Tessa's Trust

Book 5: The Anna Albertini Files

by Rebecca Zanetti

Genres: Female Sleuths; Romantic Suspense; Suspense

Synopsis

When the shoe drops, it always hits her on the head

Tessa Albertini has spent much of her life guest-starring in other people's stories. Her older sister is a type-A personality who creates opportunities like other people build hopes, and her younger sister finds trouble like it's an integral strand of her DNA. Finally Tessa's hard work and sacrifice allow her to open that restaurant she's been dreaming about since she was a young teenager working her butt off, regardless of the obstacles now slamming into her.

There's an advancing enemy who doesn't want Tessa to succeed in business, while Nonna Albertini is determined she'll succeed in love, no matter how much meddling it takes. Finally, Nick Basanelli, the most arrogant and sexy man she has ever met, zeroes his formidable focus into actually courting her—and that's before he discovers she’s in danger and morphs into overprotective alpha male mode.

While a family's middle child is supposedly a peacemaker, the world is about to discover that when pushed far enough, Tessa is willing to go to war.

 

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Release date: May 20, 2023

Publisher: RAZ INK LLC

Sample

Chapter 1

I ignored the worried looks of the two lawyers in the dusty space and signed my name with a flourish, careful not to press too hard since the contract perched precariously on an overturned wooden barrel that had once held whiskey. Contessa Carmelina Albertini. It was difficult, but I fought the urge to dot the last i with a heart. This was a dream come true, and I had worked my butt off for longer than I wanted to admit to get here.

Sadie Brando signed right after I did, her gnarled hand moving slowly across the paper as she no doubt fought both arthritis and a slight tremble.

Her lawyer, who also happened to be her younger brother, shook his head. Even though it was the day after Christmas and he’d been called in unexpectedly, he wore a blue suit with a red power tie. “Sadie,” he said again.

“Shush.” She lifted her other hand. “It’s done, Jonathan. Mind your business, young man. Tessa and I have been dickering about this place for the last two months. We just needed you here to make sure it was official.”

Jonathan was about eighty with thick gray hair, dark blue eyes, and slightly stooped shoulders. He had come over from Billings just for the day and no doubt hadn’t expected this.

I wanted to be sympathetic, but I was too happy to finally be getting this place. I’d paid a pretty penny for it, but it was worth it.

My lawyer shook her head. I trusted her implicitly, even though she wore leggings covered in drunken ducks, a ripped University of Idaho sweatshirt, and her hair in a ponytail. When I’d asked her to drive over the mountain pass and meet me here, I hadn’t exactly told her why. She was my younger sister, and I had known she’d want to sign as a witness. She’d come the second I called, even though it was the day after Christmas and she’d been holed up with her sexy Irishman, who, quite frankly, I figured was difficult to leave.

Anna reached for the papers. “Let me at least read the contract.”

Sadie shook her head. “Don’t need you to read it. We just needed two witnesses and figured lawyers would be good.”

Anna narrowed her eyes. “You don’t need witnesses to this type of contract.” She frowned at Jonathon and somehow managed to look more beautiful than ever. “I’m uncomfortable having my sister sign a contract I haven’t read.”

“We had an agreement,” Sadie said, waiting for Jonathan to sign as a witness—which he did after sighing loudly. Then she jutted out her chin. “Anna? You have to sign your legal name.”

“Are you sure about this?” Anna asked, her gaze direct on me.

“Yes, Anna,” I said. “Trust me in that I’ve read over the contract and I’d love to have you as a witness. Believe me, I want this.”

She bit her lip the way she did when she was concerned. She was a couple of inches shorter than me and didn’t take after either our Italian or Irish sides in the looks department with her grayish-green eyes and auburn hair.

I, on the other hand, was all Irish—reddish-blond hair, green eyes, and skin that burned at midnight. I wished I could tan like my sisters did.

“I do trust you but still want to read this,” Anna said.

Sadie glanced at her overlarge watch. “It’s now or never.”

“Please, Anna?” I asked. “I already signed it, so I’m bound.”

Unlike Jonathan, Anna kept from sighing when she took the pen and signed her full legal name, Anna Fiona Albertini. We came from Irish and Italian stock, so all three of us girls had both an Irish and an Italian

name.

Our older sister, Donatella Tiffany, was a realtor and would help me record the deed when she returned from a girls’ trip to Napa Valley. She’d left earlier that morning after the holiday revelry had concluded.

