Chương 7
“What is household disruption?”
“Bianca claims it covers schedule changes.”
“Fire her.”
Luca nodded once. “Already suspended.”
“I said fire her.”
“There may be labor consequences if you dismiss her before documenting the violations.”
Alessandro looked up.
Luca held his gaze. “You asked me years ago to stop you when anger became expensive.”
“I don’t remember asking.”
“You were drunk.”
Emma licked yogurt from the spoon. “Bad word.”
Both men looked at her.
“What bad word?” Luca asked.
“Drunk.”
Luca sat across from her. “It is not a bad word. It is a bad condition.”
Emma considered this and returned to her yogurt.
Alessandro opened the archive log. Sophia had entered twice. Vittorio had entered three times in the week afterward, including at two fourteen that morning.
“Last night?”
“While you were here,” Luca said. “The archive camera stopped recording for twenty-three minutes.”
“Who disabled it?”
“The system records a maintenance override from Carlo De Luca’s credentials.”
“Our business manager.”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“His wife says he left for Zurich before dawn.”
“Do we know that?”
“No.”
Alessandro closed the folder.
“Freeze his access to company accounts. Quietly.”
“Already done.”
“What did Vittorio remove?”
“We haven’t inventoried the archive since 2018.”
“Then inventory it.”
“Several thousand files.”
“Start with 1999.”
Luca slid the third folder forward. Teresa Rossi had begun work at the mansion in 1987. Her duties included sewing, laundry, and personal assistance to Maria Moretti. The final page recorded her resignation two months after Maria’s death.
A handwritten note in the margin read: UNSUITABLE FOR REHIRE. DISLOYAL. WATCH CONTACTS.
The initials beneath it were V.M.
Alessandro touched the ink.
“Do we know where Vittorio is?”
“At the mansion. He asked to see you.”
“Tell him I’m occupied.”
“He will know you’re avoiding him.”
“I’m not avoiding him. I’m making him wait.”
Luca glanced at Emma, who had begun arranging sugar packets by color.
“There’s a photograph,” he said.
He took a plastic sleeve from the folder.
Maria Moretti sat beneath the rose arbor, younger than Alessandro remembered her because memory had fixed her at the age of her death. She wore a pale summer dress and held a dark-haired baby. Teresa Rossi stood beside her, smiling at someone outside the frame.
On the back, in Maria’s handwriting, were the words:
Sophia, six months. Sandro refused to share his peach and then cried because she stopped looking at him.
Alessandro read it twice.
“I knew her.”
“You were seven,” Luca said.
“No. I knew her.”
A sensation like shame moved through him, though he could not name what he had done wrong beyond forgetting.
Emma reached for the photograph.
“That Mama.”
Alessandro lowered it to her.
She tapped the baby. “Mama.”
Then Maria. “Song lady.”
“Do you know the man who took this picture?”
Emma pointed to the edge of the frame. Only a shadow and part of a hand were visible. A black onyx ring caught the sun.
“Shiny man.”
Alessandro looked at Luca.
“It could be Vittorio,” Luca said.
“It is.”
“It could also be Enzo.”
“My father wore gold.”
Luca examined the photograph more closely.
Emma dipped her spoon into the empty yogurt cup.
“Where is the original?” Alessandro asked.
“Mama desk.”
They waited until Sophia was awake.
The antibiotics had lowered her fever, but walking to the bathroom left her breathless. A social worker named Francesca arrived at nine and spent forty minutes asking questions Alessandro considered intrusive until he understood they were intended to determine whether Emma was safe with him.
“What is your relationship to the child?” Francesca asked.
“None.”
“Then why do you intend to care for her?”
“Her mother is ill.”
“That describes the circumstance, not your intention.”
Alessandro glanced toward Sophia.
She looked tired enough to disappear into the pillow, but there was satisfaction in her eyes.
“I do not intend to care for her permanently,” he said. “I intend to prevent her from being frightened while her mother receives treatment.”
“Who will supervise her?”
“I will.”
Francesca studied his tailored suit, his watch, and the two men outside the glass.
“What experience do you have with children?”
“None.”
Emma, sitting on Sophia’s bed, held up her bandaged hands. “He give bread.”
Francesca wrote something.
“He also broke our door,” Sophia said.
Francesca wrote more.
“It was necessary,” Alessandro said.
“So is documentation,” Francesca replied.
By the end of the interview, Emma was permitted to remain under Alessandro’s temporary supervision for twenty-four hours, provided she slept at the hospital or in the cottage with an approved caregiver. Giulia agreed to assist. Luca submitted identification for background checks without complaint.
When Francesca left, Alessandro looked at Sophia.
“You enjoyed that.”
“A little.”
“You told her about the door.”
“You broke it.”
“I’ll replace it.”
“That does not unbreak it.”
Emma climbed down from the bed and held out both arms to Alessandro. He lifted her before considering what it meant that she expected him to.
Sophia noticed.
Something guarded passed through her face.
“The bank closes at four,” Alessandro said.
“I know.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I can sit in a car.”
“The doctor may refuse.”
“He already did.”
“And?”
“I told him I would leave against medical advice.”
Alessandro stared at her.
Sophia adjusted the oxygen tube beneath her nose. “People make foolish choices when they feel cornered.”
“So I’ve been told.”
They compromised. A bank officer would meet them in a private conference room on the hospital’s ground floor. Luca arranged security. Sophia signed nothing until Francesca had returned to witness that she was acting voluntarily, a precaution she insisted upon after learning Alessandro owned a minority share in the bank’s parent company.
“You think I would forge your consent?” he asked.
“I think powerful men describe pressure as efficiency.”
He had no answer that improved the room.
May you like
At three ten, an officer named Paolo Neri arrived with a portable document scanner, two identification forms, and a sealed container from Box 317.
The container was smaller than Alessandro expected. Brown leather, worn at the corners, with Teresa Rossi’s initials pressed into the lid. The brass key turned reluctantly.
