Chapter 4 - The Friend Sofia Trusted
Marco Bellini and I had known each other since we were fourteen.
We had fought beside each other.
Buried family together.
Built businesses together.
If someone had asked me the previous week whether I trusted Marco with my life, I would have answered before they finished the question.
Now I stood between him and four children I had known for less than twenty-four hours.
And somehow the choice was easy.
“You take one more step,” I said, “and you don't leave this room.”
Marco looked at the boys.
His face changed.
“You found them.”
“They found me.”
“Good.”
“Explain.”
He tossed the envelope onto the table.
“I worked for Sofia during the last six months of her life.”
Elena stared.
“You knew?”
“I knew she suspected someone was selling Alejandro's movements.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because she told me not to.”
I laughed without humor.
“Apparently everyone obeyed my wife except me.”
Marco accepted that.
He opened the envelope.
Inside were photographs.
Bank transfers.
Copies of security schedules.
A picture of Vittorio Moretti entering a private clinic.
The same clinic listed on Sofia's fertility records.
My uncle.
Vittorio had helped raise me after my father died.
He taught me to drive.
He stood beside me at my wedding.
He delivered the eulogy at Sofia's funeral.
Marco pointed toward the transfer records.
“Vittorio paid Dr. Leonard Shaw two hundred thousand dollars three days before Sofia collapsed.”
“Her cardiologist?”
“Yes.”
“Where is Shaw?”
“Dead.”
“When?”
“Two months after Sofia.”
I stared at the documents.
“Convenient.”
“There’s more.”
Marco had spent five years tracing accounts Sofia discovered.
Vittorio wasn't simply preparing to inherit my father's trust.
He was draining legitimate Moretti holdings into companies he controlled.
Sofia found evidence.
Then she discovered the embryos.
She realized a surviving child would block Vittorio from taking control.
“She asked me to help expose him,” Marco said.
“Why didn't you?”
“I couldn't prove enough before she died.”
“So you let me bury my wife believing she died naturally.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
I crossed the room so fast Elena barely reacted.
I grabbed Marco by his collar.
The boys stared.
I released him immediately.
I would not become the kind of father whose children learned fear from watching me.
“You should have told me.”
Marco looked at them.
“And if I had, would you have stayed calm?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
I hated the answer because it was true.
I would have attacked Vittorio.
He would have known Sofia had left evidence.
The boys might never have survived their first birthday.
Marco handed me another file.
“We've been feeding Vittorio false information for years.”
“We?”
“Elena. Me. Sofia's attorney.”
I looked at Elena.
She nodded reluctantly.
Three people had formed a wall around my children while I knew nothing.
“You expect me to thank you?”
“No.”
Marco's voice softened.
“I expect you to hate us until they're old enough to understand why we did it.”
Matteo raised his hand.
Like he was in school.
Everyone looked at him.
“I'm old enough.”
Marco almost smiled.
“Not quite.”
I turned back to the papers.
“Why did Vittorio move now?”
“The trust.”
“Nine days.”
Marco nodded.
“Until yesterday, he didn't know where the boys were.”
“So someone told him.”
“Yes.”
“Nico?”
“Possibly.”
Then Marco showed me the photograph from the intruder's phone.
The one taken in my dining room.
He enlarged the reflection in the silver serving tray.
A figure stood outside the room.
Not Nico.
A woman.
I recognized the dress.
My younger sister, Bianca, had arrived at the mansion around noon to drop off documents for a charity board.
She told the staff she'd left before one.
The photograph was taken at 1:17.
“She was still here.”
Marco nodded.
I felt another piece of myself fracture.
Bianca was nine years younger than me.
After our mother died, I practically raised her.
“No.”
“I haven't accused her.”
“You just did.”
“Alejandro, Sofia left a list.”
He removed a folded paper.
Five names.
Vittorio.
Dr. Shaw.
Nico.
Bianca.
And one name that made no sense at all.
SOFIA MORETTI.
I stared.
“Why would she put herself on the list?”
Marco flipped the page over.
Sofia had written:
ONE OF US IS BEING USED WITHOUT KNOWING IT.
Then a noise came from above.
A car engine.
Elena checked the chapel security monitor.
A silver sedan had stopped outside.
One person stepped out.
Bianca.
My sister entered the chapel alone.
She was crying before she reached the stairs.
When she saw the four boys, her knees nearly buckled.
“Oh, God.”
I stared at her.
“How long have you known?”
She covered her mouth.
“Alejandro…”
“How long?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Then why were you in my dining room?”
Her eyes widened.
“I wasn't.”
I showed her the image.
Her face drained of color.
Then she whispered:
“That isn't me.”
I looked again.
Same height.
Same hair.
Same dress.
Bianca reached into her purse and pulled out her phone.
A photograph taken at 1:12 that afternoon.
She was across the city at a fundraiser.
Hundreds of witnesses.
The woman in my house couldn't have been Bianca.
My sister looked at the reflected figure again.
Then she began shaking.
“I know who that is.”
“Who?”
May you like
Bianca looked at me.
“That dress belonged to Sofia.”
