Chapter 2 - WHAT LUCY HAD SEEN
Vittorio ordered the bodyguards to take Marcus to the library and keep Bianca in the breakfast room until his attorney arrived.
He did not threaten them.
That frightened Marcus more than another punch would have.
Upstairs, Vittorio sat on the edge of Lucy’s bed while Emma cleaned egg from the child’s cardigan.
Lucy would not let Vittorio hold her again.
She sat beside Emma instead.
That hurt more than he expected.
For almost three years after his wife Elena died from cancer, Lucy had treated Vittorio as if his arms were the safest place left in the world.
That morning, she had watched those arms hurt two people.
Even people who deserved to be stopped.
Vittorio forced himself to remain near the door.
“Why was Bianca angry with you?”
Lucy looked at Emma before answering.
“Because I told.”
“Told what?”
Lucy rubbed the hem of her dress between two fingers.
“I saw Uncle Marcus in Mommy’s room.”
Elena’s old study had remained nearly untouched since her death.
Vittorio rarely entered it.
“What was he doing?”
“He had Mommy’s red book.”
Vittorio’s attention sharpened.
Elena had kept a red leather accounting notebook during the last two years of her illness. She had still reviewed charity accounts and some of the family company’s expenses from home when chemotherapy made it impossible to go downtown.
After her funeral, Vittorio had searched for that notebook.
Marcus had told him Elena probably threw it away.
Lucy continued.
“I told Bianca. She said I make stories because I don’t want her to marry you.”
Emma looked down.
That reaction did not escape Vittorio.
“How long have you known about this?”
Emma swallowed.
“About today? Since breakfast.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
She said nothing.
Vittorio felt the old instinct rise in him—the instinct to make silence afraid of him.
He looked at Lucy.
Then he deliberately sat back down.
“Emma.”
“I’ve seen Bianca punish her before.”
Vittorio stared at her.
“Not like this,” Emma said quickly. “She’d make Lucy stand in corners. Take food away. Tell her she was spoiled. She kept saying Lucy needed discipline.”
“And you never told me?”
“I tried.”
Emma’s eyes finally met his.
“You were always in meetings with Marcus.”
Downstairs, something struck the library door.
Marcus shouted that his lawyer was coming.
Vittorio ignored him.
Emma handed over her phone again.
“There’s something else in the video.”
She rewound thirty seconds.
Marcus was beside Bianca.
He checked his watch.
Eight fourteen.
Then he said quietly, “He’ll be through that door in a minute.”
Vittorio watched the screen twice.
May you like
The humiliation had not merely happened where he could discover it.
Someone had expected him to.
