Chapter 6 - SOPHIA’S CONFESSION
Carlo looked at the blood beneath his ring.
Then he smiled.
Not widely.
Not nervously.
It was the smile of a man who understood the game had changed and had already chosen his next move.
“You think I fired through the window?”
“I think you arrived before anyone called you.”
“I was near the eastern wall.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw the shooter.”
“Then describe him.”
Carlo glanced at Sophia.
She was pale against the floor.
“Tall. Dark clothing. Rifle.”
“That describes every man you have ever hired.”
Carlo’s jaw tightened.
Alessandro stepped closer.
“Give me the gun.”
“Boss.”
“Now.”
Carlo handed it over.
The barrel was warm.
Alessandro smelled it.
Recently fired.
Carlo spread his hands.
“I shot at the attacker.”
“Outside?”
“Yes.”
“Then there will be shell casings.”
“There should be.”
Alessandro ordered two guards to search the garden.
Carlo watched without blinking.
Minutes later, one guard returned with three casings near the gate.
The caliber matched Carlo’s weapon.
Alessandro looked at him.
Carlo’s expression remained calm.
Evidence could prove innocence.
Evidence could also be placed.
Alessandro lowered the pistol slightly.
“You are confined to the west wing.”
Carlo’s eyes hardened.
“After twenty-two years?”
“After twenty-two years, you should know better than to question an order.”
Two guards stepped forward.
Carlo looked at Sophia one final time.
Something passed between them.
Recognition.
Hatred.
Then he left.
Alessandro waited until his footsteps disappeared.
“You know what that look meant,” he said.
Sophia closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Doctor Caruso treated Alessandro’s shoulder while Sophia began.
“My mother did not spend twenty-seven years hiding because she feared Vittorio.”
“Then who?”
“Carlo.”
Alessandro did not react.
“He was the one who found her outside the garden after your mother was shot,” Sophia continued. “She had the ledger under her coat. Carlo told her he would help her escape.”
“But he did not.”
“He took the ledger. Then he drove her to the river.”
Alessandro’s hands tightened.
“She survived because the car crashed before they reached the bridge. Carlo believed she drowned. She lived under false names for the rest of her life.”
“And the ledger?”
“She believed Carlo kept it.”
“Yet you came here to search for it.”
“My mother later realized he had taken a decoy. Your mother had switched the books.”
“Why?”
“Because Emilia knew someone might intercept Lucia. The real ledger remained inside the estate.”
Alessandro looked toward Emma, who sat on the floor drawing circles on a scrap of paper.
“Why bring your daughter into this house?”
“I did not have a choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
Sophia laughed weakly.
“That is something powerful men say because they have never had to choose between rent and food.”
The words struck cleanly.
Alessandro let them.
“My husband died four years ago,” Sophia said. “Marco Rossi worked at the harbor. He discovered containers arriving under false charity seals. Two weeks later, his truck went through a guardrail.”
“Accident?”
“No.”
“Proof?”
“Marco left photographs and shipping numbers. They matched my mother’s records.”
“Why did you not come to me?”
“Because your name was on the containers.”
Alessandro stared at her.
“I never authorized charity shipments.”
“I know that now. I did not know it then.”
“So you entered the mansion.”
“As a housekeeper. I watched. I listened. I found hidden account numbers in your father’s study. Then Carlo realized who I was.”
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
“The camera loop began seven months ago.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he kill you immediately?”
“Because he believed I knew where the ledger was.”
“And do you?”
Sophia looked toward Emma.
“I know where my mother believed it was hidden.”
“The chapel.”
“She gave me the lullaby. But the lyrics were incomplete.”
Alessandro recited them.
“Beneath the stone where angels sleep, the wolf will find what shadows keep.”
Sophia’s eyes widened.
“You heard the recording.”
“Yes.”
“Then Emilia wanted you to find it.”
“Why not tell my father?”
“Perhaps she tried.”
Alessandro remembered the tape.
His father’s voice.
There had been fear in it.
A fear Alessandro had never heard from him in life.
“What did you find that frightened Carlo enough to poison you?”
Sophia hesitated.
“A birth certificate.”
Alessandro waited.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
“My birth certificate is in the family archive.”
“The official one is.”
She pointed toward the hidden room.
“In the metal box.”
Alessandro retrieved it and returned.
Inside were old documents wrapped in wax paper.
He found the birth certificate.
Alessandro Moretti.
Date correct.
Place of birth correct.
Mother: Emilia Moretti.
Father—
The line had been altered.
Black ink covered the original name.
Beneath it, someone had written Giovanni Moretti.
Alessandro held the document toward the light.
The hidden name became visible.
Antonio Bellandi.
He knew the surname.
Luca Bellandi had been his father’s closest adviser.
Antonio was Luca’s older brother.
A man executed for treason the year before Alessandro was born.
“This is false.”
Sophia said nothing.
“My mother would not—”
“I do not know what it means.”
“You brought it here.”
“I found it behind the altar three months ago.”
Alessandro’s pulse hammered.
“If Giovanni Moretti was not my father, then I have no legitimate claim to this family.”
“That is why Carlo wants it.”
A new understanding entered the room.
This was not only about stolen money.
Or old murder.
It was about succession.
If Alessandro’s legitimacy collapsed, the council could remove him.
And Vittorio Moretti, Giovanni’s biological brother, would become head of the family.
“Who else knows?”
“Father Gabriel.”
“Carlo?”
“He suspects.”
Emma looked up from her drawing.
“That man knows.”
Alessandro turned.
“What man?”
“The garden man.”
Sophia’s face went white.
“Emma, no.”
But Emma pointed toward the window.
“He comes when Mama sleeps.”
“What does he look like?”
The child touched her own chin.
“White line here.”
A scar.
May you like
Alessandro knew only one senior man with a scar beneath his chin.
His uncle Vittorio.