Sadie smiled, showing worn dentures. “That’s better.” She turned to me, spat into her brown-spotted hand, and held it out. I did the same, and we shook. It was kind of gross, but Sadie was ninety years old, and I figured that was how they’d done it back in the day.

The building was older than she was by at least twenty years, and now it was mine. I looked around the wide space at the old bar against the corner and the new wood paneling on the far wall. The vast space would make the perfect restaurant.

I kept from wiping my hand on my jeans when we’d finished.

Sadie did the same. “I’m glad you’ll be moving in upstairs since we I renovated it all before selling. It’s a beautiful space.”

I absolutely couldn’t wait. “You did an amazing job, although my old furniture won’t do it justice.” I grinned. “Hopefully I can get some new furnishings as soon as possible.”

The door burst open and a man barreled inside, his face ruddy and his brown hair standing on end. “Aunt Sadie? You cannot sell this place. It’s mine.”

Sadie sighed. “Tessa, Anna, meet my nephew, Rudy.”

Huh. The name fit his red face. “Hello,” I murmured. Who the heck was Rudy? Everybody knew everybody in the small town, and I did not know this guy. He had to be around thirty, and was tall and lean with blond hair that bristled. Actually bristled.

Sadie cracked her gnarled knuckles. “Rudy’s dad was my younger brother, George. Georgie died about fifty years ago, and we just found out about Rudy a few months ago.”

Rudy glowered.

“It’s done,” Sadie said.

Anna peered over my shoulder at the contract again. “Where did you get a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash, Tessa?” she murmured.

I just smiled. “Doesn’t matter.” Her eyebrow lifted, and I knew there would be a lot of questioning later. “This place is amazing.” Finally, I could start the life I wanted.

Sadie nodded, the thin skin of her neck jiggling. She was probably about five feet tall and had her gray hair in tight curls. Her blue eyes were faded and almost translucent. She could see well enough, and she h

ad the hearing of a bat, which I knew from experience after negotiating with her the last couple of months. “This is a good place, honey. It served me well.” She patted my arm. “If you run illegal gambling out of the back again, watch out for the FBI. When they raided us in eighty-nine, it was a real pain in the ass.”

Jonathan smacked his palm against his forehead. “Crap, Sadie, we don’t talk about that.”

“Eh, everybody knows about it,” Sadie said. “My profits sure took a hit for a while, though, I’ve got to tell you.” For our signing day, she’d worn a lovely green linen dress that hung on her wiry frame and reached the floor. I was pretty sure it was supposed to be knee-length, but on her, it was longer than her thick gray wool coat. “Okay, we’re set. Don’t forget what you promised, Tessa.”

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” I admitted.

She cackled and slid her arm through her brother’s. “Come on. You’re taking me to breakfast.”

Jonathan looked at me, glanced at the contract, and then shook his head. “All right, sister.” He barely glanced at Rudy. “You’re not in the will, kid. Get over it.”

Rudy glared, narrowing bright blue eyes at me. “We’ll see about that.” He turned on a polished loafer and stomped out.

Sadie snorted. “What a dork. He actually thinks he owns the place already.”

Anna stiffened. “Why would he think that?”

My stomach clenched. “Yeah. Why?”

Sadie shrugged. “Heck if I know. He doesn’t, so don’t worry.”

Jonathan then glanced at the iron sign hanging on the far wall. The hammered metal held an engraved high-heel shoe and text that said Silver Sadie’s. “Are we taking the sign?”

“Nope,” Sadie said. “That was part of the deal.”

“I want the sign,” I admitted. The thing had character and had hung there for probably over a century. Sadie had been named for her great-aunt Sadie, and it was rumored that the first Sadie had run alcohol when it was illegal.

I didn’t doubt there had also been some prostitution at the beginning of the century when the mines were flush. But for as far back as anybody remembered, the place was a bar with a gambling den in the back, one the FBI had shut down in 1989. I noticed there were still poker tables back there, but I had plans for that space that didn’t inv

olve gambling.

Sadie and her brother left, leaving Anna and me to look around the large, vacant place.

“You just bought a restaurant,” my sister said, frowning.

Even if she couldn’t see the potential of the wide-open space, I could. It had been gutted in a fire about a year ago. Sadie had tried to repair it but decided she would live out the rest of her years without worrying about the place. She was a tough negotiator, as I could attest from the contract. I had no idea what she planned to do with my hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but hopefully, she’d keep it from the cranky and newly found Rudy. This place was well worth the money. It was in a two-story brick building, and I was going to live above the restaurant as I got it going.

