Chương 7
“It usually is.”
She looked through the hallway window at workers dismantling a white tent near the garden. Men in gray uniforms folded chairs while a florist cut ribbons from the arch. The wedding was being converted into invoices, damaged deposits, and boxes of flowers no one wanted.
“Isabella told me no one would believe a servant over her,” Sophia said. “She was right about one thing. People don’t hear the same sentence when it comes from us.”
“Us?”
“People who work in houses like this.”
Alessandro leaned against the wall opposite her.
“I heard you.”
“Yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“I told Marco three weeks ago.”
“I know.”
“I told Lucia before that.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t hear me. Other people carried my words into a room where they could hurt you.”
The accuracy of it made him look away.
Sophia lowered her voice.
“Emma should never have had to say it.”
“No.”
“She thinks she fixed something.”
“She did.”
“She’s three.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Sophia pressed her fingers against her forehead. “She has started watching my face before she answers adults. She checks whether I’m scared. Children aren’t supposed to do that.”
From inside the room, Emma began humming to Mr. Bun.
Alessandro listened.
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
“That is fair.”
“I want you not to decide for me while I figure it out.”
He nodded.
“And I want the video of Emma removed.”
“I can have our attorneys request takedowns.”
“Request?”
“We cannot erase the internet.”
For the first time, she heard him say he could not do something without following it with an alternative that sounded like control.
“Try,” she said.
“I will.”
Maya Greene arrived at ten in a wrinkled linen jacket and sneakers.
She was fifty, with silver braids gathered at the nape of her neck, and she declined the conference room Marco had prepared. Instead she met Sophia in Lucia’s small morning room, where the furniture did not look designed to intimidate anyone.
Maya spent twenty minutes explaining who paid her, who could fire her, and who could not see her notes. She asked Alessandro to leave before Sophia described the confrontation. When he hesitated, Maya pointed toward the door.
“She understands you’re tall,” she said. “You can stop demonstrating.”
He left.
Sophia liked her immediately and distrusted that feeling.
By noon, Maya had collected the agency suspension email, photographed the marks still visible on Sophia’s wrist, saved copies of text messages from Isabella, and advised Sophia not to speak with police again until they had reviewed the financial documents.
One message from Isabella had been sent four nights before the wedding.
We both have children depending on us, Sophia. Think carefully before you create consequences neither of us can control.
Isabella had no children.
When Maya asked what she meant, Sophia looked toward the window.
“Her brother.”
“Carlo Romano?”
“You know him?”
“I know public records. He has two children and a history of treatment stays.”
“Isabella talks about him like he’s her child.”
“Did she mention him during the threat?”
“No. She said families survive because women handle ugly things quietly.”
Maya wrote that down.
“Did you know the Romano estate was in financial trouble?”
“Everyone who worked there knew. Vendors started asking for payment before delivery. Half the west wing had plastic buckets under leaks.”
“Did Isabella ask you to sign anything?”
“Not me. She asked Lucia’s assistant to certify the grant packet.”
“Who is the assistant?”
“Naomi Bell.”
“Where is she now?”
“She quit last month.”
“Why?”
Sophia gave a humorless laugh. “Domestic work has turnover.”
That afternoon, the Moretti Foundation audit committee confirmed that a draft grant application existed under Lucia’s credentials.
The request sought $2.4 million for structural stabilization and public access improvements at the Romano estate. Attached documents showed that the property faced foreclosure within ninety days unless a major lender extended its credit line. The lender had indicated it would reconsider if the Moretti Foundation committed restoration funding.
The letter bearing Alessandro’s signature stated that the proposed marriage represented “a durable alliance between two civic families” and that the Moretti organization intended to support the Romano estate’s conversion into a hospitality and cultural property.
The signature looked accurate.
The language did not sound like him.
“It sounds like a monument wrote it,” Alessandro said.
Daniel Hsu sat across from him in the estate library. Marco stood near the fireplace with a forensic report open on another tablet. Lucia occupied the chair by the window, a cup of tea cooling beside her.
“The file metadata shows the letter was created on a laptop assigned to Isabella’s personal office,” Daniel said. “But that alone does not prove she created it.”
“Who had access?”
“Her assistant, two event planners, an accountant, and at least one Romano IT contractor.”
“What about the signature?”
“Copied from a letter you signed last year supporting the county arts center.”
Alessandro looked at Lucia. “Why was your credential in the draft?”
“My password was stored in my browser.”
Marco said, “And reused on three other services.”
Lucia frowned at him. “I am sixty-four, not a missile silo.”
“You oversee a foundation with eighty million dollars in assets.”
“That is why we have employees.”
Daniel lifted one hand. “This is useful blame, but not useful evidence.”
Lucia took a sip of tea and made a face. It had gone cold.
“What would happen if the application were approved?” she asked.
“The foundation would conduct due diligence, require board authorization, and release funds in stages,” Daniel said. “No one could simply move two-point-four million dollars because a document appeared in a portal.”
“So the forgery was pointless,” Alessandro said.
“Not necessarily. The lender may have accepted the draft as evidence of likely support.”
Marco enlarged an attachment.
“The Romano bank received this packet twelve days ago.”
May you like
A silence followed.
Alessandro read the forwarding email twice. It came from a consulting firm in Manhattan and referred to the Moretti commitment as “substantially secured.”
