Chapter 7 - What Marco Left Behind
Clara survived.
The bullet passed through soft tissue without striking an organ.
The doctor told me that four times.
I still spent the entire night beside her hospital bed.
At three in the morning, Clara opened her eyes.
“You look terrible.”
I stared at her.
“You were shot.”
“And apparently you're offended by it.”
“I am.”
She smiled faintly.
“Where's Rosie?”
“Asleep in the next room with Enzo.”
“Is Adrian dead?”
“No.”
My bullet had struck his shoulder.
The police had him under guard.
For once, I wanted the legal system to have him.
Death was too easy.
Marco's evidence connected Adrian to racketeering, bribery, murder, and the ambush that had paralyzed me.
But one mystery remained.
The second copy.
Rosie woke the next morning and climbed onto Clara's bed.
After twenty minutes, she looked at me.
“Uncle Marco's treasure.”
Clara frowned.
“Daddy, sweetheart.”
Rosie shook her head.
“No. Daddy called it Uncle Lorenzo's treasure.”
My heart stopped.
“What did you say?”
Rosie climbed down.
“Daddy showed me before he went to heaven.”
Children remembered strange things.
Adrian had been right.
Rosie described a music box Marco kept in their old house.
Clara had stored their belongings after his death.
Inside the music box, beneath a false wooden panel, we found a memory card.
There was a video.
Marco appeared on screen.
He looked exhausted.
“If you're watching this, Clara, then I failed.”
Clara covered her mouth.
Rosie had been taken outside before we played it.
Marco continued.
“Lorenzo Vitali isn't your enemy. His father wasn't mine either. Adrian created the war.”
Then Marco revealed the final truth.
My father had discovered Adrian's crimes years earlier.
He had secretly approached Marco because Marco had access to Ferretti's books.
Together, they intended to expose him.
My father died first.
Marco continued the investigation alone.
But there was something else.
“Lorenzo,” Marco said into the camera, “if you're seeing this, there's something you deserve to know about your ambush.”
I leaned closer.
“You weren't supposed to survive. But someone inside Adrian's crew changed the timing of the attack and anonymously alerted emergency services.”
The video cut to security footage.
A woman entered a pay phone booth.
Bianca.
I stared.
Clara looked at me.
Bianca had saved my life.
Later, we found her at a hotel under police protection.
She looked exhausted when I entered.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
She knew immediately what I meant.
“Because Adrian would have killed me.”
“You saved me.”
“I tried.”
“Then why humiliate me?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Because he threatened my younger brother.”
She explained everything.
Adrian had discovered she was responsible for the emergency call.
He forced her to remain close to me.
Then, before the wedding, he gave her a choice.
Leave me publicly and make the Vitali family appear weak—or her brother would disappear.
“The letter?”
“He dictated it.”
The words that had destroyed me weren't hers.
I should have felt relief.
Instead, I felt sadness.
“Why didn't you trust me?”
“Because everyone who trusts powerful men eventually becomes collateral.”
I thought about Clara.
Marco.
Rosie.
My father.
Maybe Bianca wasn't entirely wrong.
She reached for me.
“Could we start again?”
There it was.
The question I had once desperately wanted.
I looked at her hand.
Then thought of a woman lying in a hospital because she'd stepped between a gun and her daughter.
“No.”
Bianca's face crumpled.
“I forgive you,” I said. “But forgiveness isn't the same as going backward.”
She understood.
When I returned to the hospital, Clara was awake.
She looked at me carefully.
“You saw Bianca.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She saved my life two years ago.”
Clara absorbed that.
“You still love her?”
I rolled beside the bed.
“I'll probably always care what happens to her.”
Clara looked away.
I touched her hand.
“But that wasn't your question.”
Her eyes returned to mine.
“No.”
I moved closer.
“The answer to the question you actually asked is no.”
Her breath caught.
“Lorenzo—”
The door opened.
Rosie marched in carrying three cups of pudding.
“Good. You're both here.”
I pulled away.
Clara started laughing.
Rosie handed me pudding.
“What?”
“You're having dinner with us.”
I looked at Clara.
She looked at me.
May you like
And something quiet passed between us.
Something neither of us was ready to name.
