THE BILLIONAIRE'S LAST 365 DAYS

The Missing Page

By eight the next morning, Soren had already been awake for hours.

He sat alone in the study at De Luca Estate, a cup of coffee cooling beside his laptop.

The rain had finally stopped.

Beyond the tall windows, the sea had returned to its familiar blue, its surface broken only by the occasional white crest of a passing wave.

It should have looked peaceful.

Instead, Soren found himself watching it with suspicion.

Too much had changed in the past few days.

Or perhaps he had simply begun noticing what had always been there.

He unlocked his phone.

The photograph filled the screen.

His mother stood near the old chapel, younger than he remembered her. There was something almost unguarded about her expression, as though whoever had taken the picture had caught her in a moment when she had forgotten to be careful.

Behind her stood the indistinct figure.

Near the chapel wall was the child.

Soren enlarged the image.

The pixels dissolved into blur.

Nothing more could be discerned.

He lowered the phone.

A knock sounded at the door.

"Come in."

Matteo entered carrying a thin folder.

"I found something."

Soren looked up.

"That sounded almost optimistic."

"I wouldn't go that far."

Matteo placed the folder on the desk.

Soren opened it.

Inside were photocopies of estate documents, maintenance reports, inspection records, and several pages from the property archive.

"These are everything I could locate concerning the chapel from 2006 onward," Matteo said.

"Everything?"

"Everything that officially exists."

Soren paused.

That distinction was worth remembering.

He continued through the documents.

Most of the records were mundane.

Electrical inspections.

Maintenance requests.

Insurance documents.

A report concerning water damage.

Nothing explained why the chapel had been closed.

Then he reached the final inspection report.

Structural concerns. Restricted access recommended.

Soren read it twice.

"When was this written?"

"September 2006."

"And the closure?"

"October."

"Was permanent closure recommended?"

"No."

Matteo indicated the final section.

"The recommendation was to restrict access until the necessary repairs were completed."

"Were they?"

Matteo hesitated.

"There is no record of the work being carried out."

Soren looked up.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing I could find."

He returned to the report.

A building on the De Luca property had been deemed unsafe. Repairs had apparently been recommended. Then, within weeks, the chapel was closed.

There should have been a paper trail.

There wasn't.

That unsettled him more than the closure itself.

"There's something else," Matteo said.

He withdrew another sheet from the folder.

"This was attached to the archive index."

It was a handwritten list of names and dates.

Most belonged to people Soren recognized—estate workers, household staff, contractors.

Then he noticed a name he didn't recognize.

Mara Bellini.

Beneath it was a date.

August 17, 2006.

There were no further details.

"Who is she?"

"I don't know yet."

"Find out."

"I've already started."

Soren gave a brief nod.

That was one reason Matteo had remained his assistant for so long. He rarely wasted time explaining what he intended to do.

He simply did it.

Soren turned the page over.

Blank.

"Is this the only mention?"

"Yes."

"Then why was she included in the index?"

"I don't know."

Soren closed the folder.

"Find out."

Matteo remained where he was.

"There is one more thing."

Soren waited.

"The former estate manager remembered the name."

His attention sharpened.

"What did he say?"

"Only that she visited the estate that summer."

"Why?"

"He couldn't say."

"Couldn't or wouldn't?"

Matteo considered the question.

"Wouldn't, I think."

Soren leaned back.

"Did he mention my mother?"

"Yes."

The answer came quietly.

"He said Elena knew her."

Soren's hand settled against the edge of the desk.

"That's all?"

"That's all he was willing to tell me."

For a moment, neither spoke.

Soren looked at the photograph again.

For most of his life, it had been nothing more than an old family picture.

Now it felt like a fragment of a story someone had deliberately torn apart.

He didn't want theories.

He wanted facts.

"Find Mara Bellini," he said. "Quietly."

Matteo nodded.

"And Matteo?"

"Yes?"

"Don't involve my father."

"I won't."

When Matteo left, Soren remained in the study.

He should have returned to Bellavere.

There were meetings waiting for him.

A board expecting decisions.

Contracts requiring his signature.

An empire that continued moving regardless of what had happened twenty years ago—or what might happen to him in the next three hundred and fifty-seven days.

Yet he stayed.

His eyes returned to the photograph.

The page covering August 2006.

That was what bothered him most.

Not the name.

Not even the photograph.

The missing page.

A gap in a record was rarely accidental.

Someone had either removed it or failed to preserve it.

Neither possibility sat comfortably with him.

Soren stood.

He left the study and walked toward the east wing.

The house felt different in daylight.

Less imposing.

