Chương 15
Some knew about smuggling. Most did not.
A forklift operator named Paolo held up his dismissal letter.
“My wife is seven months pregnant,” he said. “Your conscience arrives, and my child pays for it?”
Alessandro remained behind the narrow table at the front.
“No,” he said. “My crimes arrived first.”
“That doesn’t pay rent.”
“No.”
“Then what are you offering?”
“Severance from the asset sale, retraining funds, and priority placement with companies purchasing legitimate divisions.”
“Promises.”
“Contracts administered by the court.”
Paolo threw the letter onto the table.
“You will go to prison and call yourself brave. We will stand in unemployment lines and call you something else.”
Security moved forward when Paolo approached. Alessandro raised a hand.
“Let him speak.”
Paolo laughed bitterly. “Now he lets people speak.”
The room erupted.
Alessandro listened until the meeting ended, not because listening repaired anything but because leaving would have repeated the oldest Moretti habit: making other people absorb the consequence in private.
Outside, Luca waited beside the car.
“You could have answered better,” he said.
“There was no better answer.”
“There is always a better answer.”
“What would you have said?”
“I would have lied about the placement numbers.”
Alessandro looked at him.
Luca shrugged. “You asked.”
They drove to the protected apartment where Sophia and Emma were staying.
Emma had begun attending a small preschool under a different surname. Police drove her each morning. She hated the escort and loved the school’s yellow slide. Both feelings existed without conflict for her.
When Alessandro arrived, she was drawing at the kitchen table.
“Look.” She held up a page covered in blue circles.
“What is it?”
“Rain.”
“It looks dangerous.”
“No. Fish rain.”
“Better.”
Sophia sat on the balcony, wrapped in a cardigan despite the summer heat. Her cough had nearly disappeared, but fatigue remained in the set of her shoulders.
“How was the meeting?” she asked.
“Bad.”
“Did they shout?”
“Yes.”
“Did you deserve it?”
“Mostly.”
She moved a second chair with her foot.
He sat.
Below them, traffic moved along the avenue. A delivery scooter stopped in the bicycle lane while its rider argued with someone on the phone.
“The prosecutor offered us relocation near Bologna,” Sophia said.
Alessandro looked at her.
“I’m considering it.”
“For how long?”
“Until the trial.”
“That could be years.”
“Yes.”
“Emma’s school?”
“She can attend there.”
“Your work?”
“I don’t have work.”
“The severance fund—”
“Will help. I also applied for a training program in medical administration.”
He absorbed this.
“You won’t return to the mansion.”
“No.”
“I thought you might manage the household after Bianca.”
Sophia stared at him, then laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth.
“What?”
“You uncover decades of murder and corruption because a housekeeper’s child washes your shirt, and your solution is to promote the housekeeper.”
“When you say it like that—”
“How else can it be said?”
“I thought you valued the cottage.”
“I value housing. I do not dream of organizing your towels.”
He looked through the balcony door at Emma, who had begun coloring one fish green.
“What will happen to the mansion?” Sophia asked.
“It will be sold.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know. The court will approve the buyer.”
“Does that hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He glanced at her.
She did not apologize.
“The money will support restitution,” he said.
“Also good.”
“My attorneys negotiated protection for the staff pension accounts.”
“That is something.”
“It’s not enough.”
“No.”
He leaned back. The balcony chair was too small for him. His knees pressed against the rail.
“Sophia.”
“Yes?”
“When you testify, Vittorio’s attorneys will attack you.”
“I know.”
“They will say you stole documents. That you manipulated the bank box. That your mother fabricated letters to extort the family.”
“I know.”
“They’ll bring up your husband’s debts.”
Her face changed.
“What debts?”
Alessandro cursed himself silently.
Sophia turned fully toward him. “What debts?”
“His family filed claims after his death. Gambling loans.”
“He did not gamble.”
“Records show transfers to online betting accounts.”
“He could barely use email.”
“The accounts were in his name.”
“Who found this?”
“My attorneys.”
“And you were going to tell me when?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“Because you made a mistake.”
“Yes.”
She stood.
“Sophia.”
“Leave.”
“The records may be false.”
“Leave.”
“I can investigate—”
“You do not investigate my dead husband.”
“Vittorio’s attorneys will.”
“You are not Vittorio’s attorney.”
“No.”
“Then stop behaving as if every fact enters the world through your permission.”
Emma looked toward the balcony.
Sophia lowered her voice.
“You came here knowing something about my husband and sat down to discuss the mansion.”
“I was trying to find the right moment.”
“Powerful men always call delay timing.”
He stood.
“That is not fair.”
“No. It is familiar.”
Alessandro left.
The betting accounts belonged to Sophia’s husband in name only. Luca discovered that within three days, though Sophia had forbidden Alessandro to investigate. The transfers originated from a subcontractor connected to the construction company that employed him. Similar accounts had been opened in the names of six dead workers.
The scheme allowed managers to disguise cash withdrawals and later blame missing safety funds on employee gambling.
Sophia’s husband had died when improperly secured scaffolding collapsed. The company settled privately with several families while denying negligence.
The discovery gave Sophia a second reason to testify in a different case. It also proved Alessandro incapable of respecting a boundary even when his intentions were useful.
She did not speak to him for six weeks.
Emma sent drawings through Luca.
One showed Alessandro beside a blue fish. Another showed the mansion with smoke coming from six chimneys. In the third, he stood beside a woman in a pink dress. Sophia had drawn a black line through his face before Emma gave it away, then apparently regretted it and tried to erase the line.
The mark remained.
May you like
Alessandro kept the picture in the room he rented after surrendering the mansion.
The apartment was small, secure, and furnished by someone who believed beige discouraged crime. He learned to make coffee in a machine with three buttons and no instructions. He ruined two shirts washing them himself. He attended interviews with prosecutors, meetings with labor administrators, and counseling sessions required as part of his cooperation agreement.