Anna shook her head and reached for the contract. “I don’t mind you having me here signing things, but don’t you think I should’ve read this first?”

“You just signed as a witness. You’re not obligated or anything,” I said as something scurried in the far background. I shivered. I really needed to clean out the entire first floor. Thus, I’d worn old jeans and a white T-shirt to get right to work today, even though it was snowing wildly outside.

“Okay.” Anna reached for the contract and flipped through it. “This is good. The agreement for the deed is good.” She paused. “What the…?”

I knew what she had found. “It’s okay. It’s not a big deal.”

She looked up, her grayish-green eyes wide. “Are you kidding me?”

“It’s not a big deal,” I repeated, heat climbing into my face.

She shook her head. “You agreed to go on a date with each of her nephews within one week of signing this contract? I didn’t even know Bobbo was still around.”

“They’re her great-nephews. Rudy is not included in the deal, whoever the heck he is.” I kicked a brick out of my way. “She really wants one of them to marry and carry on the Brando name since her brother never did. I told her I wasn’t looking for romance, and it was just one date each.”

To be honest, I didn’t think Bobbo was around either, but I was about to find out, considering Sadie had arranged for us to meet for dinner in a few hours. I told Sadie that I hadn’t dressed for a dinner date, but she said I looked fine and that I shouldn’t appe

ar as if I were trying too hard.

I didn’t want to try at all. I’d given up on romance after a disastrous time with a jerk of an ex-boyfriend. He’d ended up getting murdered, and even though I didn’t think anybody deserved that, nobody really missed the guy.

“Huh,” Anna said. “What else did you agree...?” She stopped mid-sentence. “Oh.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “That’s the other reason you’re here.” Anna had a penchant for solving crimes. She was a big-shot lawyer in the city—or what constituted a city in my small northern Idaho life—and when helping out clients, she usually solved a crime or two.

Tendrils of her shiny brown hair fell out of her ponytail. “Tessa, Lenny Johnson was murdered nine months ago. It’s still an active case.”

“I know,” I said, my shoulders hunching until I remembered to straighten them. Lenny Johnson had been a vagabond and drunk in our small town. His body had been found in the cellar of Silver Sadie’s. I needed Nana O’Shea to perform a sage cleansing down there as soon as possible. “I promised her we’d do our best to figure out who killed him.”

“We?” Anna’s eyebrows rose.

Yeah, Sadie was no dummy. She knew the Albertini girls stuck together, and that if I signed the contract, Anna would help me. “Sure. You solve crimes all the time.”

“I’m a lawyer,” she muttered, looking more like a teenager headed out for a sleepover.

“I know,” I said. “All I did was say I’d try to solve it. As you can read in the contract, I was sure not to promise.” Because, honestly, I’d never solved a crime in my life. I hadn’t even gone to college. Not that you had to go to college to solve crimes, but my sister had a law degree, which meant she’d been to college for seven years and knew a lot more about crime than I did.

“I didn’t know you were going to buy a restaurant in Silverville,” she murmured.

We had both grown up in the small Idaho mining community and then moved over the pass to the bigger metropolis of Timber City, where she worked as a lawyer, and I had waitressed at Smiley’s Diner until, well…next month, after I trained two servers to take my spot. But I knew if I opened a restaurant, I wanted to be closer to

home. And something about Silver Sadie’s called to me.

Women had owned it from the beginning, and I was talking probably from 1890 until today. Strong women fighting upstream and making their dreams come true. I wanted the place, and now, it was mine. To keep it, all I had to do was go on a date with three guys I barely knew and solve a murder.

What could possibly go wrong?

Chapter 2

I had just finished mucking out what had been the bar area when my phone rang. I looked toward the windows and the vast blizzard spinning snow around outside and shivered. Had I found enough space for my tables? I wasn’t sure. I may have been a little exuberant when I purchased them the month before.

“Hello?” I said absently, wiping dust off my jeans. At least I’d flipped my white T-shirt inside out before moving items around.

“Tessa, it’s Nonna. I heard you just bought Silver Sadie’s.”

I jolted and looked toward the expansive windows again. Nope, nobody was out in the blistering weather. The snow bombarded the area, covering the icy sidewalk. “That was quick.”

She chuckled. “This is Silverville. When did you sign the papers?”

“About two hours ago.”

