Chương 3
“You authorized maintenance.”
“And the preservation of archived security records.”
Vittorio’s mouth tightened. “You’ve spent months preparing this humiliation.”
Lucia’s voice trembled slightly, but she did not look away. “I spent months asking why women disappeared from both our households after private conflicts with your daughter.”
“Employees leave.”
“Seven in eighteen months.”
“Domestic work has turnover.”
“So does fear.”
Isabella laughed once. It was a dry, astonished sound.
“Is that what this is?” she asked. “A labor hearing arranged at my wedding?”
“No,” Lucia said. “A labor hearing has rules.”
Alessandro looked at his mother. “How long?”
She knew what he meant.
“Since January.”
It was June.
“You investigated Isabella for five months and said nothing to me?”
“You were marrying her.”
“That is why you should have told me.”
“That is why you would not have listened.”
He stared at her.
The answer was cruel because it was probably true.
In January, Alessandro had dismissed Lucia’s first concern as another attempt to interfere with the wedding. She had mentioned two housekeepers leaving without notice and a driver who refused to explain why he would not work when Isabella stayed at the estate. Alessandro had told her not to confuse discomfort with wrongdoing.
He remembered the exact place he had said it: the breakfast room, while reading three messages at once and stirring coffee he never drank. Lucia had stood by the window holding a folder. He had not asked what was inside it.
Vittorio tapped his cane against the stone.
“My attorney will be here in twenty minutes.”
Marco said, “The police may be here first.”
Isabella’s head snapped toward him. “Who called them?”
“No one yet.”
“Then why would they come?”
Marco looked toward the side door through which guests were leaving.
“Because there were one hundred and fourteen witnesses, at least six active phones, and a child saying her mother had been threatened.”
Vittorio’s face remained calm, but his hand tightened around the silver head of the cane.
“This is a private family matter.”
Sophia’s voice came from the side aisle.
“No, it isn’t.”
She had returned without Emma. Her service apron was gone, and she carried a canvas handbag against her hip. Her hair, pinned neatly at the start of the ceremony, had loosened around her face.
Alessandro looked behind her.
“Nina has Emma in the car,” Sophia said. “I came back because I won’t have Mr. Romano saying this is private when he made sure every woman who complained was alone.”
Vittorio studied her as if trying to recall where he had seen her.
“You’re the server.”
“I’m the household service coordinator.”
“You pour drinks.”
“Sometimes.”
“Then you should be careful about inserting yourself into matters you don’t understand.”
Sophia took one step forward. “Your daughter told me she would have me arrested for stealing her bracelet if I spoke about the papers I found in Lucia’s study.”
The chapel became silent again.
Alessandro felt the weight of the ring box in his pocket.
“What papers?” he asked.
Sophia’s eyes moved to him. “Grant approvals.”
Lucia’s face changed.
“What grant approvals?” Alessandro asked.
“The Romano Preservation Trust application. The one asking the Moretti Foundation for two-point-four million dollars.”
Vittorio said, “This is absurd.”
Sophia did not look at him.
“There was a draft on Lucia’s desk with her signature. I thought she’d left it there, so I put it in the blue folder with the other foundation mail. Later that day, Lucia asked me whether I’d seen a grant application. I said yes. She said she had never signed one.”
Alessandro turned to his mother.
Lucia nodded slowly. “The application disappeared before I could retrieve it.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I told Daniel Hsu to check whether anything had been submitted.”
“What did he find?”
“Nothing under the foundation’s normal system.”
Vittorio said, “Because nothing was submitted.”
Sophia’s hand closed around the strap of her bag.
“Isabella heard me talking to Lucia. That night, she came into the service corridor and told me I had misunderstood. I said I knew what Lucia’s signature looked like because I handled her correspondence. Isabella asked whether I was accusing her of forgery.”
“Were you?” Alessandro asked.
“I was trying not to.”
Isabella looked at him. “She found a draft prepared for discussion. That is all.”
“With my mother’s signature?”
“It was a digital placeholder.”
Lucia said, “My signature is not a placeholder.”
“Your assistant uses it.”
“Not on grant approvals.”
Isabella stood.
The lace of her dress caught beneath one heel, forcing her to stop and free it. The ordinary clumsiness made the moment stranger. She bent, tugged the fabric, and rose with color high in her cheeks.
“I was trying to save an estate that employs sixty-three people,” she said. “The preservation trust funds public programming, agricultural training, and historic restoration. The application was unfinished.”
“Why threaten Sophia?” Alessandro asked.
“I did not threaten her.”
The tablet remained on the altar between them, its frozen image showing her hand around Sophia’s wrist.
Isabella glanced at it.
“I lost my temper.”
Sophia’s voice was quiet. “You told me the police would search my apartment and child services would ask why Emma slept on a pullout couch.”
Isabella’s face hardened. “I said an investigation would examine your circumstances.”
“You said you knew which officer handled the theft complaint at your father’s estate.”
“I was warning you what an accusation could cause.”
“You were telling me what you would do.”
Vittorio raised his cane slightly, not as a weapon but as a signal for silence.
“My daughter has been under extraordinary pressure. A wedding, public obligations, financial negotiations—”
“She bruised my wrist,” Sophia said.
He looked at her then.
Not through her. At her.
The shift seemed to make him angrier.
“You have no idea what pressure is.”
Sophia’s lips parted. For a second, Alessandro thought she might retreat.
May you like
Instead she said, “I know exactly what it costs when someone richer than you decides your fear is useful.”
Vittorio’s attorney arrived before the police.
