Chapter 7 - ALESSIA'S OTHER FACE
Adrian started toward the door before anyone could stop him.
"I'm going," he said.
Luca stepped into his path. "No. Not alone."
"They have her voice."
"They may have an edited recording. They may have a trap. We tell the detectives what happened before anyone meets anyone."
Adrian's eyes flashed. "You can't keep making choices for me."
Luca stepped aside.
"You're right," he said. "I'm asking you to make one that keeps you alive."
I watched Adrian struggle against the instinct that had ruled him since childhood: obey whoever held the key to the thing he wanted most. He closed his eyes, counted three breaths, and then gave Mara the call details.
"Mother used to do that," Luca said softly.
Adrian opened his eyes. "What?"
"Count three breaths when she was afraid."
He looked down at his hands. "Ruth told us. I tried it."
A strange expression crossed Luca's face, equal parts grief and wonder. His brother had learned one tiny habit from a mother neither of them could speak to. And for a moment it was enough to make them seem connected.
The next morning, the DNA laboratory issued its report to the brothers through their physicians. Luca called me from the terrace, his voice unusually unsteady.
"The result supports a full sibling relationship," he said. "Adrian asked me to tell you."
"How does he feel?"
"He cried. Then he said he still hated my taste in ties."
I smiled. "That sounds promising."
"Evelyn, I thought I'd feel victorious when the test came back. I don't. I feel furious about all the birthdays we missed."
"Both feelings can be true," I said. "So can joy."
He was quiet for a while. "Would you come to the sitting room? Adrian wants to show us something."
When I arrived, Adrian sat beside an old leather suitcase I'd never seen before. On his lap lay a packet of letters tied with blue ribbon.
"Sofia Venturi wrote these," he said. "She was Angelo's wife. The woman who raised me. She died five years ago. I found them in a box when I went back to the Venturi house last night, before anyone realized I was leaving for good."
Luca sat across from him. "You should have told us you were going."
"I know," Adrian said. "I was ashamed to need permission, so I said nothing. That wasn't smart."
He untied the ribbon.
Sofia's letters were written over many years, some while Adrian was small, others when he was old enough to ask questions. In the first, she described meeting Elena at St. Brigid's and seeing the anguish on her face when the adoption papers were presented. In another, Sofia confessed that she had accepted Angelo's explanation that separating the boys was the only way to protect them. Later letters admitted she'd suspected the story was false but had been afraid to challenge her husband.
The final page was addressed directly to Adrian.
"I loved you," Adrian read. "That love was real. But real love does not excuse what I allowed. You deserved to know where you came from. Your mother Elena tried to find you. I saw her letters before Angelo destroyed them. I am sorry I did not give them to you."
He stared at the paper for a long time.
"Sofia loved me," he said at last. "I know she did. But she watched this happen."
"You don't have to decide today what to do with that," I said.
He nodded. "I want to keep her letters. And I want to hate what she did."
"Both are yours," Luca replied.
Celia arrived with news that the reporter had agreed to delay publishing the forged physician's letter while her legal team reviewed it. Another reporter, however, had requested comment from Alessia. According to a source, she planned to make a public statement accusing Luca of coercion and me of theft.
"She's still trying to control the story," I said.
"She thinks if she speaks first, everyone else becomes a liar," Mara replied.
My phone buzzed. It was a message from Alessia herself.
YOU WANT THE TRUTH? MEET ME AT THE HOTEL CONSERVATORY AT TWO. BRING YOUR LAWYER IF YOU MUST.
I showed Mara and Celia. They advised against a private meeting and contacted the detectives. After arrangements were made for a public, documented conversation and an officer nearby, I agreed to attend with Celia. It was my choice. I wanted to hear what Alessia thought she could still buy.
The hotel's conservatory was a glass room filled with palms and white orchids. Rain slid down the panes. Alessia sat beneath a hanging lantern in a black dress, looking almost exactly as she had the first time I'd met her: beautiful, composed, completely certain that the world would make room for her.
