Chương 13
Emma hit Clara’s chest hard enough to hurt.
“You came back.”
“I came back.”
“You said.”
“I know.”
Clara buried her face in the child’s curls. She could feel every breath, every small rib, the rabbit pressed between them.
Around them, armed men slowly lowered their weapons.
The families did not trust one another. Not suddenly. Not because Alessandro declared the documents false or because a gunman lay bleeding upstairs. But the visible shape of the attack had changed. They had seen planted evidence, coordinated breaches, and men firing from Moretti’s own walls. Suspicion remained, though it had somewhere new to look.
Cesare Neri demanded that the captured gunman be questioned by all twelve families.
Don Ricci objected. “You will get twelve confessions from one man if each family uses its own methods.”
“Moretti cannot investigate himself.”
“Agreed,” Alessandro said.
The room quieted.
He descended from the balcony with Adrian’s blood on his shirt and his injured arm held close to his side.
“We preserve the evidence,” he said. “We recover the station locker with witnesses chosen by the families. Copies go to each patriarch. No one retaliates until the records are examined.”
Bellandi laughed without humor. “And if the records implicate you?”
“Then you will know before my own men do.”
It was a dangerous promise. Clara saw Matteo look at him sharply.
Neri folded Daniel’s forged file closed. “Who retrieves the locker?”
Alessandro looked toward Clara.
She held Emma tighter. “I do.”
“No,” Matteo said.
Clara turned. “You have developed a limited vocabulary tonight.”
“The station may be watched.”
“It is my husband’s evidence.”
“You will have an escort.”
“I will have witnesses,” she said. “Not an army.”
Don Ricci tapped his cane against the floor. “One representative from three neutral families. A lawyer. The widow. No one else.”
Alessandro’s jaw tightened.
Clara understood that he disliked being excluded from the thing that might determine whether the families trusted him. He also understood that his presence would contaminate it.
“Agreed,” he said.
Matteo looked as though he might argue, then stopped.
The captured attackers were secured in separate rooms. The wounded received treatment from two doctors summoned after communications were restored. Police were not called immediately. Clara noticed this and hated that part of herself was relieved. She did not trust uniforms because Daniel had told her not to, and because the men around her had spent their lives ensuring uniforms could be bought, delayed, or redirected.
Inspector Elena Serra remained an unanswered question.
Adrian was moved to the villa’s infirmary under guard. A bullet had passed through his chest without striking the heart, though one lung had collapsed. The doctors said he might survive surgery. They did not ask why the villa contained so much blood.
Dawn began to pale the tall windows.
The ballroom smelled of gunpowder, wine, and wet plaster. Staff members emerged to collect broken glass until Clara ordered them to stop touching anything. They obeyed her before realizing they had.
Vivian sat alone on a chair near the wall wearing a black coat over her torn gown. Her diamonds had been removed and placed in an evidence pouch. Without them, she looked older and less defended.
Alessandro approached her.
Clara did not intend to listen, but the ballroom carried quiet voices.
“You will remain under guard,” he said.
Vivian stared at the floor. “Am I still your fiancée?”
“No.”
Her face tightened.
He waited, perhaps expecting anger.
She gave a small, exhausted laugh. “I suppose I should be grateful you answered directly once.”
“You provided access that led to deaths.”
“I know.”
“You concealed what you knew after recognizing the symbol.”
“I thought if I got the rabbit away from the child, I could give it to Adrian and end this.”
“You struck her mother.”
Vivian finally looked at him. “I panicked.”
“You enjoyed it.”
The truth of that silenced her.
After a moment, she said, “Yes.”
Alessandro’s expression did not change, but something in his posture did. Clara saw the final thread between them break.
Vivian looked toward Clara. “What happens to me?”
“That depends on what you tell the investigators and whether your information saves anyone else.”
“Your investigators?”
“No.”
That answer frightened her more than a threat would have.
Clara carried Emma to the east family room. The child had stopped speaking, a sign of exhaustion more reliable than yawning. Clara washed the dust from her feet, found pajamas in the emergency bag kept for unexpected nights, and laid her beneath a cream blanket.
Emma refused to release the rabbit.
“The ear is open,” she murmured.
“I know.”
“Close it.”
Clara looked at the black symbol.
It had directed fear toward them. It had also carried Daniel’s key and preserved the evidence he died protecting. Sewing the ear shut again felt like choosing ignorance. Leaving it open felt like leaving a wound exposed.
“I’ll fold it,” she said, “but I won’t stitch it.”
Emma was too tired to object.
Clara tucked the ear down and kissed the rabbit’s repaired eye. Within minutes, Emma slept with one hand curled around its neck.
Alessandro stood in the doorway.
He had changed into a clean black shirt, though the bandage showed beneath one sleeve. His hair was no longer perfectly slick. A strand fell near his forehead.
“May I come in?” he asked.
It was the first request Clara had heard him make all night.
She nodded.
He remained near the door. “The station opens fully at six. Ricci, Bellandi, and Lucia Conti will send representatives. A criminal lawyer is on the way.”
“And Inspector Serra?”
“My people found her address.”
Clara’s body stiffened.
“I did not send anyone inside,” he said. “She is alive. She left financial crimes eight months ago and now works in an administrative division.”
“Why?”
“Officially, restructuring.”
“Unofficially?”
“She attempted to reopen Daniel’s crash investigation. Her supervisor transferred her.”
Clara sat beside the bed. “So Daniel did contact her.”
“Yes.”
May you like
“Why didn’t she contact me?”
“I don’t know.”
