Chapter 7 - The False Funeral.
Don Ricci recovered quickly.
Men who survive for fifty years around dangerous secrets learn to repair expressions before anyone can prove what they saw.
He leaned back in his chair and gave Alessandro a disappointed look.
"Your brother and I discussed codes many times."
"Did you?"
"You were young."
"I was twenty-eight."
"Young enough to believe Luca told you everything."
Alessandro's eyes darkened.
Ricci smiled again.
"He didn't."
That was the cruelest possible answer.
Not because it was threatening.
Because it might have been true.
Alessandro had built seven years of certainty around a dead brother who had clearly kept secrets.
I knew exactly how that felt.
My dead husband had done the same to me.
Marco moved closer to Ricci.
"Sir, we'll need your phone."
Ricci looked amused.
"You may need many things."
"Your phone first."
"No."
The room tightened.
Alessandro said nothing.
Ricci's bodyguards, confined along the east wall, watched carefully.
Moretti guards watched them back.
I pulled Emma closer.
This was not a room for a child.
It was barely a room for adults.
Finally Ricci removed his phone and placed it on the table.
"There."
Marco collected it.
While Marco collected phones, I watched the family heads whisper in clusters.
Their fear had a hierarchy.
The younger men looked toward Alessandro.
The older men looked toward Ricci.
Don Bellini crossed the room twice to speak with Ricci before returning to his brothers.
Don Sarto kept checking whether the gates were still locked.
A woman from the Valenti family quietly moved her chair closer to an exit.
Nobody admitted they were frightened.
They called it caution.
That seemed to be the preferred language of powerful people.
A servant brought fresh coffee.
Ricci thanked him by name.
The gesture was charming.
It also told me he knew the staff.
Not vaguely.
Personally.
I remembered what Enrico's recording would later say about doors.
At the time, I only knew that Ricci noticed people others ignored.
That could be kindness.
It could also be intelligence gathering.
He caught me watching.
"You observe everything," he said.
"Occupational habit."
"Housekeepers and old men have that in common."
"People forget we're in the room?"
His smile widened.
"Exactly."
The answer chilled me.
For one moment, I understood why Luca might have feared him.
Ricci looked toward me.
"Mrs. Bennett, may I offer advice?"
"No."
One of the younger family heads coughed to hide a laugh.
Ricci smiled.
"Your husband lied to you for years."
The laughter died.
"Whatever he left in that toy may not be meant to save you."
"Then you shouldn't be worried about it."
His eyes sharpened.
"I'm not."
"Good."
I turned away.
My knees were shaking.
I refused to let him see.
Alessandro ordered the families separated into different wings while Marco's team began examining phones and access records.
Then he brought me back to the locked nursery.
The envelope marked MATTEO still lay inside Luca's hidden compartment.
I stared at it for several seconds before touching it.
"It wasn't written for me."
Alessandro stood beside the window.
"Your husband is dead."
I flinched.
He corrected himself.
"Presumed dead."
"That isn't better."
"No."
I lifted the envelope.
"Maybe this belongs to him."
"Maybe he intended you to find it if he couldn't."
"That's convenient."
"Most dead men's plans are."
I looked at him.
His face was calm, but grief sat behind his eyes.
We were two people arguing with ghosts.
I opened the envelope.
Inside were six pages written by Luca Moretti.
The first line contained Matteo's name.
Matteo,
If Alessandro gives you this, then I failed to remove the infection from our house.
I read more slowly.
Luca described a network that redirected shipping schedules, customs inspections, union votes, and private accounts.
Someone had been selling Moretti information to rivals while arranging conflicts that made Alessandro's father dependent on Ricci mediation.
The leak had lasted years.
Luca believed the mastermind was an older family ally.
He had not written the name.
Instead, he described proof divided into three pieces.
The first was hidden in the nursery.
The second would be carried by Matteo.
The third belonged to "the keeper."
I reached the last page.
One sentence was underlined twice.
If Matteo disappears, do not trust the body.
My hands went cold.
"Alessandro."
He crossed the room.
I handed him the page.
His face changed.
"Do not trust the body," he read.
"There was no body after Daniel's crash."
"Only the watch."
"And dental fragments."
I frowned.
"What?"
"The police report said they matched."
"You told me only the watch was found."
"That's what the officer told me personally."
He looked at me.
"Did you ever read the full report?"
