The Little Girl Washing His Shirt Uncovered the Lie That Built His Empire

“Song lady?”

“Yes.”

“You sad?”

Alessandro placed the letter inside its envelope.

“I don’t know.”

Sophia leaned back in her chair. “That may be the first honest answer anyone in your family has given.”

Her eyes closed.

The fever had risen again.

Bellini ordered her back upstairs and prohibited further excursions. By evening, her oxygen level worsened. Emma sat beside the bed singing the lullaby until a nurse persuaded her to sleep.

Alessandro returned to the mansion after midnight.

The spring reception had been canceled. Elena blamed staff illness, though Luca had issued a statement citing an electrical fault. Cars belonging to relatives still lined the front drive. Light burned in the formal salon.

Vittorio waited there with Elena, Carlo De Luca’s empty chair positioned between them like an accusation.

“You froze company accounts,” Vittorio said.

“Carlo’s access.”

“Carlo has managed those accounts for eighteen years.”

“Then he should be easy to find.”

Elena stood near the fireplace, smoking despite having quit ten years earlier. Her hand trembled each time she lifted the cigarette.

“Where is he?” Alessandro asked.

Vittorio spread his hands. His ring finger remained bare.

“Zurich, apparently.”

“Why did he disable the west archive camera?”

“I imagine you will ask him.”

“Why were you in the archive at two in the morning?”

“I was looking for the same thing you are.”

“What is that?”

“An explanation for why a maid has made you turn against your family in less than a day.”

Alessandro removed his mother’s envelope from his inside pocket.

Elena stared at the handwriting.

“Oh, God.”

Vittorio did not move.

“You recognize it,” Alessandro said.

“Of course,” Elena whispered.

“Did you know she planned to leave?”

Elena crushed the cigarette into a crystal dish. “This is not a conversation for tonight.”

“It is twenty-seven years late.”

Vittorio walked to the drinks table. “Maria threatened to leave every time she and Enzo quarreled.”

“She hired an attorney.”

“Many unhappy wives do.”

“She gathered evidence.”

Vittorio poured brandy into a glass. “Evidence of what?”

“You tell me.”

He drank.

Alessandro watched the swallow move through his uncle’s throat.

“There are tapes,” he said.

The glass paused near Vittorio’s mouth.

It was the smallest reaction possible.

It was enough.

“What tapes?” Elena asked.

Vittorio set down the drink. “He is testing us.”

“No,” Alessandro said. “I’m watching you fail the test.”

Elena stepped between them. “Stop this.”

“Did my father order her death?”

“No,” Elena said at once.

Vittorio said nothing.

Alessandro looked past her. “Did you help him?”

Vittorio’s face changed then, not into guilt but weariness.

“Your mother was preparing to deliver records to a prosecutor who had already been bought by the Lanza family. Had she succeeded, Enzo would have been arrested, our routes exposed, and every rival from Turin to Naples would have descended on this house.”

“So you killed her.”

“I said no such thing.”

“Matteo Rossi planned to drive us to Switzerland.”

Elena sat down hard.

Vittorio’s eyes moved to her.

Alessandro saw it. Not surprise at the information. Warning.

“You knew,” he said to Elena.

She shook her head, but tears had already filled her eyes.

“You knew she was leaving.”

“She told me she needed money.”

“And you told them.”

“I told my husband.”

Elena’s husband, Renato, had been Vittorio’s younger brother. Dead twelve years now from a stroke.

“I thought they would stop her,” Elena said. “I thought Enzo would send her to the lake house until she calmed down.”

“She was not hysterical.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Elena covered her mouth.

Vittorio moved toward Alessandro. “Your aunt made a frightened mistake. Do not turn it into something else.”

“What did you do?”

“I protected you.”

“From my mother?”

“From a war.”

“By starting one with Lanza?”

“By directing suspicion where it could be contained.”

The room seemed to tilt, though Alessandro’s body remained still.

“Corrado Lanza did not kill her.”

Vittorio’s silence confirmed it more clearly than words.

Alessandro crossed the distance between them and struck him.

The blow turned Vittorio’s head. His glass fell and broke against the marble floor.

Elena cried out.

Vittorio did not fall. Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. He touched it with one finger and looked at the red as if it belonged to someone else.

“I wondered when you would do that,” he said.

Alessandro hit him again.

This time Luca entered before a third blow. He caught Alessandro around the chest and pulled him back. Two guards remained at the doorway, uncertain whom they were expected to protect.

“Enough,” Luca said into Alessandro’s ear.

“He killed her.”

“Maybe. But beating him won’t prove it.”

Vittorio straightened his jacket.

“You think proof changes what happened?” he asked. “You think prison resurrects her?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

Alessandro pulled free of Luca.

“The truth.”

“You want permission to hate a dead father.”

“I don’t need permission.”

“No. You want innocence. That is more expensive.”

Vittorio wiped blood from his lip with a handkerchief.

“Your father ordered Maria brought back before she reached the border,” he said. “Matteo Rossi was supposed to collect her at dawn. We learned the route from Renato. I sent two men to intercept them.”

Elena made a broken sound.

“Maria left the house early,” Vittorio continued. “She was going to warn Teresa. Our men followed. Her car went off the road near Monza.”

“The police report said she was shot.”

“She was. After the crash.”

“By whom?”

“One of the men panicked.”

“Name him.”

“He is dead.”

“Name him.”

“Gabriele Conti.”

Alessandro knew the name. Conti had died in a warehouse fire in 2004.

“And my father?”

“Enzo ordered us to make it appear connected to Lanza. Matteo Rossi was taken because he knew too much. Your father believed fear required completeness.”

“You watched him kill an innocent man.”