Almost ordinary.

He passed portraits of generations of De Lucas lining the corridor—men and women who had built fortunes, inherited estates, married strategically, and guarded the family name with the kind of discipline that had long since become tradition.

Soren stopped before his mother's portrait.

Elena looked composed in the painting.

Dark dress.

Simple jewelry.

A restrained smile.

Nothing about her suggested secrets.

Nothing suggested fear.

Yet the photograph from the chapel had shown him another version of her.

Younger.

Lighter.

Almost free.

Soren studied the portrait.

His mother had died when he was eleven.

For years, whenever he had asked questions about that period, he had been given the same explanation.

He had been too young.

They were protecting him.

It had been for the best.

Maybe it had been.

But now he wondered how much of his childhood had been carefully edited in the name of protecting him.

His phone vibrated.

A message from Matteo.

I found an old estate directory. Mara Bellini was listed as a temporary guest that summer. No address. No family name attached.

Soren read it twice.

Temporary guest.

Not an employee.

Not a relative.

A guest.

Another message appeared.

There is one problem. The original directory has a missing page.

Soren's expression hardened.

He typed:

Which page?

The response arrived moments later.

The page covering August 2006.

Soren lowered the phone.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Outside, a gull crossed above the gardens before disappearing toward the sea.

He looked at his mother's portrait again.

Then at the photograph on his screen.

This time, he didn't focus on the child.

He studied Elena.

The slight turn of her body.

The direction of her gaze.

The expression that seemed almost too natural for a photograph taken at the De Luca estate.

He had spent years believing he knew his mother.

Perhaps knowing someone and knowing what they had kept from you were two entirely different things.

Soren slipped his phone into his pocket.

Then he walked toward the small sitting room at the end of the corridor, a room his mother had once used in the afternoons.

He remembered almost nothing about it beyond fragments: sunlight falling across a rug, the smell of old books, the faint sound of piano music coming from somewhere downstairs.

He entered.

The furniture had been preserved as it had been.

A narrow writing desk stood beside the window.

A porcelain lamp rested on it.

The curtains were pale and slightly yellowed with age.

Soren approached the desk.

He opened the top drawer.

Nothing.

The second contained stationery and a box of fountain pen cartridges.

The third stuck halfway.

He pulled harder.

The drawer opened with a dry wooden scrape.

Inside were several envelopes, a broken watch, two old photographs, and a brass key.

Soren picked up the photographs first.

Neither showed the chapel.

One was a family photograph taken during a summer lunch. His grandfather sat at the center of the table, his expression severe even in the middle of what appeared to have been a celebration.

His father stood behind him.

His mother sat at the far end.

Soren was there too, eleven years old and visibly impatient with the camera.

He almost smiled.

He turned the photograph over.

No date.

No names.

Nothing useful.

The second photograph was older.

His mother stood beside a woman Soren did not recognize.

They were outside the estate gates.

His mother was smiling.

The other woman was not.

Soren stared at her face.

There was something familiar about her, but he could not place it.

He turned the photograph over.

A single handwritten word appeared on the back.

Mara.

His pulse changed.

Not dramatically.

Enough for him to notice.

He placed the photograph on the desk.

The woman beside Elena had dark hair pulled loosely away from her face. She looked younger than his mother, perhaps by several years. There was no obvious connection between them, yet they stood close enough to suggest familiarity.

Soren took a photograph of the photograph with his phone.

Then he studied the brass key.

It was old-fashioned, with a narrow rectangular head.

A faded number had been stamped into the metal.

17.

He slipped the key into his pocket.

A sound came from the hallway.

Soren turned.

An elderly housekeeper stood near the doorway.

"Mr. De Luca."

"Rosa."

She had worked at the estate for more than twenty years. Soren remembered her from childhood, though he had rarely spoken to her beyond polite greetings.

Her eyes moved to the photograph on the desk.

For a moment, something crossed her face.

Recognition.

Then caution.

"You knew my mother," Soren said.

Rosa folded her hands.

"Everyone here knew Elena."

"That isn't what I asked."

She looked at him.

"No. It isn't."

Soren waited.

Rosa had always been difficult to read. His mother had trusted her, though. He remembered that now.

"Did you know Mara Bellini?"

The woman's expression changed.

Only slightly.

But Soren saw it.

"Why are you asking about her?"

"Because her name appears in the estate records."

Rosa looked toward the photograph.

"Some things were not meant to remain in the records."

"Who decided that?"

She did not answer.

"Rosa."

The older woman sighed.

"Your mother."

The answer landed harder than he expected.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"You knew her."

