Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN THE OLD PHOTOGRAPH
Rosa waited until Lily was coloring with Mrs. Alvarez before finding Alessandro.
He was standing in his study, looking at a photograph.
A dark-haired woman held a boy on a beach.
The boy was him.
“She told you about my mother,” he said.
“How did you know?”
“Nico saw her leave your room.”
“Then tell him next time to stop her.”
Alessandro looked up.
“You’re right.”
The simple admission caught Rosa off guard.
She had prepared for an argument.
He set the photograph down.
“My mother died in a car crash when I was twelve.”
“Isabella made it sound like something else.”
“My father makes everything sound like something else.”
Rosa folded her arms.
“I won’t trade one threat for another.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t get to promise that just because you own the house.”
He absorbed it without looking away.
“Then tell me what you need.”
“A lawyer who works for me. Somewhere safe that your father doesn’t know about. And a paternity test.”
His expression changed.
“You think I doubt—”
“I think someday somebody will call her a liar. I want paper that says they’re wrong.”
He nodded.
“All right.”
“And no one tells her you’re her father until we know how to do it without hurting her.”
That took longer.
But he agreed.
An independent attorney arrived that afternoon.
Maya Chen wore flat shoes, carried a battered leather bag, and refused the espresso Bruno offered.
“I represent Rosa,” she told Alessandro. “Anything she tells me stays with me.”
“Understood.”
“Your money doesn’t buy access to our conversations.”
“I said understood.”
Rosa almost smiled.
Later, a technician collected cheek swabs.
Lily thought the little brush tickled.
Alessandro watched her laugh and felt an ache he had no useful name for.
Afterward, she held up a drawing.
A crooked yellow circle.
“What is it?” he asked.
“My button.”
“It looks like the sun.”
“That’s what I said.”
She sounded pleased that he had finally caught up.
That evening, Nico returned with the name of the man who had serviced the listening devices.
A maintenance contractor.
Paid through a Romano company.
Alessandro read the invoice twice.
His father had threatened Rosa.
Isabella’s family had wired his house.
The engagement wasn’t a truce.
It was supervision.
Nico placed a second document on the desk.
“There’s more.”
It was a security transfer order for the next morning.
Two guards were scheduled to collect Rosa and Lily.
May you like
At the bottom was Alessandro’s signature.
He had never signed it.
