Chương 10
Elena did.
The lawyer swore.
“Good,” Elena said. “You understand.”
“I understand that you should not describe the evidence further on this call. Are you being held against your will?”
Elena looked at Marco.
“Technically.”
“Is your child safe?”
“For now.”
“Has anyone threatened you?”
“Not in words.”
Marta paused. “I am contacting a magistrate and the Carabinieri’s financial crimes unit. Do not surrender the original device. Do not allow anyone to copy it without a documented chain of custody. Photograph the room, the people present, and the condition of the device if you can do so safely.”
Elena glanced at Marco.
He nodded.
“Why is he agreeing?” Marta asked.
“You heard that?”
“I hear everything when I’m frightened.”
“He works for Moretti.”
“Then do not mistake cooperation for loyalty.”
Marco’s mouth moved slightly. It might have been approval.
Marta continued. “I will come to you. Keep this line available.”
When Elena returned to the library, Alessandro had separated the principal figures. Piero sat near the fireplace with a guard beside him. Cesare stood by the window. Vittorio had been given coffee but seemed unable to drink it. Don Ricci watched the closed laptop.
Vivian was gone.
“Where is she?” Elena asked.
Alessandro looked toward the adjoining dressing room. “Changing.”
The red gown had been stained by Emma’s juice. An hour earlier, that stain had been the reason for violence. Now it had become irrelevant, which did not erase what happened.
Vivian returned wearing a gray robe over a plain black slip dress. Her hair remained pinned, but several strands had loosened around her face. Without the diamonds, she looked less like a Romano announcement and more like a woman who had not slept.
She approached Elena.
“I owe you an apology.”
Cesare said her name.
Vivian ignored him.
Elena held up a hand. “Not now.”
“I need to—”
“You need to feel different from the person who hit me. That is not the same as helping me.”
Vivian stopped.
Elena had no perfect speech prepared. She was exhausted, and her feet hurt, and Emma had biscuit crumbs in her hair.
“You can apologize when it costs you something,” she said.
Vivian looked toward her father.
It was only a glance, but it changed the room.
Cesare saw it.
“What do you intend to do?” he asked.
Vivian’s chin lifted. “Tell the truth.”
“You do not know the truth.”
“I know what I did.”
“You delivered papers.”
“I withheld Daniel’s second message.”
Elena stared at her.
Vivian’s eyes met hers.
“He contacted me after my father called him an extortionist. He said he had proof that Federico was using Alessandro’s initials. He asked me to give Alessandro a sealed envelope.”
“Did you?” Alessandro asked.
“No.”
“Where is it?”
“My apartment.”
Cesare crossed the room. “Vivian.”
She turned on him. “You told me Daniel was trying to destroy the engagement before it existed. You said if Alessandro saw the files, he would accuse our family and war would follow. You said one frightened mechanic could put hundreds of people at risk.”
“He could have.”
“So I kept the envelope.”
“Where?” Marco asked.
“In a locked drawer.”
“For four years?”
“I moved twice. I kept it.”
“Why?” Elena asked.
Vivian looked ashamed of the answer.
“Because throwing it away felt worse.”
Cesare’s composure fractured.
“You foolish child.”
Vivian laughed without humor. “There he is.”
“Do you understand what you have preserved?”
“No. That was the point. I worked very hard not to understand.”
Alessandro looked at Marco. “Send a team with the magistrate when she arrives. No one enters Vivian’s apartment before then.”
Cesare pressed two fingers to his temple.
“This can still be contained.”
Alessandro turned to him. “Daniel is dead.”
“One death does not justify burning twelve families.”
Elena moved before she knew she had decided to.
She did not strike him. She took the water glass from the table and poured it onto the carpet at his feet.
Cesare stared down at his polished shoes.
The gesture was childish, useless, and immensely satisfying.
“One death,” Elena said. “Clean it yourself.”
Emma clapped.
No one else moved.
Cesare looked at Alessandro, perhaps expecting the insult to be punished.
Alessandro picked up a folded cloth from the drinks tray and placed it on the table beside him.
Cesare’s face reddened.
Don Ricci began to laugh.
It was not a grand laugh. It wheezed out of him, alarming and undignified. He covered his mouth, failed to stop, and finally sat with tears in his eyes.
“I apologize,” he said. “Nothing is funny. I am old.”
The tension cracked just enough for people to breathe.
Cesare did not clean the water.
At two in the morning, Magistrate Giulia Ferraro arrived with twelve Carabinieri officers and Marta DeLuca, who wore a navy suit beneath an untied raincoat and carried two phones, a legal pad, and the expression of a woman already dissatisfied with everyone.
She entered the library, looked at Elena’s cheek, looked at Vivian, and began giving instructions.
The memory card was photographed, sealed, and logged. Elena signed the chain-of-custody form only after Marta read every line. Copies would be created under forensic supervision. The original would remain with the magistrate’s office.
Piero protested.
Marta asked whether he wished to make his objections before or after legal counsel arrived.
He stopped speaking.
The guests were interviewed separately. Devices were collected under emergency orders limited to preservation of evidence. No one was arrested that night, though Piero came close when officers discovered he had attempted to activate a remote data deletion service after the villa network failed.
Cesare asked to call his attorney.
Magistrate Ferraro said he should.
Don Ricci requested coffee.
May you like
A young officer brought him the burned staff-room pot. Ricci drank one sip, looked offended, then drank the rest.
By four thirty, the chandeliers had been dimmed. The formal gathering had dissolved into tired clusters of people without status. Makeup settled into lines. Jackets came off. Shoes pinched. The villa smelled of coffee, wet coats, and cold food.