"Knowing someone does not mean knowing everything they carried."

Soren studied her.

It was almost the same thought he had had moments earlier.

"Did Mara hurt my mother?"

"No."

"Did my mother hurt her?"

Rosa looked away.

"I don't think either of them intended to hurt anyone."

"Then what happened?"

The silence stretched.

Finally, she said, "You were a child."

"I know."

"Your mother wanted it to stay that way."

Soren's jaw tightened.

"Stay what way?"

Rosa looked at him with something close to pity.

"Complicated."

He laughed softly.

Not because it was funny.

Because it was the first honest answer anyone had given him.

"Where can I find her?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know if she is alive?"

Rosa hesitated.

"Yes."

The answer was quiet.

Soren went still.

"You know where she is."

"No."

"But you know she is alive."

"I heard she was."

"When?"

"Years ago."

"From whom?"

Rosa shook her head.

"I have said enough."

She turned to leave.

"Rosa."

She stopped.

Soren held up the photograph.

"Why did my mother keep this?"

The older woman looked at it for a long moment.

"Because some people become part of your life even when they are never meant to stay."

Then she walked away.

Soren remained alone.

He looked down at the photograph again.

The sentence stayed with him.

Some people become part of your life even when they are never meant to stay.

He placed the photograph beside his phone.

For the first time, the mystery no longer felt like an old family secret sealed inside documents.

It felt personal.

And that made it dangerous.

His phone rang.

Matteo.

Soren answered immediately.

"Tell me."

"I found another archive box."

"Where?"

"In the old records room."

"What's inside?"

"Mostly household correspondence. But there is something you should see."

"Send me a photograph."

"I think you should see it yourself."

Soren glanced toward the window.

"Why?"

"Because it concerns your mother."

The call ended.

Soren looked once more at the photograph of Elena and Mara.

Then he walked out of the room.

As he crossed the estate, the house no longer felt like the place where he had grown up.

It felt like a building full of locked rooms.

And he was beginning to understand that the most dangerous secrets were not always hidden behind doors.

Sometimes they were hidden in plain sight.

In photographs.

In names.

In pages that should have existed but didn't.

In the careful pauses of people who had spent twenty years deciding what a child was allowed to know.

Soren reached the records room.

Matteo was waiting outside.

He held an old cardboard box beneath one arm.

"You look concerned," Soren said.

"I found something unexpected."

Matteo opened the door.

Dust hung in the narrow beam of sunlight entering through the high window.

Shelves covered every wall.

Boxes were stacked according to decades.

Soren followed him to a table.

Matteo placed the box down.

"This was filed under correspondence from 2006."

He opened it.

Inside were letters, receipts, household notes, and old envelopes tied with faded string.

Matteo removed a thin bundle.

"These were separated from the rest."

Soren looked at the top envelope.

His mother's handwriting.

He recognized it immediately.

His fingers tightened around the paper.

"Did you read them?"

"No."

"Good."

Soren took the envelope.

It was addressed to someone whose name had been crossed out.

One word remained visible beneath the ink.

Mara.

He looked at Matteo.

"How many?"

"Six letters."

"All addressed to her?"

"I believe so."

Soren stared at the bundle.

Six letters.

One missing directory page.

One photograph.

One name that had vanished from the estate's history.

And somewhere behind all of it was a version of his mother he had never known.

He picked up the first letter.

For several seconds, he simply held it.

Then he noticed the date.

August 17, 2006.

The same date beside Mara Bellini's name.

Soren looked at Matteo.

"Close the door."

Matteo did.

The lock clicked softly.

Soren unfolded the letter.

Whatever it contained had waited twenty years to be read.

And for the first time since receiving his diagnosis, Soren was no longer thinking about how much time he had left.

He was thinking about what had happened before he was old enough to remember.

The letter trembled slightly between his fingers.

Not because he was afraid of what it might say.

Because, for the first time, he understood that the truth about his family might not be something he could control.

And control had always been the one thing Soren De Luca trusted.

He looked at the sealed pages beneath the first letter.

Six letters.

A missing page.

A woman his mother had tried to erase from the estate's records.

And a summer Soren barely remembered.

Twenty years had passed.

Whatever had happened in August 2006 might have been buried beneath years of silence, altered memories, and carefully preserved lies.

But someone had removed the page.

Someone had kept the letters.

And someone had known Mara Bellini well enough to make sure her name disappeared.

Soren opened the first letter.

He began to read.

Outside, the sea moved against the cliffs with quiet persistence.

For the first time in years, Soren had the unsettling feeling that the past was not behind him.

It was waiting for him.

And he had just opened the door.