Chương 14
“I was twenty-eight,” she said. “I had two children. Renato had broken my jaw the year before. Your mother told me to leave with her. I thought if Enzo stopped her, she would stay, and then perhaps she would help me later.”
Alessandro closed his eyes.
“You never said Renato hurt you.”
“You were a boy.”
“Vittorio knew?”
“Everyone knew enough.”
“Why didn’t you leave after Maria died?”
“Because she died.”
The rain tapped against the garden window.
Elena’s voice softened. “You are not the first person in this family to mistake staying for survival.”
The line disconnected.
Alessandro remained beside the basin where Emma had stood.
The stool had been removed as evidence after investigators photographed it. The room seemed larger without it, though nothing else had changed. Folded towels. Baskets. Deep metal basin. The smell of soap in old stone.
He found the stained shirt in a wicker basket. Emma had left it after Sophia decided the cottage was too exposed and moved temporarily into a protected apartment near Monza.
The garment looked absurd among household linens.
He filled the basin with cold water.
The action was not symbolic when he began. He wanted something to do with his hands while lawyers argued upstairs and workers waited to learn whether their jobs still existed.
He rubbed soap into the collar.
The stain spread faintly at the edges.
“Wrong soap.”
Sophia stood in the doorway.
He turned. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Neither are you. Prosecutor Rinaldi restricted you to the east wing.”
“This is the east wing.”
“It smells like a basement.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Emma left her rabbit.”
The stuffed rabbit sat on a shelf near the towels, one ear dark from water.
Sophia picked it up, then watched him return to the shirt.
“You need gall soap,” she said.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“I can see.”
She placed the rabbit in her bag and came beside him.
Alessandro moved away from the basin.
“I’m not asking you to wash it.”
“Good.”
She examined the collar.
“The water is too warm.”
“It’s cold.”
“Not cold enough.”
“My mother said hot water makes it stay.”
“Your mother was right.”
“I know.”
Sophia looked at him.
He turned off the tap.
“The warehouse fire was not my order,” he said.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Do you believe me?”
She rubbed the edge of the collar between two fingers.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You are many things. Subtle is not one of them. Burning your own warehouse while cooperating would require a kind of cleverness you do not currently possess.”
He stared at her.
She glanced up. “Was that unkind?”
“Yes.”
“Do you prefer dishonesty?”
“No.”
“Then we are both inconvenienced.”
She found a bar of soap in a wooden drawer beneath the basin.
“This is gall soap.”
“How do you know?”
“I worked here.”
“Of course.”
She dampened the collar and showed him how to rub the soap without grinding the fabric.
“Gently,” she said. “You’re not interrogating it.”
He adjusted his grip.
For several minutes they worked without speaking. Rainwater rattled in the old gutter outside. Somewhere above them, a vacuum cleaner started and stopped.
“The stain may never leave,” Sophia said.
“I suspected.”
“Coffee binds to fabric. Time makes it worse.”
“So does heat.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the brown mark beneath the foam.
“Vittorio named the gunman,” he said. “The records support it.”
“I heard.”
“He claims he wanted my mother allowed to leave.”
“Do you believe him?”
“The tape suggests he argued for it.”
“That does not absolve what came after.”
“No.”
Sophia rinsed the collar.
The stain had lightened but remained visible.
“My mother believed guilt was useful only if it changed the next thing you did,” she said.
“What did guilt change for her?”
“Not enough.”
“Then perhaps she was wrong.”
“Perhaps.”
He looked at her.
Sophia placed the shirt over the basin edge.
“You keep waiting for dead women to give you instructions,” she said. “Maria cannot tell you which companies to sell. My mother cannot tell me whether to testify. They left us evidence, not lives.”
“What will you do?”
“Testify.”
“Even after the threats?”
“Because of them.”
“That isn’t safe.”
“No.”
“Emma—”
“Do not use my daughter to make fear sound responsible.”
He felt anger again, quicker this time.
“And do not use courage to pretend your decisions affect only you.”
Sophia’s face hardened.
They stood across the basin, both breathing too fast.
“You think I don’t know that?” she asked. “Every choice I make affects her. Working sick affected her. Staying silent affected her. Opening the box affected her. There is no clean decision left.”
“No.”
“You had choices for years.”
“Yes.”
“And now that you finally dislike them, you want everyone to admire the difficulty.”
“I don’t want admiration.”
“What do you want?”
He looked at the shirt.
“I want one decision that doesn’t turn someone else into the cost.”
Sophia’s anger faded, not into forgiveness but recognition.
“There may not be one,” she said.
The warehouse fire was traced to a former logistics supervisor named Daniele Riva. He had worked for Carlo and feared the archived manifests would reveal his role in smuggling weapons through humanitarian shipments.
Carlo provided Riva with the cloned number in exchange for the destruction of records. Riva believed framing Alessandro would force prosecutors to revoke cooperation agreements, making every witness less useful and therefore less dangerous.
He was arrested after using a toll-road account tied to his wife’s car.
The solution did not restore trust. It merely redirected suspicion.
Workers at the logistics company still lost contracts. The independent administrator announced layoffs despite Alessandro’s offer to sell personal property to cover wages. Courts required review before allowing funds connected to criminal proceeds to support the business.
Three hundred and eighty jobs became two hundred and forty.
May you like
The first dismissal notices went out in June.
Alessandro attended a meeting with employee representatives in a municipal hall because the mansion gates remained crowded with reporters. Men and women who had worked for Moretti companies for decades stood to accuse him of destroying their livelihoods.
