Matteo POV Vanessa had not moved from the spot where I left her.
I walked back into the living room to find her exactly where I had stepped away from, but now she was pacing up and down the living room.
Her hands were not quite steady.
I noticed that before I noticed anything else.
“One of them,” she said slowly, repeating my own words back to me like she was testing whether they had really been spoken aloud, “has to disappear.” “Yes.” “Matteo.” She stopped pacing and looked at me like I had gone crazy.
“Do you understand what you are saying?” “I understand it perfectly.” I sat down on the arm of the sofa and looked at her properly.
“More clearly than I have understood anything in the last four years, actually.” She crossed her arms, the way she always did when she was frightened and tried to disguise it as composure.
“If something happens to Eleanor Hart, the entire city will ask questions.
She is not some forgettable old woman, Matteo.
People know her name.
People respect her.” “I am aware.” “And if something happens to Isabella…” “Sit down, Vanessa.” She did not sit.
She stood there, arms crossed, watching me with an expression that had shifted somewhere between fear and the beginning of real panic.
I exhaled slowly and rubbed my temple.
“Let me explain something to you.
Something I should have explained from the beginning, except it was never necessary until today.” She waited.
“My original plan,” I said, “was Eleanor.” Her arms loosened slightly.
“What?” “Eleanor Har, not Isabella.” I stood up and walked toward the window again, my reflection faint against the city lights starting to come on outside.
“I always knew the old woman was a problem.
I knew it the first afternoon Isabella brought me to that house for tea, and Eleanor looked at me over her teacup like she was deciding whether I was a threat to her precious granddaughter or genuine” “So what was the plan?” “Declare her incompetent,” I said it simply, the way you might describe rearranging a puzzle game.
“Old age, memory lapses, easily manufactured with the right doctor and the right paperwork.
A guardianship arrangement, with Isabella named as the responsible party, and myself, naturally, guiding Isabella’s decisions as her husband.” I turned to face her.
“Eleanor Hart steps quietly aside.
Isabella inherits control of Hart Group.
I control Isabella.
Simple and clean No one questions an elderly woman’s mind slowing down.” Vanessa’s face had gone slightly pale.
“And now?” “Now Eleanor has been investigating me for three years,” I said, and felt the anger rise again, fresh, the way it always did when I returned to that fact.
“She is not slipping into confusion, Vanessa.
She is sharper than either of us gave her credit for.
If I try to declare that woman incompetent now, with an active private investigation file sitting on her desk with my name across the front of it, every lawyer in this city will tear the petition apart within a week.” “So the plan is not fruitful then.” “Nope, but now, the plan has changed.” I walked back toward her slowly.
“Eleanor cannot be removed.
Not right now.
Not without exposing everything she already knows about me.” “Then what?
” “Isabella,” I said.
Vanessa stared at me.
“Isabella disappears,” I continued.
“Not permanently.
Not in the way you are imagining your face right now.
She needs to be somewhere Eleanor cannot reach her, cannot speak to her, and her will can not reach her” “Disappear where?” I smiled.
The real smile this time, the one I had let her see only once before, that night I first laid out the entire plan for Isabella’s family fortune over wine in this very apartment.
“There is a private psychiatric facility twelve hours outside the city,” I said.
“Discreet and expensive.
Excellent at managing exactly the kind of situation that requires patience and paperwork rather than violence and a good place to hide someone without the public eyes or city CCTV camera catching up.” Vanessa’s mouth opened slightly.
“You are going to commit her to the psychiatric hospital.” “I am going to have her declared unstable,” I corrected.
“There is a difference, and the difference is what makes it legal.
A Breakdown following a broken engagement.
Erratic behavior, disappearing for an entire night, drinking and drugging herself into a stranger’s bed, returning home incoherent.
Doctors will document it properly, with real signatures on real letterhead.” I shrugged.
“Eleanor will fight, of course.
But fighting takes time, and lawyers, and access is exactly what Eleanor will not have while Isabella is inside that facility.” “And while Isabella is locked away,” Vanessa said slowly, working through it now, “Eleanor has to cooperate with you.
Because you control where Isabella is.
You control whether Eleanor gets to see her.” “Precisely.” I reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the way I had done most times before, the gesture that had always worked to soften her resistance.
“And here is where you come in.” She looked up at me with sparkling eyes now, but was listening.
“The Hart Group board meets in three weeks to choose the next CEO” I said.
“Without Isabella present to contest anything, and with Eleanor distracted, desperate, and willing to negotiate for access to her granddaughter, I will be in a position to be voted in as acting CEO.
Eleanor will have no choice but to support it publicly, because she wouldn’t want the world to know her granddaughter did drugs, which resulted in her being admitted to the psychiatric hospital.
Then the alternative is a prolonged legal battle that keeps Isabella locked away even longer.” “And what happens to me in all this?” Vanessa asked.
Her voice had dropped, careful now, the way it always did when she was negotiating something for herself.
“You become exactly what you have always wanted to become.” I held both her hands in mine, looked directly into her eyes, and let my voice soften into the register I knew worked best on her.
“Isabella’s inheritance redirected through me means it flows through us, Vanessa.
Her position at Hart Group, gone, replaced by you, exactly where you belong.
And when this is finished, when Isabella is no longer a complication standing between us…” I let the sentence hang there, unfinished, watching her fill in the rest herself.
“You and me,” she said quietly.
“Not hidden anymore.” “Properly,” I agreed.
“My love has only ever truly belonged to you, Vanessa.
Isabella was the arrangement.
You were always the choice.” I watched something settle in her face, the fear retreating, replaced slowly by the particular hunger I had learned to recognize and use months ago.
She wanted this.
She had always wanted this, the money, the status, the version of me she believed was real underneath the version I performed for Isabella’s family.
She nodded slowly.
“What do you need from me?” “Nothing big,” I said.
“Just patience and a little crying here and there.
Ask for her forgiveness and leave the rest for me.” “I can do that.” I kissed her forehead, the way you reward something that has finally agreed to behave, and stepped back, already reaching for my phone.
She watched me cross over to the other side of the living room to make a call, “Whom are you calling?” “The facility” I said, scrolling through my contacts until I found the number I had saved months ago, back when this had still been Eleanor’s name attached to the plan instead of Isabella’s.
The line connected on the third ring.
A measured, professional voice answered.
“Dr.
Kessler’s office.” “This is Matteo Edoardo,” I said, walking toward the window, my voice settling into the calm, controlled register I used for business calls that required absolute discretion.
“Mr.
Edoardo.” The doctor’s voice was clear and full of respect.
Exactly the way it should be, he knew whose payroll he had been on.
, “What can I do for you this evening?” I looked out at the city, at the lights coming on one by one across buildings full of people who had no idea what was being arranged for one of their own tonight.
“Prepare the documents,” I said quietly.
A brief silence on the line, then the soft sound of a pen being picked up, paper being pulled forward.
“Isabella Hart,” I said, “is about to lose her mind.”