“Huh, I must be losing my touch,” she murmured. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

I chewed on my lip. “I wanted to do it myself, Nonna,” I said. “It’s not that I didn’t trust anybody, I just...”

“I get it.” A slight Italian accent came through the phone. “That’s fine. Tell me you at least had your sister look at the contract.”

I turned my head and sneezed. Man, this place was dusty. “Anna signed as a witness.” There was no need to go into more detail than that.

“Oh, good.” She sighed. “That Sadie, she can be a shyster, you know.”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I know.” I sneezed again.

“Bless you, sweetheart,” she said. “Well, what can I do to help? If I recall, that place needs some work.”

I loved my nonna. She looked like Sophia Loren, acted like the queen of England on a mission, and loved us with all her heart. She was fully Italian and often kept a wooden spoon in her purse in case she needed to smack somebody.

“I think I’m good for now. I have a date with Bobbo Brando tonight.”

She sighed. “Don’t tell me; it was part of your contract?”

I grinned. “Yeah. Sadie wants me to go on a date with each of her great-nephews. It’s not a big deal. We’re just having dinner at McCloskey’s, and then I’ll head back over the pass.”

“McCloskey’s for a date?” she murmured. “That’s not exactly romantic.”

“Good,” I burst out. “This is contractual. I’m not interested in Bobbo. I haven’t seen the guy in what? Ten years, at least.”

“Oh, I see him all the time,” Nonna said. “He is too old for you, though. What is he, like thirty-five?”

“I think so.” Bobbo had been a high school football star when I was still in elementary school—a huge linebacker. “I just remember he seemed like a large kid.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s a big farmer now. He’s got quite a few acres, and I heard he broke up with his fiancée not too long ago. Apparently, the woman had quite a temper,” she said, the beeping of a microwave coming over the line. “I don’t think he’s Italian.”

So much for Bobbo, then. I turned my head and sneezed again, searching for a Kleenex in my purse.

“Bless you,” she said. “Obviously, we need to clean that place.”

“Obviously,” I agreed. “I’m working on it now, but I don’t want to get too dusty before dinner. Besides, isn’t Brando an Italian name?”

“Huh,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t know, but I don’t see you living on a farm

.”

The woman definitely knew me. “No, I think I’d rather be here in town.”

Calling Silverville a town might be a little silly, considering it was two blocks of businesses and a county courthouse. But still, I didn’t want to be way out in the middle of nowhere. Not that I was interested in Bobbo. I didn’t know the guy but maybe we’d have a nice dinner.

Nonna cleared her throat. “After dinner with Bobbo, why don’t you stay the night here? The roads are only going to get worse, and I don’t think the snow’s supposed to stop all night.”

“I’ll think about it. I need to start packing my apartment and was planning to do that tomorrow.”

“You can’t do that all by yourself,” Nonna said. “I assume you’re moving to the second floor of your new building? Those steps aren’t easy to navigate while carrying boxes. We used to have rummage sales up there once in a while, and I remember nearly tripping a few times.”

She wasn’t wrong. “I know,” I said. “But my lease is up tomorrow, and I have to be out by Monday.”

“Oh, my. All right. I’ll get your cousins on it. They’ll come help you.”

I wanted to protest, but frankly, I needed the help. “Okay, great, Nonna. Thank you.”

Nobody could say no to Nonna, so at least that was taken care of. I hadn’t done it on purpose, but things were falling into place nicely.

“All right. Call me after your date and tell me if you’re heading over the pass so I can worry the whole time or if you’re going to stay with us for the night. I have huckleberry pie.”

“I’ll be over after my date,” I murmured. She knew I couldn’t resist huckleberry pie, and the guilt trip worked as planned.

“Oh, that’s good. What a smart decision. All right. Have a lovely date.” She hung up. About six months ago, she’d stopped saying goodbye and just ended every call like some executive from New York. I think she fancied herself the chess master of us all, so it greatly amused me. So long as none of my cousins started picking up the habit, I thought it was kind of sweet.

Sighing, I turned back to the building’s interior and wondered what to do with the stacks of extra lumber in the far corner. Maybe one of my cousins needed it for a project or something.

I worked quietly for another couple of hours, creating piles of items to keep, stuff to

throw away, and building supplies that somebody in the family might want.

Glancing at my watch, I gasped. Oh, crap, I had to run. I looked at the windows to make sure nobody was outside, and darkness had already fallen, then tore my shirt up and over my head before pulling it back down, making sure it wasn’t too dusty. It looked all right. ...