of it was flattering."

"Actually, most of it was heartbreaking."

Bella frowned.

Val stepped closer and adjusted the strap of Bella's dress, a gesture so intimate that Bella instinctively moved back.

"Careful," Val murmured. "This family has a way of making people believe they're loved."

Her eyes flicked briefly toward Alessandro.

"And then reminding them what love costs."

Before Bella could respond, Val pressed something into her palm.

A small brass key.

Bella looked down.

When she looked up again, Val was already walking away.

Alessandro caught Bella's wrist.

"What did she give you?"

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me."

She pulled free.

"You lost the right to ask me for honesty a long time ago."

Something shifted across his face.

For a moment, he looked almost wounded.

Bella hated that, too.

Because the worst thing about Alessandro Moretti wasn't that he could hurt her.

It was that some stupid, stubborn part of her still wanted him to care.

She found the photograph room by accident.

At least, that was what she told herself later.

The brass key opened a narrow door behind the library, revealing a staircase that descended into darkness. Bella stood at the top for several seconds, listening.

Nothing.

She switched on her phone's flashlight and went down.

The room at the bottom was small, windowless, and lined with filing cabinets. Dust covered the floor, except for a narrow path leading to a wooden desk.

On it lay a cardboard box.

Her name was written across the lid.

Bella's hands began to shake.

Inside were photographs, newspaper clippings, and handwritten letters tied together with faded ribbon.

The first photograph showed her father standing beside Lorenzo Moretti, Alessandro's father. They were younger, smiling, their arms around each other's shoulders.

On the back, someone had written:

Before the betrayal.

Bella swallowed.

The next photograph showed a little girl with dark curls sitting on a garden wall.

Bella recognized herself immediately.

She was five years old.

Beside her stood a boy whose face had been scratched out with something sharp.

Her fingers went cold.

She lifted the photograph closer to the light.

On the back was a date.

And beneath it, a sentence written in her father's unmistakable handwriting.

If she remembers what happened that summer, neither of them will survive.

A floorboard creaked behind her.

Bella spun around.

Alessandro stood in the doorway.

His expression was unreadable, but his eyes had gone to the photograph in her hand.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

"Put it down," he said quietly.

Bella couldn't move.

"Who is the boy?"

Alessandro looked at the photograph again.

Something in his face broke.

Not dramatically. Not enough for anyone who didn't know him to notice.

But Bella noticed.

She had once known every version of his smile.

She had once believed that meant something.

"Alex," she whispered. "Who is he?"

He crossed the room slowly, as though approaching a frightened animal.

"Listen to me. Whatever you find in this room, whatever anyone tells you, you need to understand one thing."

"What?"

His eyes met hers.

"Your father didn't die in that fire."

Bella stopped breathing.

The photograph slipped from her fingers and landed on the desk.

For a few seconds, the only sound in the room was her own heartbeat.

Then she shook her head.

"No."

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not." Her voice cracked. "You're not sorry. You knew. You knew, and you let me bury an empty grave. You let me spend three years-"

She couldn't finish.

The grief came back so violently that she had to grip the desk to remain standing. She remembered her mother sobbing into a pillow. She remembered the funeral flowers, the condolences, the terrible quiet of the house afterward.

She remembered calling Alessandro in the middle of the night because she couldn't breathe.

He had answered.

He had listened to her cry.

And he had said nothing.

She looked at him through burning eyes.

"Did you ever love me?"

The question escaped before she could stop it.

Alessandro's face changed.

He reached for her, but she stepped back.

"Don't."

"Bella-"

"Answer me."

He looked at her as though the truth was a weapon he had been carrying for years and had finally grown too tired to hold.

"Yes," he said.

Her heart broke all over again.

Then he added, "That was the problem."

A loud crash sounded upstairs.

Alessandro immediately turned toward the door.

Another crash followed.

Then a scream.

He pulled a gun from beneath his jacket.

Bella stared at him.

He looked back at her, and for the first time that night, there was no arrogance in his face, no carefully constructed indifference.

Only terror.

"Stay here," he ordered.

"What's happening?"

He didn't answer.

He opened the door, stepped into the corridor, and stopped.

Someone stood at the far end of the staircase.

A woman in a white dress.

Blood stained the front of it.

Bella couldn't see her face clearly, but she knew the shape of her shoulders. The way she held her head. The silver bracelet around her wrist.

Valentina.

She was staring directly at Alessandro.

Then she lifted her hand and pointed the gun at him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

The shot rang through the mansion.

Alessandro stumbled backward.

Bella screamed his name.

And as she rushed toward him, her phone vibrated inside her handbag.

One new message.

From her father's number.

My darling girl, if Alessandro is dead, do not let Valentina leave the house.

Bella looked up.

Alessandro was bleeding on the floor.

Valentina was gone.

And somewhere upstairs, a man began laughing.

End of Chapter One.