Chapter 5
Carlo went gray.
That was his confession before words.
My uncle.
My father’s brother.
The man who carried me on his shoulders when I was six.
The man who stood beside me at Elena’s funeral.
The man who held Livia while I shook over my wife’s closed coffin.
I stared at him.
“What gate?”
Carlo shook his head.
“She is three. She repeats nonsense.”
Livia pressed closer to me.
“Mommy said it in the bunny.”
The bunny.
The second card.
Carlo’s eyes flicked toward the door.
Nico and Rosalie were already gone.
He realized it a second later.
“Where is the evidence?”
I almost smiled.
“Evidence?”
His face hardened.
“Alessandro, you are emotional.”
That word.
Emotional.
Men used it when truth made them nervous.
Donatella stepped in.
“Elena was dangerous. She was digging into things she had no right to touch.”
My mother appeared behind them.
Her face drained.
“What things?”
Donatella ignored her.
“She would have destroyed both families.”
“You mean exposed them,” I said.
Bianca’s voice cracked.
“My brother died because of your wife.”
That stopped me.
“Your brother?”
“Matteo.”
I remembered Matteo Moretti.
Dead two years.
Overdose, they said.
A disgrace whispered about behind closed doors.
Bianca’s eyes burned.
“Elena promised him protection if he gave her documents. Then he panicked. Then he died.”
Donatella slapped her.
Hard.
The sound cracked through the office.
Bianca staggered.
Livia screamed.
My mother stepped forward.
I handed Livia to her and moved between them.
“Do not touch another person in front of my child.”
Donatella’s mask slipped.
“She talks too much.”
“Yes,” I said. “That seems to frighten your family.”
My phone rang.
Nico.
I answered on speaker.
“We opened the first card,” he said.
Every person in the room froze.
Nico continued.
“It’s Elena. Video file. She names Carlo, Donatella, and Dr. Ferri.”
Dr. Ferri.
The coroner who signed Elena’s death report.
My stomach turned.
“What else?”
“She says your marriage to Bianca was arranged to finalize control of the Rizzano charity accounts.”
Bianca whispered, “No.”
Donatella closed her eyes.
Nico’s voice hardened.
“And she says Livia is the only witness to the night before the explosion.”
My daughter.
Three years old now.
Barely two then.
A witness without words.
My mother held Livia tighter.
Carlo lunged for the door.
My guards caught him.
He shouted, “You have no idea what Elena was going to do!”
I walked toward him.
“No. But I know what you did.”
He struggled.
“She would have sent us all to prison.”
“And now she will.”
Police sirens sounded outside.
Nico had called them.
For the first time in my life, I was grateful to hear them.
Donatella looked at me with pure hatred.
“You bring police into our family business?”
May you like
I looked at my daughter’s bandaged head.
“No,” I said. “You brought family business to my child.”
