All Chapters of DON'T MESS WITH THE HEIRESS : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

The room was very quiet the only sounds being the radiator clicking and the wind outside blowing against the windows. The satellite phone on the desk had a screen that made the old stone walls look even colder. To really understand what my father was trying to do I had to know about the Third Key. It was not something I could hold in my hand like a piece of metal. The Third Key was like a code something my father created to keep himself safe.I was sitting in front of the computer my fingers hovering over the keyboard. If I entered the code it would be like going to a place I did not want to be. It would be like telling the world where I was.Stephen said, "If you do this it will be like sending up a signal. Everyone will know what you are doing." He was standing by the bookshelf his arms crossed. He had been getting ready for something checking the locks and talking to Marco. Stephen was worried about someone coming to hurt us.I said, "I know, but I have to do it. The people in Nair

The headlights were moving slowly towards us. They looked like two eyes in the dark. They cut through the purple fog on the valley floor. I stood on the terrace. My fingers were wrapped tightly around the stone railing. The stone felt cold. My skin felt cold too.. I didn't move. I needed to feel connected to something.Stephen was standing behind me. He was breathing slowly and quietly. He wasn't the man I had met before. The man who lived in the shadows and always acted fast. Now he was a man. He seemed to belong to this land. I could see his habits in the way he looked."There are three cars " he whispered. He was looking at the winding road. "They're not trying to hide. They just want to scare us.""They still think they're in a city like London " I said. "They think a fancy car and a suit can scare a village."The cars reached the blockage that Stephen had set up. It was a tractor that was stuck and a pile of stones. They stopped moving. The engines went one by one. The silence th

I was wide awake that night. I sat on the well with Stephen. Watched the sky change from dark to light. The sun was coming up. That was all that mattered. The light touched the vines the stones and the faces of our friends who stayed behind to keep an eye on things.The fighting was over. Now our story was really starting."They will not come back " Stephen said to me. He handed me a mug of coffee. The steam was rising up in the air. It smelled like home."I do not think they will " I said. "They will be busy in court and dealing with regulators. They will try to save themselves.. They forgot something. When you take everything from people you give them a kind of power."I looked at the villa. The light was shining off the windows. It did not look like a tower anymore. It looked like a house. A place where kids could grow up where we could make wine and where our history could finally be at peace.Marco came walking up the hill. His boots were heavy. He was walking lightly. He looked

I was the one who planned everything. Stephen was the person who fixed the land. People called him the "Silent Builder" of the valley. Stephen took care of the vines. He also fixed the stone walls that were falling apart since the 1990s.I found Stephen near the western ridge one afternoon. He was not wearing a shirt and his back was very tan from being in the sun in Tuscany. He was lifting a piece of limestone and putting it into a hole in the old wall. He was being very careful like a doctor when they are doing surgery.I thought Stephen is going to hurt his back. So I told him "You are going to hurt yourself Stephen." I was standing near an olive tree.He wiped the sweat from his face with his arm. Looked at me. He was smiling. He said, "This wall has been here for two hundred years Hannah. If I do not fix it now the rain in the winter will wash away the soil. We need stone walls to keep the vineyard safe the Mending of the Stone is very important."I walked over to Stephen. I put

The news of what happened in the valley did not stay hidden for long. When something big like the Tower of Glass falls it leaves a hole. The effects are seen everywhere. By the time the Rossi Trust was a year old the big work we were doing had become huge. Was affecting people way beyond our home.I was sitting in the library, which's now a nice and useful room with maps of communities from all over the world. I was reading a letter from some farmers in the Andes. They had heard about the Vane Restitution. They wanted to know how we did it. They wanted to get the water rights that belonged to them but were taken by a big mining company.They are not asking us for money Stephen I said, when he came in with a basket of cherries. They want to know how we did it so they can do it too. They want to know how to take a debt that a company owes them and turn it into something that helps the community like the Rossi Trust.Stephen sat down on the desk. Started eating a cherry. His face used to