Chương 9
Elena faced her. “Voluntarily?”
“After I threatened to resign as his attorney and his sister.”
“Can you resign from that?”
“I’ve been trying since childhood.”
The dry answer made Rachel smile despite herself.
Elena sat again.
“Why would Carlo harm Leo?”
Sofia looked older than she had at the hospital.
“Lorenzo has been trying to separate our legitimate businesses from the criminal ones,” she said. “Quietly. He planned to sell two companies, close several cash operations, and remove Carlo from financial control.”
“Because of Leo?”
“Because of Isabella’s death. Because he looked at his son and became frightened of what inheritance actually means.”
“Carlo didn’t want to lose power.”
“Power is part of it. Money is part. Fear is larger.”
“Fear of what?”
“Men who have spent forty years building a certain kind of life do not retire because a thirty-four-year-old develops a conscience. They worry he will expose them, abandon them, or make them vulnerable to rivals.”
“So Carlo starved a baby to keep the family together.”
Sofia flinched. “I did not say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Marco Santini regained consciousness the next morning.
Detectives questioned him at the hospital with his attorney present. He admitted disabling parts of the mansion’s security system on Carlo’s instructions. Carlo had told him federal agents were attempting remote surveillance and that the shutdown would protect Lorenzo.
Marco had believed him because Carlo had been giving such orders since Lorenzo was a teenager.
He denied knowing that anyone intended to harm Leo.
On the night of the attack, Marco saw Daria carrying a metal can toward the nursery corridor. When he confronted her, a second man struck him from behind. Marco could not identify the man. He remembered reaching the nursery after the door locked and calling Elena’s name because he had heard her voice inside.
“Why her name?” Detective Pike asked, according to the summary Rachel received.
Marco answered, “Because she would listen.”
Not Lorenzo.
Elena read that line twice.
Marco also revealed that Carlo had ordered him to erase six weeks of nursery camera footage. He had not erased it completely. Copies remained on an offline drive in the security office.
Police recovered the drive.
Most of the video showed ordinary nights: nurses checking monitors, lights turning on and off, Lorenzo standing alone beside the crib after everyone else had gone. But on seven separate occasions, Daria entered carrying prepared bottles after the assigned nurse had completed the feeding.
On three occasions, Carlo entered with her.
The camera angle did not show what they did beside the crib.
It showed enough to transform suspicion into something heavier.
Carlo was questioned and released.
His attorney called the visits innocent. As Leo’s great-uncle and household administrator, Carlo had legitimate reasons to enter the nursery. Daria remained missing. The unidentified man who attacked Marco did not appear on camera.
Carlo issued a statement through his lawyer expressing heartbreak over the “misinterpretation of a grieving family’s private conduct.”
The statement made Lorenzo furious.
He visited Elena that evening without permission.
Two black vehicles stopped outside Joan’s house. Neighbors lifted curtains. Joan opened the front door before he reached it and pointed down the steps.
“No.”
Lorenzo stood on the path in a dark overcoat. His wrapped hand had been replaced by a smaller bandage. “I need to speak with Elena.”
“You needed to not point a gun at her.”
“I agree.”
Joan looked briefly confused.
He continued, “I will remain outside.”
“It’s twenty-eight degrees.”
“I noticed.”
Joan closed the door.
Elena had heard the exchange from the kitchen.
“You don’t have to talk to him,” her mother said.
“I know.”
“Men like that make every room theirs.”
“Then I’ll meet him on the sidewalk.”
She pulled on her coat and stepped outside.
Lorenzo’s security men moved away at his signal. The neighbors did not stop watching.
“You should not be here,” Elena said.
“I know.”
“That appears to be your new phrase.”
“It has become useful.”
They walked toward the corner. Dirty snow lined the curb. Someone had left a broken desk chair beside a trash bin. Lorenzo avoided looking at it.
“How is Leo?” she asked.
“Better. They removed one line today.”
“Good.”
“He cries now.”
“That is good.”
“It does not sound good.”
“It isn’t supposed to.”
He nodded as if storing the information.
They reached the corner and stopped beneath a streetlight.
Lorenzo said, “Carlo arranged your employment.”
“I know.”
“He accessed your medical information.”
“I know.”
“He intended to blame you.”
“I know.”
His jaw tightened. “Sofia talks too much.”
“Sofia talks exactly enough. You’re the one who thinks silence is a form of protection.”
He looked down the street.
“What do you want from me?” Elena asked.
“To move you somewhere secure.”
“No.”
“Your address is public.”
“Because someone connected to your family leaked my file.”
“Yes.”
“And your solution is to let your family hide me.”
“My solution is to keep you alive.”
“Those aren’t always the same thing.”
His eyes returned to hers. “You think I don’t understand that?”
“I think you understand it and choose control anyway.”
A bus passed, throwing slush against the curb. Lorenzo stepped between Elena and the spray without seeming to think about it.
She resented the gesture because it was considerate.
“Carlo will contact you,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because the evidence against him is incomplete and you are the easiest witness to discredit.”
“He already did that.”
“He will want you to change your statement.”
“I won’t.”
“You say that now.”
“You don’t know me.”
“No,” he said. “I knew everyone in my house except the woman who saved my son.”
Elena looked away.
The phrase was becoming another prison. Saved my son. People used it to make her brave, unstable, holy, obscene. No one understood that she had acted before deciding what kind of person the action would make her.
May you like
“He was hungry,” she said. “I fed him.”
Lorenzo’s voice dropped. “You stayed still when I pointed a gun at you.”
