Part 2
Carla’s hands were shaking.
“Did you see anything?” Mara asked softly.
Carla glanced toward the staircase.
“No, signora.”
Mara was not married, but half the villa staff called every adult woman signora because it spared them the risk of choosing incorrectly.
“Were you in the hall?”
“I was in the dining room.”
“Before?”
Carla folded the top of the bag twice. “I heard voices.”
“Whose?”
The villa manager stepped closer. “The taxi will be here in six minutes.”
Carla stood quickly and carried the paper bag to the door.
Mara let the question go. She had known the girl for three years, since the first phase of the villa restoration, and knew enough about household employment to understand that fear often sounded like politeness.
The taxi took twenty-two minutes to arrive. During that time, the guests left in clusters, speaking quietly enough to suggest respect and loudly enough to be overheard. Mara caught pieces of speculation.
There had been tension.
Elena had seemed upset all afternoon.
Mara had been drinking.
Mara had always been too involved in the family.
Someone said Matteo had done what any husband would have done.
Someone else said nothing at all.
When the taxi finally pulled through the gate, Mara crossed the courtyard with one arm around Carla’s shoulders and most of her weight on her uninjured foot. The driver watched them approach in the mirror, then got out without being asked.
At the hospital in Como, Elena was taken upstairs for monitoring. The baby’s heart rate stabilized after twenty-three minutes, though Matteo would later remember the monitor beginning with a sound that seemed too slow and then becoming impossibly fast. There was no bleeding, no fracture, and no immediate sign of placental injury. The obstetrician used the phrase cautiously reassuring and then repeated that the next several hours mattered.
Matteo sat beside Elena’s bed with his hands clasped between his knees.
Paolo stood near the window, speaking in low tones to the family’s attorney.
Elena lay on her side beneath a thin blanket. Her face had regained some color, but exhaustion had flattened her expression. Whenever Matteo tried to touch her arm, she stiffened before allowing the contact.
He noticed. He told himself it was pain.
“What happened?” he asked after the doctor left.
Elena closed her eyes.
Paolo ended his call. “This is not the moment.”
“It’s exactly the moment.”
“She needs rest.”
Matteo looked back at his wife. “Did Mara touch you?”
Elena’s eyes opened.
The question seemed to reach her slowly. She looked from Matteo to Paolo, then toward the closed hospital door.
“She tried—”
Her voice failed.
Matteo leaned closer. “Tried what?”
Paolo stepped beside the bed. “Enough.”
Elena’s fingers tightened in the blanket.
Matteo mistook the movement for fear of remembering. He sat back, anger pressing again beneath his ribs.
“She said she was trying to catch you.”
Elena’s lips parted, but Paolo adjusted the blanket over her shoulder and told her to breathe slowly.
“Matteo,” he said, “your wife and child are safe for the moment. You can interrogate people tomorrow.”
“I’m not interrogating her.”
“No. You’re asking her to relive it while her blood pressure is still unstable.”
Matteo stood. The chair legs scraped against the floor.
He wanted to argue. Instead, he walked to the window and looked down at the parking area, where hospital employees smoked beneath an awning. One of them laughed at something on another person’s phone. The ordinary sound made him furious.
His palm tingled.
For the first time since leaving the villa, he saw Mara’s face at the instant of impact. Not before, when he had seen Elena on the floor and Mara standing above her. Not after, when Mara had held her cheek. The instant itself: Mara turning slightly, surprise reaching her eyes too late.
He put his hand into his trouser pocket.
“What did you do?” Elena whispered.
Matteo looked back.
She was watching him now.
“To Mara,” she said.
Paolo answered before Matteo could. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
Elena’s face changed. Not dramatically. The skin between her brows tightened, and her gaze dropped to Matteo’s pocket.
“What did you do?”
“I lost control.”
“How?”
He could have softened it. He could have said he pushed her away or reacted badly or misunderstood. Paolo’s presence made the truth feel both more shameful and more necessary.
“I slapped her.”
Elena turned her face toward the wall.
The monitor continued marking her pulse.
Matteo returned to the chair but did not sit. “Elena.”
She closed her eyes.
Paolo took Matteo by the elbow and drew him toward the door.
In the corridor, Paolo released him with visible irritation.
“You need to get hold of yourself.”
Matteo stared at him. “You told me not to question her, but you’re giving me instructions?”
“I’m telling you that the family is already exposed.”
“My wife is in a hospital bed.”
“And tomorrow every person who saw you strike that woman will have a version of the story.”
Matteo’s mouth went dry.
Paolo continued in the same measured tone. “You were protecting Elena. People understand an instinctive reaction under extreme circumstances. What they do not understand is uncertainty. Do not apologize publicly. Do not speculate. Do not contact Mara tonight.”
“You think I should be worried about the newspapers?”
“I think you should be worried about everything.”
Matteo leaned against the corridor wall. The paint was a pale institutional green. Someone had repaired a crack near the baseboard badly, leaving a ridge beneath the surface.
“What was Mara doing there?” he asked.
Paolo glanced toward Elena’s door. “Pressuring her.”
“About what?”
“The trust documents.”
Matteo straightened.
Two weeks earlier, Paolo’s lawyers had prepared amendments to the family trust before the birth of Matteo and Elena’s first child. Matteo had skimmed the documents, objected to several clauses, and told Paolo they would discuss them after the gathering. He had not known Elena possessed a copy.
May you like
“Mara isn’t Elena’s lawyer.”
“She behaves as though she is.”
