Chapter 5
Matteo followed Alessandro into the empty chapel.
Rows of white flowers waited beneath warm lights.
Two hundred guests had not yet been told the ceremony was canceled.
Alessandro stood at the altar.
Matteo remained several steps behind.
“I was trying to save the alliance.”
Alessandro looked at the empty chairs.
“At my daughter’s expense.”
“No.”
Matteo’s hands opened.
“I thought Bianca was insecure. Cruel sometimes, yes. But manageable.”
Alessandro turned.
“You saw my daughter locked in a room.”
“I saw a photograph of a closed door.”
“Rosalie told you.”
“She told me too much.”
Matteo immediately regretted the sentence.
Alessandro’s gaze sharpened.
“Too much?”
Matteo rubbed his jaw.
“Every household disagreement became an emergency.”
“Because you decided the wedding mattered more.”
Matteo said nothing.
Again, silence answered.
Then Matteo shifted the balance.
“You want to cancel? Fine.”
He removed another file.
“But before you destroy Bianca, understand what happens afterward.”
Rizzano Hotels had been carrying more debt than Alessandro knew.
Not catastrophic.
Dangerous.
Matteo had refinanced aggressively during two weak years.
Then interest rates moved.
A development project stalled.
Cash tightened.
The Moretti agreement would stabilize everything.
Alessandro stared at the figures.
“You hid this.”
“I managed it.”
“You hid it.”
Matteo’s eyes hardened.
“Because you were raising Livia after Sofia died.”
The name stopped Alessandro.
Sofia Rizzano.
Livia’s mother.
Gone eighteen months.
A sudden aneurysm.
Three weeks in the hospital before she died.
Alessandro had barely left her room.
Matteo had run everything.
“I kept your companies alive while you buried your wife.”
His voice shook now.
“I protected you.”
Alessandro stepped closer.
“And somewhere along the way, you decided that gave you permission to run my family too.”
Matteo looked away.
That was the wound between them.
Not money.
Authority.
Before Alessandro could speak again, Rosalie appeared at the chapel entrance.
She was holding something small.
A silver hairbrush.
Sofia’s.
Alessandro recognized it immediately.
Rosalie walked toward him.
“I found this in Bianca’s luggage.”
Alessandro’s breathing stopped.
Sofia’s initials were engraved into the handle.
S.R.
He looked toward the bridal wing.
Rosalie whispered:
“There were other things too.”
“What things?”
Her eyes filled.
“Your wife’s jewelry.”
Alessandro stared at the brush.
May you like
Bianca had not only been trying to replace Sofia.
She had been collecting pieces of her.
