Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF A FAMILY NAME
Luca Moretti was waiting outside the police station when my mother arrived to give her statement.
He had come without his usual convoy. One driver remained parked across the street, but Luca stood under a black umbrella in the cold, holding a second one for Carol Collins. My mother took one look at him and raised an eyebrow.
“You’re Teresa’s boy,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You look like your father around the eyes.”
His expression tightened. “I’ve been told.”
“That wasn’t a compliment or an insult. Just an observation.” She accepted the umbrella. “Now get out of the rain. Your mother would have scolded you for catching a cold in a suit that costs more than my refrigerator.”
For the first time in days, he laughed.
I watched from the back seat of a car arranged by my lawyer. Moving still hurt, but my physician had cleared me to attend a brief appointment, and I refused to let Mom face this alone. She walked slowly with a cane, her recovery still fragile, yet she entered the station with a dignity that made my throat tighten.
Detective Reyes met us in a quiet interview room. A victim-services coordinator offered water and explained that Mom could ask for breaks. There was no dramatic light in her face, no threat, no demand for a confession. Just a woman preparing to speak about a terrible night she had avoided for seven years.
Mom described the smoke, the screaming, the blocked side exit, and the red scarf. She identified Adrian Vale from a photographic array administered under standard procedure. Reyes asked what she had seen, not what she assumed. Mom was careful. She could not say Vale started the fire. She could say he was there moments before she saw smoke and that he fled when people began shouting for help.
Then she added, “There was another car.”
Reyes leaned forward. “What kind?”
“Black. Old-fashioned, square front. I remember because its window was down and a woman leaned out. She was shouting for the man with the scarf to hurry.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Dark hair. Big earrings. I didn’t see much more.”
Reyes wrote this down without comment. I could almost hear the puzzle rearranging itself in her head.
Afterward, Mom sat with me on a bench outside the interview rooms, exhausted but relieved.
“I should have spoken sooner,” she said.
“You did speak. Nobody listened.”
She squeezed my good hand. “Don’t let that become your whole life, sweetheart. People who harmed you don’t get to decide what happens to the rest of your years.”
I wanted to promise her I would remember.
Across the hall, Luca was talking quietly with his family attorney, Evelyn Price. Evelyn was a silver-haired woman in a navy coat who had handled Moretti legal affairs for a decade. She was carrying two heavy folders and seemed angry enough to crush them with her bare hands.
“Teresa warned your father about Calder in writing,” she told Luca. “I found the correspondence in our archived files. Antonio ordered a review, then shelved it.”
“Why?”
“He claimed there was insufficient proof to take the allegations to prosecutors. Your mother disagreed.”
“So he knew something was wrong.”
“He knew enough to ask questions. I won’t tell you more than the documents establish.”
Luca shook his head. “Everyone keeps protecting dead men.”
“Not me,” Evelyn said. “I’m protecting the truth from the story you wish were true.”
Her bluntness drew a reluctant nod from him.
When we returned to the apartment, a news alert flashed across Daniel’s phone. A local television station had received anonymous documents accusing Luca’s charity of laundering funds through the Calder clinic. The report showed grainy photographs of the Moretti mansion, an edited clip of me smashing the portrait, and a headline asking whether the family had hidden financial wrongdoing behind philanthropy.
My face appeared on the screen, frozen mid-scream, my bandages invisible beneath Luca’s jacket.
“Look what they did,” I whispered.
Vanessa had found a way to make me the villain in my own assault.
The next segment was worse. A spokesperson for Bellini Development claimed the engagement had been postponed while the company considered its legal options regarding “irregularities discovered in the Moretti estate.” Sebastian Bellini stood behind the microphones with a sorrowful expression. Vanessa held his arm, wearing the same pale red dress she had worn to the dinner where she threatened my mother.
“We have nothing but concern for Luca and his family,” she told reporters. “His mother was very unwell. We ask everyone to respect her memory.”
I switched off the television.
Luca stood beside the kitchen counter, looking at the dark screen. “She’s trying to make sure anyone who comes forward looks unreliable.”
