Chương 1 - THE RED SEAL
The wax seal was still red.
Still unbroken.
Bianca’s initial was pressed into it like a small wound.
Ten minutes past eleven.
Three hundred guests.
A string quartet had already looped back to the opening bars of Vivaldi because nobody knew whether to stop playing.
Lorenzo Vitali took the envelope in a hand that did not shake.
His hands had stopped shaking in front of crowds two years earlier.
That was the morning he woke in a hospital and could not feel his legs below the hips.
Behind him, the mansion staircase remained empty.
Enzo Caruso stood at Lorenzo’s shoulder.
“She is not coming down, sir.”
“Don Ferreri is watching.”
“Yes, sir.”
“He’s smiling.”
“He began smiling at minute six.”
Lorenzo almost laughed.
“Of course he did.”
Across the reception hall, Vittorio Ferreri sat with one ankle resting over his knee.
Silver hair.
Black tuxedo.
Gold cuff links.
The expression of a man watching a building burn from a safe distance.
Lorenzo broke the seal.
The paper inside had been folded once.
Bianca’s handwriting.
Three sentences.
I do not have the courage to spend the rest of my life beside a man who cannot stand.
I am sorry.
Do not look for me.
Lorenzo read it again.
Slower.
The words did not change.
For sixteen months Bianca had told him the wheelchair meant nothing.
She had learned how to transfer it into cars without scratching the frame.
She had argued with restaurants over narrow aisles before Lorenzo had the opportunity.
She once told a newspaper reporter:
“His legs are the least interesting thing about him.”
Apparently not.
Behind Lorenzo, someone whispered.
Then another.
Three hundred people trying not to stare was louder than three hundred people speaking.
Enzo bent closer.
“Give me the word.”
Meaning:
Find her.
Close roads.
Check airports.
Turn the city inside out.
Lorenzo folded the letter.
“No.”
Enzo blinked.
“Sir?”
“She wrote not to look for her.”
“Respectfully, that may not have been voluntary.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“You know something?”
“No.”
“Then we have a bride who changed her mind.”
His voice remained level.
“We are not kidnapping women because I dislike their timing.”
Enzo almost smiled.
Progress.
Lorenzo turned his wheelchair.
The crowd quieted.
He rolled to the center of the ballroom.
Stopped beneath the white floral arch Bianca had spent three months designing.
“Ladies and gentlemen.”
Every face turned.
“The ceremony will not take place.”
Somebody gasped despite already knowing.
Lorenzo continued:
“The kitchen prepared food for three hundred people.”
A pause.
“I refuse to punish the chef for decisions made upstairs.”
A few nervous laughs.
“Dinner will be served.”
Ferreri’s smile diminished.
Good.
“And anyone who came here hoping to watch me humiliate myself may leave before dessert.”
Now nobody laughed.
Ferreri did.
Once.
Loudly.
Lorenzo looked directly at him.
“Vittorio.”
Ferreri lifted his champagne.
“To new beginnings.”
Lorenzo smiled.
“Careful.”
He nodded toward the glass.
“You’ve never been good with beginnings.”
Ferreri’s smile cooled.
Dinner began.
Not normally.
But it began.
Lorenzo remained for forty-seven minutes.
Long enough that nobody could say he fled.
Then he returned upstairs.
Bianca’s dressing room was empty.
Wedding gown gone.
Jewelry case gone.
Phone gone.
One suitcase missing.
No struggle.
No overturned furniture.
She had planned to leave.
On the dressing table sat one unused invitation envelope.
Red wax.
B.
Enzo entered.
“We traced the service exit.”
“And?”
“She left at 10:38.”
“With?”
“Driver we don’t recognize.”
“Car?”
“Black Mercedes.”
“Plate?”
“Obscured.”
Lorenzo looked at the letter.
“Anything else?”
Enzo hesitated.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Ferreri arrived at 10:41.”
Three minutes later.
Lorenzo’s attention sharpened.
“He normally arrives late.”
“Yes.”
“He was early today.”
“Yes.”
“And smiling six minutes into the delay.”
“Yes.”
Lorenzo stared at the empty room.
Maybe Bianca had simply left him.
Maybe Ferreri knew because gossip traveled quickly.
Maybe coincidence had suddenly developed a sense of humor.
Then Enzo placed a photograph on the dressing table.
Traffic camera.
Black Mercedes leaving the estate access road.
Registration traced through a shell company.
Ferreri Hospitality Group.
Lorenzo became very still.
“Find Bianca.”
Enzo waited.
Lorenzo added:
“Do not bring her back.”
“Then what?”
“I want to know whether she left…”
His eyes moved to the letter.
May you like
“…or whether someone helped her run.”
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