She studied my bruised face.
"That looks worse than it did at dinner," she said.
"You know why."
"You always had a talent for making people feel guilty."
Celia pulled out a chair. "Ms. Venturi, if you have information, we're listening."
Alessia ignored her. "Luca's mother wasn't a saint, Evelyn. She threatened to destroy the entire family because she couldn't accept an arrangement that kept everyone safe."
"By giving away her son without consent?"
"By refusing to see the bigger picture."
I looked at the orchids. They were as white as the roses Angelo used to deliver his threats.
"Was Adrian your brother?" I asked.
Alessia's mouth tightened. "By adoption, yes."
"Then why did you introduce him to Luca as your cousin?"
"Because Father told me to. Because Luca would have asked questions."
"When did you know?"
She stared down at her manicured nails. "I was sixteen. I found records in Father's office. I asked him about them. He said Nicholas had been given away to settle a dangerous dispute, and that bringing the truth back would ruin everyone."
"So you lied to both brothers."
"I kept them alive."
"You told Adrian that Luca ordered their mother's death. Luca was thirteen."
For the first time, Alessia looked away.
"Father told me Luca had been involved. I didn't check how old he was."
"You didn't want to check."
Her eyes flashed. "You think being born into money means being free? My father arranged my friends, my schooling, every relationship. Luca was the one marriage that might have given me a home outside his control."
"You wanted Luca," I said. "Or you wanted what marrying him would give you?"
She didn't answer immediately.
"Both," she said at last. "Is that supposed to make me evil?"
"No. But hurting me and threatening Noah were choices you made."
Alessia's expression changed. "I didn't order what happened to your brother."
"Who did?"
"Father used Beatrice when he needed someone frightened. I heard him mention your brother after the dinner, but I wasn't the one who sent her."
Celia leaned forward. "Will you give that information to the police?"
Alessia looked between us, calculating. "Not unless I'm protected."
"Your lawyer can discuss any cooperation," Celia said. "We're not here to make promises we can't keep."
Alessia reached into her handbag. I tensed involuntarily. She saw it and, for one fleeting second, looked ashamed.
"It's a flash drive," she said. "Not a knife."
She placed it on the table. "Dominic made copies of the recordings he took from the music room. I found this among his things. My father plans to use the material to discredit Luca at tomorrow's foundation gala."
"Why tell me?"
"Because Father promised me he wouldn't hurt Adrian," she said. "Now he's threatening him too. I don't know how to make him stop."
I didn't touch the drive. Celia photographed it and arranged for it to be handed to investigators. Alessia watched with increasing irritation.
"You could at least say thank you," she snapped.
"I can say you're doing the right thing by turning over evidence," I replied. "But I won't thank you for the years you spent hiding it."
Her eyes filled unexpectedly. She blinked the tears away before they fell.
"I did care about Luca," she whispered.
"Then tell him the truth without asking him to forgive you."
I stood to leave. Alessia caught my sleeve lightly, then released it as though remembering what she'd done to my arm.
"Evelyn," she said. "There is something you should know about Dominic."
I waited.
"Father calls him the architect. Not of the companies. Of the accident."
The conservatory felt suddenly cold.
"Elena's accident?" Celia asked.
Alessia nodded.
"I heard them arguing once. Dominic said that if Elena had reached the courthouse, the entire arrangement would have collapsed. Father said they should never have trusted Dominic with the road that night."
I felt my breath catch.
"Will you repeat that to the detectives?" Celia asked.
Alessia nodded slowly. "If my attorney is there."
As we left, the hotel television flashed a photograph of Luca. A caption announced that Dominic Rusk would speak at the Venturi Foundation gala the following evening about the future of the Moretti businesses.
May you like
The man who might have helped kill Luca's mother was preparing to stand before Chicago's wealthiest families and declare himself her son's replacement.
And somewhere inside the evidence Alessia had surrendered was a voice he had tried to bury for twenty-two years.
