Chapter 14 - WHAT VICTORIA SOLD
Victoria stared at the transfer record. For once, she did not try to smile her way out of a question.
“He told me it was for the documents,” she said.
“How many documents are worth that much?” Alessandro asked.
“I gave him the copies I found in my mother’s things. I thought that was all he wanted.”
Mara held up her phone. “You knew where my mother was. You helped him bring her here.”
“Yes,” Victoria said. “I thought he would pay for the ledger and let her go.”
“You thought a man who buried empty coffins to frighten people would keep his word?”
Victoria’s mouth tightened. “I was wrong.”
The detectives took her aside. Naomi, who had arrived with them, told Alessandro the transfer would help establish what Victoria had done, but the investigators would need her full statement and the records behind it.
Alessandro looked at the woman he had planned to marry. “I trusted you in my home.”
Victoria glanced at Mara. “You barely noticed what happened in your home.”
The words landed because they were true.
He had seen Mara carry trays through crowded rooms. He had asked her name once. He had never asked why she went quiet when Victoria entered.
A medic checked Isabella while officers led Enzo to a car. When he passed Alessandro, Enzo stopped.
“I did what I had to for this family.”
Alessandro answered without raising his voice. “You taught me to say that whenever I didn’t want to face what I’d done.”
Enzo looked away first.
Later, at the station, Teresa arrived to give her statement. Mara crossed the room and hugged her. Teresa held on as if she had been waiting eighteen years to do it.
“I should have told you,” Teresa whispered.
“You’re telling them now.”
Naomi spread the ledger, Helen’s letter, and the storage records across a table for the detective. There were gaps in the story, but people who had kept quiet were finally speaking.
Isabella sat beside Mara. Alessandro took the chair across from them.
“I need to know one thing,” he said to his mother. “After you got Mara somewhere safe, why didn’t you tell me you were alive?”
Isabella looked at her hands. “I tried. I sent letters through a lawyer. Enzo sent me copies back. Each one had a photograph of you beside it—leaving work, coming home, meeting friends. He wanted me to know he was watching you.”
Alessandro’s face tightened. “Do you still have them?”
“Yes.”
“Then give them to the detective.”
Isabella nodded.
Mara had waited so long for this reunion that she had pictured them holding each other and making everything right. Instead they sat under harsh station lights, with questions between them.
Then Alessandro reached across the table and turned the pendant in Mara’s hand.
“I remember this,” he said. “She used to let me wear it when I was little.”
May you like
Isabella looked up. “I gave it to Mara because I hoped one day you’d recognize it.”
A detective approached the table carrying another folder. “There’s something about the person buried under Isabella’s name. We’ve identified her.”
