Chương 7
Lucy looked up.
“Are you still angry?”
Raffaele sat beside her.
“No.”
She studied him.
“Not even a little?”
He almost smiled.
Children were honest in ways adults forgot how to be.
“I’m still angry.”
Lucy looked down.
“But not at you.”
She nodded.
After a moment, she asked, “Did Mommy tell the truth?”
Raffaele looked at her.
The question was too big for someone so small.
“I think your mommy tried to.”
“Why didn’t she tell you?”
He looked toward the window.
Because that was the question that would stay with him forever.
“I don’t know.”
Lucy touched the rabbit’s damaged ear.
“Mommy used to say grown-ups hide things because they think they are helping.”
Raffaele looked at her.
“When did she say that?”
“When Grandma was sick.”
A small memory.
A random memory.
The kind children carry because they do not know which moments will matter later.
Raffaele looked down.
Even Lucy had pieces of Elena he never knew existed.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to find out?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
“Will you bring Mommy back?”
The question almost broke him.
He looked at his daughter.
The child who had inherited Elena’s eyes.
“No.”
Lucy’s face fell slightly.
“But I’m going to find out what happened.”
She was quiet.
Then she whispered, “Okay.”
It was not acceptance.
Not really.
It was a child trying to understand something impossible.
Raffaele stayed with her for several minutes.
They did not talk.
They did not need to.
Downstairs, two people who had betrayed him waited.
Outside, the night continued.
The next morning would bring consequences.
People would ask questions.
Employees would notice changes.
Enemies would hear rumors.
But for the first time in five years, Raffaele was no longer chasing a memory.
He was following a trail.
And somewhere at the end of it was the truth about the woman who had loved him enough to leave him a warning.
The truth about why Elena died.
And the truth about who had spent years making sure he never found out.
The next morning arrived without mercy.
Raffaele had spent most of the night sitting in his office with Elena’s note in front of him, not because he expected the paper to reveal more, but because moving it felt like accepting that everything written on it was real.
The list of names remained folded beside his phone.
He had not called anyone.
That decision alone felt unnatural.
For most of his life, information had been something he acted on immediately.
A problem appeared.
He solved it.
A threat appeared.
He removed it.
But this was not a business problem.
This was his wife.
The woman who knew exactly how stubborn he could be and loved him anyway.
At six in the morning, he finally stood.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
The kind of quiet that followed a fight when nobody knew what words were safe anymore.
He walked downstairs and found Marcus sitting at the kitchen table.
The man looked like he had not slept.
Neither had Raffaele.
The difference was that Marcus looked guilty.
Raffaele looked tired.
“You stayed.”
Marcus glanced up.
“You told me not to leave.”
“That usually works.”
A faint, humorless smile appeared on Marcus’s face.
“Still terrifying.”
The small moment disappeared quickly.
Neither man was ready for comfort.
Raffaele poured coffee.
He almost made two cups.
The habit came automatically.
Then he remembered Elena was not there.
His hand stopped.
Marcus noticed.
He said nothing.
That was the first kind thing he had done in years.
“You know what bothers me?” Marcus asked.
Raffaele sat across from him.
“What?”
“I kept telling myself I was protecting Lucy.”
Raffaele waited.
“But part of me was protecting myself.”
The admission sat between them.
Marcus stared at the coffee in front of him.
“I was afraid that if I told you the truth, you would look at me the way I looked at myself.”
Raffaele leaned back.
“How did you look at yourself?”
Marcus swallowed.
“Like someone who failed the person who trusted him most.”
Raffaele looked away.
Because he understood that feeling.
Not the same failure.
But the same weight.
After Elena died, he had replayed every conversation.
Every argument.
Every moment he was too busy.
Every time she said, “We need to talk,” and he answered, “Can we do it later?”
Later had always seemed guaranteed.
It was one of the cruelest things about life.
People treated time like a promise.
It was only an opportunity.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the note?” Marcus asked.
Raffaele looked at him.
“Because I don’t know if you are part of it.”
Marcus nodded.
The answer hurt, but he accepted it.
“That’s fair.”
Raffaele studied him.
“You’re making this easier than I expected.”
“I’m tired.”
“That is not an explanation.”
Marcus looked out the window.
“No.”
He paused.
“It’s just the truth.”
Before Raffaele could respond, his phone vibrated.
The screen showed an unknown number.
He answered.
“Raffaele.”
A woman’s voice.
Older.
Careful.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Sofia Bell.”
The name meant nothing.
Not immediately.
“I knew Elena.”
Raffaele stood.
“How?”
There was a pause.
A pause that contained fear.
“She came to me three days before she died.”
Marcus looked up.
Raffaele walked away from the table.
“What did she want?”
“She wanted advice.”
“About what?”
Another pause.
“About how to disappear.”
The words made his grip tighten around the phone.
“Why would she want that?”
“Because she believed someone close to her was watching her.”
Raffaele looked toward Marcus.
“How did you get this number?”
“She left it.”
“Where?”
“In a file.”
“What file?”
Sofia hesitated.
“The one she told me never to open unless you called.”
Raffaele felt something shift.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
A strange awareness that Elena had been moving pieces around him without him knowing.
“She expected me to call?”
“She expected you might.”
The answer bothered him.
“Why?”
“Because Elena knew you.”
May you like
Raffaele said nothing.
“She said you would spend years blaming yourself before you looked for the truth.”
