Part 7
“I hit her,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I thought—”
“I know what you thought.”
He opened his eyes.
Elena’s own had filled, but she did not cry. “You listened to half a sentence.”
Matteo stood and went to the window. The rain had stopped. Water clung to the glass in separate beads, each holding an inverted piece of the parking lot.
“I will apologize.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“No.”
“You humiliated her in front of people who already thought she did not belong there.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.”
The answer was quiet.
Matteo turned.
Elena looked exhausted again. “You can’t know yet.”
A police officer contacted Matteo that evening. His attorney advised him not to answer questions without counsel. Paolo advised him not to answer at all.
Matteo went to the station the next morning with a lawyer and admitted the assault.
The lawyer shifted beside him.
“Signor Rinaldi,” she said, “we discussed limiting your statement to—”
“I struck Mara Bellini once across the face,” Matteo continued. “She did not threaten me. She did not touch me. I believed she had harmed my wife, but I had no evidence.”
The officer asked whether he regretted it.
“Yes.”
“Did anyone encourage you afterward to describe it as self-defense?”
Matteo glanced at his lawyer.
“No one used those words.”
The officer made a note.
“Were you aware your father had been in the entrance hall before you arrived?”
“Not at the time.”
“Have you asked for security footage?”
“The villa’s security director says the system was under maintenance.”
“Do you believe him?”
Matteo paused.
“No.”
When he left the station, three journalists waited across the street. The story had spread overnight after one of the gathering’s guests sent an anonymous account to a Milan society website. The first article described Mara as an architect involved in a private altercation with the Rinaldi family. The second said Matteo had assaulted a woman after an apparent attack on his pregnant wife. The third included a photograph of Mara from a design award dinner two years earlier and referred to her as a “close family associate.”
Matteo’s communications director called six times.
He turned off his phone.
At her apartment, Mara watched the same articles multiply. Her mother arrived from Milan with soup, clean towels, and opinions.
“You should sue all of them,” she said, placing containers into the refrigerator. “Especially the one that chose that photograph. Your hair looked exhausted.”
“It was raining.”
“Rain is not a legal defense for bad hair.”
Nico laughed from the kitchen table.
Mara sat on the sofa with her ankle elevated. The bruise on her cheek had darkened at the edges. Her attorney, Sofia Conti, occupied the armchair near the window and read through the preservation demand on a laptop.
Sofia had gone to university with Mara and disliked the Rinaldis with the focused professionalism of someone who billed by the hour but would have hated them for free.
“The police have requested the footage,” she said. “The villa claims there is none.”
“There is mirrored storage.”
“According to plans from two years ago.”
“The insurer required it.”
“Systems get replaced.”
“Then there will be replacement records.”
Sofia nodded. “We are requesting those too.”
Mara’s mother brought coffee nobody had asked for.
“Did Elena call?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then stop protecting her.”
“Mamma.”
“She allowed people to believe you harmed her.”
“She was in shock.”
“For two days?”
“She is pregnant and frightened.”
“Pregnant women can use telephones.”
Nico stared into his coffee.
Mara adjusted the strap on her ankle brace. “Elena asked me to come. Paolo was pressuring her to sign documents. She was trying to leave.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know what she has told the police.”
Sofia looked up. “She gave a statement to the hospital social worker. We do not have access to it, but the existence of a contemporaneous account matters.”
“How do you know?”
“The officer mentioned it when he called about your supplemental statement.”
Mara released a breath she had not intended to hold.
Her mother noticed. “You’re relieved she told the truth?”
“I’m relieved she spoke.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Sofia turned the laptop toward Mara. “There is another issue. The Rinaldi group’s insurer did require off-site storage after the attempted theft. I found the public planning submission referencing the security upgrade. The service provider is a Swiss company.”
“Can we get the recording?”
“Not without the account holder’s consent or an order. The police can move faster if they believe the footage contains evidence concerning Elena, not just your assault.”
“My assault is on it.”
“Perhaps. But the more serious question is what happened before Matteo entered.”
Mara looked at the paused news video on her television. A reporter stood outside Villa Serafina while the gate remained closed behind him.
“What if the footage is already deleted?”
“Then we determine who deleted it and when.”
Mara’s mother placed a cup in front of Sofia. “And then?”
Sofia accepted the coffee. “Then deletion becomes its own story.”
At Villa Serafina, Paolo convened a meeting in the library.
Matteo arrived late. Tomas Valli sat near the fireplace with the villa manager and two attorneys from the family company. A communications adviser had spread printouts of news coverage across the table.
Paolo began without greeting him.
“We will issue a statement confirming that Matteo cooperated fully with authorities and regrets a momentary loss of judgment during a medical emergency.”
“No,” Matteo said.
The communications adviser stopped writing.
Paolo looked at him. “No?”
“Do not call it momentary as though duration is the problem. Do not connect it to protecting Elena. I hit Mara because I made an assumption.”
One attorney shifted in his chair. “That language increases exposure.”
“It is accurate.”
Paolo leaned back. “Accuracy without judgment is self-indulgence.”
Matteo turned to Tomas. “Show me the security logs.”
Tomas’s expression remained blank. “They have been provided to counsel.”
May you like
“I asked you.”
“The entrance hall recorder failed at sixteen forty-two due to a storage fault.”
