Chương 5 - THE ACCIDENT THAT WASN'T AN ACCIDENT
My mother's name was Camille Vance.
She had never met Nico.
At least that's what I believed.
Alessandro corrected me.
“She worked for me.”
I stared at him.
“My mother was an elementary-school secretary.”
“Before that.”
He sat heavily.
Twenty years earlier, Camille had worked in accounting for Bellandi Imports.
Small position.
Temporary.
But she was good with numbers.
Too good.
She found irregular payments connected to Salvatore Rizzi.
At the time, Alessandro and Salvatore were allies.
Camille suspected they were washing money through construction payrolls.
“She threatened to report it.”
My hands went cold.
“And?”
“I paid her severance.”
“That isn't what Valentina meant.”
Alessandro looked toward Nico.
“She disappeared from our world.”
“My mother died four years later.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Newspaper.”
Lie.
I could hear it.
Nico could too.
He moved closer to his father.
“What happened?”
Alessandro stayed silent.
Arthur placed another file on the screen.
A scanned police report.
My mother's accident.
The investigating officer was Dennis Rizzi.
Salvatore's younger brother.
My stomach turned.
Dennis had concluded Camille's car crossed the center line because she'd been drinking.
I remembered the bottle police claimed they found.
Mom barely drank.
I had told everyone that.
Nobody listened to a sixteen-year-old.
Valentina had found the toxicology report.
Camille's blood alcohol level had been zero.
The bottle had been planted.
My knees weakened.
Nico pulled out a chair.
I refused it.
“Who killed her?”
Alessandro looked older suddenly.
“I don't know.”
“Who wanted her dead?”
“Salvatore.”
“Why?”
“Because she kept records.”
“What records?”
“She copied files before she left.”
“Where are they?”
His eyes moved toward me.
“We never found them.”
There it was.
The reason Salvatore wanted me.
Not because I was Nico's weakness.
Not only.
He believed my mother had hidden evidence with me.
“I was sixteen.”
“Camille was careful.”
Something clicked.
The necklace Valentina gave me.
Why me?
Because she'd discovered the connection between our mothers?
No.
Valentina's mother, Isabella Bellandi, had died when Nico was twenty-four.
But maybe she knew Camille.
We opened another file.
Photographs.
Camille sitting in a café with Isabella Bellandi.
My mother and Nico's mother.
Together.
I looked at Nico.
“You knew?”
“No.”
He looked as stunned as I felt.
Arthur opened the metadata.
The picture was taken nineteen years earlier.
Months before Camille quit Bellandi Imports.
Then we found an audio file.
Isabella's voice.
“If anything happens to Camille, Alessandro is responsible for keeping Elena safe.”
I stared at Nico's father.
He closed his eyes.
“My mother asked you to protect me?”
Alessandro nodded.
“And instead you let your son date me for three years without telling either of us?”
“I thought the danger had passed.”
Nico laughed without humor.
“Apparently your favorite strategy.”
Then the final file loaded.
A scanned letter from my mother to Isabella.
One sentence was underlined twice.
If they ever discover who Elena's father really is, none of us will be safe.
Nico looked at me.
May you like
I couldn't breathe.
The man who raised me had never been my biological father.