“Then let people see the whole picture,” I said. “Not the part where I’m holding the golf club. The part where she pushed me. The part where Teresa wrote her warning.”
“We’ll release verified facts through the proper channels,” Evelyn said from the doorway. “But not medical records or material that could put witnesses at risk.”
It was the first time I had met her outside the station. She looked around the apartment, then at my bandages.
“Miss Collins, Teresa spoke highly of you.”
“She never told me you knew her so well.”
“She didn’t trust lawyers as a species,” Evelyn said dryly. “I was one of the few she tolerated.”
She handed me a sealed copy of the independent foundation documents. The funding for Mom’s rehabilitation was real and protected. My relief came so suddenly that I had to sit down.
Then Evelyn turned to Luca. “I need you to tell me whether you authorized Bellini Development to use the old warehouses as collateral.”
“No.”
“Michael’s name is on the authorization.”
“He says he signed under pressure.”
“Pressure doesn’t make a forged authorization legitimate, but it won’t erase his participation either.” She glanced toward me, as if making sure I understood. “We have to let the investigation follow the evidence even when it hurts someone we care about.”
Luca rubbed his forehead. “I’ll cooperate.”
Evelyn exhaled. “Good. Because the files Teresa left could implicate Moretti executives as well as Bellini ones. If you intend to clean this up, you don’t get to decide where the cleaning stops.”
That evening, Daniel brought news of Jo Alvarez. She had contacted Detective Reyes through an attorney and agreed to give a statement under protection. She confirmed that Teresa had been alert during much of her final evening and that she had called repeatedly for assistance. Jo said she was ordered away from the room by Dr. Corbin and a supervisor. She saw Vanessa leave and return with Sebastian Bellini, whose presence had not appeared in the official visitor log.
“She also has something physical,” Daniel said. “A printout of an internal incident report she saved before it vanished from the hospital system.”
“Does it prove what happened to Mom?” Luca asked.
“Not by itself. But it contradicts Corbin’s timeline. Jo is willing to testify.”
Luca sank into a chair. For a moment he covered his face with both hands. He had been holding himself together through fury, but grief finally found an opening.
“I left her alone,” he said.
I sat across from him. I did not touch him until he looked up and gave a small nod. Then I rested my hand on his forearm.
“You believed the people closest to you,” I said. “They used that. You can’t change the night she died, but you can decide how you treat the living people she wanted to protect.”
He nodded. Outside, sirens moved down the street and disappeared into the city’s endless traffic.
We were still sitting there when a sharp knock sounded at the front door.
Daniel checked the security feed. Michael stood alone on the landing, holding a black leather satchel.
“I need to talk to Luca,” he said through the intercom. “And Hannah needs to hear it too.”
He sounded frightened, but he also sounded certain.
Daniel searched the satchel before letting him enter. Inside were an old cassette tape, a signed statement, and a faded hospital parking ticket.
“I went back to Mom’s room after she died,” Michael said. “I thought I’d imagined what I heard. I didn’t.”
He placed the tape on the table.
“Mom knew the hospital wasn’t safe. She left a recorder running under her pillow.”
Luca stared at it. “You had this for six weeks?”
“I hid it because I was ashamed of what I said on it.” Michael swallowed. “I’m done being ashamed in silence.”
Evelyn used a small portable player Daniel obtained from a storage room. The cassette hissed, then Teresa’s voice filled the kitchen, weak but unmistakable.
“Michael,” she said. “Please bring me Luca.”
Michael’s recorded voice answered, breaking with emotion, “I’m trying, Mom.”
A door opened. Vanessa spoke.
“Dr. Corbin says we have until morning. The signature is all that matters.”
Teresa’s voice became fierce. “You will not take those families’ homes again.”
A man spoke from farther away. Low, measured, cold.
“Mrs. Moretti, I think you misunderstand who owns the truth in this city.”
Michael grabbed the player and stopped it. His hands were shaking.
“That’s Sebastian Bellini,” he whispered. “And I know what he said next.”
May you like
He stared at Luca.
“He told Mom she had already lost one son. Then he promised she would lose the other.”