Shame burned through me.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I was twenty-nine years old, my husband had just died, my daughter was one, and I could barely remember to eat."
He nodded once.
"Fair."
Marco entered carrying a laptop.
"I pulled the archived accident file."
He placed it on the desk.
The report listed Daniel Bennett as confirmed deceased by dental comparison.
The signature belonged to Inspector Gianni Fabbri.
Alessandro swore quietly.
"You know him?"
"Ricci's nephew married Fabbri's daughter."
Marco began searching.
"Fabbri retired eighteen months ago."
The same time Vivian's photograph of Daniel had been taken.
"Where is he now?" I asked.
Marco hesitated.
"Officially? Switzerland."
"Unofficially?"
"Nobody has seen him in a year."
Alessandro took out his phone.
"Find him."
Marco nodded.
I stared at the accident report.
"Can dental records be faked?"
"Anything can be faked if the person verifying it is dishonest," Marco said.
I thought about Daniel's funeral.
The sealed coffin.
The priest's soft voice.
Emma asleep against my sister's shoulder.
Me touching polished wood and saying goodbye to a man who might not have been inside.
Anger rose so sharply I had to sit down.
"If he was alive, why didn't he come back?"
Nobody answered.
That silence began to hurt more than the question.
I asked Marco to show me every photograph from the crash site.
He hesitated.
"They aren't pleasant."
"Neither was the funeral."
He turned the laptop toward me.
The truck had been destroyed beyond recognition.
I saw the guardrail.
The scorched road.
Daniel's watch lying in an evidence bag.
Then I saw something I had never been told.
A second set of tire tracks curved behind the burned vehicle.
"What's that?"
Marco zoomed in.
"Another car."
"The report says he was alone."
"It does."
"So why wasn't this investigated?"
Marco's mouth tightened.
"Ask Fabbri."
Alessandro looked over his shoulder.
"Look at the time stamps."
The first photograph had been taken at 2:17 a.m.
The official emergency call was logged at 2:42.
Twenty-five minutes later.
Somebody had photographed the scene before police were officially notified.
"Who took these?"
Marco checked the metadata.
His expression changed.
"Internal evidence unit."
"Moretti?"
"Yes."
Alessandro stared at him.
"Why was my security team at a private mechanic's crash before the police?"
Marco did not have an answer.
At least not one he offered.
The room seemed colder.
Vivian appeared at the nursery door under guard.
"Because he couldn't."
I stood immediately.
"What does that mean?"
She looked terrible now.
No perfect makeup.
No red gown.
No arrogance.
She wore a borrowed sweater and looked like a woman who had spent years waiting for a door to break open.
"The photograph at Lake Lugano wasn't a meeting I arranged."
"You said he asked for you."
"He did."
"Then what are you changing?"
"I'm not changing it."
She swallowed.
"I'm telling you what happened after."
Alessandro closed the nursery door.
"Talk."
Vivian looked at me.
"Matteo contacted me because he believed Carlo could get him into this wing."
"Why you?"
"Because Matteo knew my father had once worked with Luca."
"Your father died before Luca created the black crown," Alessandro said.
"That's what you believed."
Vivian looked toward Luca's rabbit.
"The symbol was older."
"How much older?"
"At least twenty years."
Alessandro's face hardened.
"Who created it?"
"My father used it on private ledgers."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
She looked toward me again.
"At Lugano, Matteo told me someone had followed him for six months."
"Who?"
"He didn't know."
"What happened after the photograph?"
Vivian's voice dropped.
"He left the hotel through the kitchen."
"And?"
"Three days later, I received his wedding ring in the mail."
My hand flew to my mouth.
Daniel's wedding ring had never been recovered from the crash.
"Where is it?"
"Carlo took it."
I turned toward the door.
"Where is he?"
Alessandro caught my arm before I reached it.
"Clara."
"Let go."
"Not until you decide whether you want answers or revenge."
"I want my husband's ring."
He released me.
"Then we'll get it."
Carlo's room was empty.
The guard outside swore nobody had left.
A hidden panel behind the wardrobe stood open.
It led into another service passage.
On the table was a single object.
A plain gold wedding band.
Mine and Daniel's wedding date was engraved inside.
My fingers shook when I picked it up.
Beside it lay a note.
Clara,
I am sorry.
Do not believe the funeral.
Do not believe Vivian.
And whatever happens, do not let Ricci take Emma.
May you like
The handwriting belonged to my husband.
The ink was fresh.
