Chapter 4 - WHAT ALESSANDRA FEARED
Lorenzo moved between Cesare and Sofia.
Cesare noticed.
A faint smile touched the older man’s face.
“Still dramatic.”
“You followed us.”
“I saw Marco take the car.”
Lorenzo held up the cloth.
“What did Alessandra mean?”
Cesare looked at it.
Then toward Sofia.
“Your mother became frightened near the end.”
“Of you?”
“Of everything.”
Sofia’s voice hardened.
“That isn’t an answer.”
Cesare looked at her with the patient expression older men used when they believed youth itself was disrespectful.
“You had just turned nine.”
“I know how old I was.”
“Your mother thought this family would turn you into something she hated.”
Sofia stared.
“What?”
“A Caruso.”
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened.
Cesare continued.
Alessandra wanted Sofia raised away from family traditions.
Away from guards.
Away from private dinners.
Away from the old hierarchy.
That part Lorenzo believed.
They had argued about it.
But not about leaving each other.
About leaving the estate.
Alessandra wanted a normal house near Sofia’s school.
Lorenzo kept postponing.
There was always another family crisis.
Another elder to appease.
Another reason tomorrow seemed easier.
Sofia looked toward him.
“You never told me that.”
“I forgot how serious it became.”
Cesare laughed.
“You didn’t forget.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“You chose not to remember.”
The words landed because they were partly true.
Then Cesare turned toward Sofia.
“Your mother started seeing monsters everywhere.”
“She wrote your name.”
“Because I told her no.”
“To what?”
Cesare became quiet.
There.
The missing piece.
Sofia saw it.
“What did she ask you?”
Cesare looked toward the burned wall.
Alessandra had confronted him about Gregory.
Not adult Gregory.
Twenty-one-year-old Gregory Vale.
Thomas’s son.
At the time, Gregory worked occasionally around Caruso events with his father.
He was angry.
Impulsive.
Desperate for approval.
Cesare liked him.
Alessandra did not.
“She saw you with Gregory?” Lorenzo asked.
Cesare shrugged.
“I gave the boy advice.”
“What advice?”
“How not to spend his life carrying his father’s bags.”
Sofia’s stomach tightened.
Gregory had known Cesare for fifteen years.
Long before he ever met Sofia as an adult.
Cesare saw the realization.
“That does not make me responsible for what happened last night.”
“No,” Sofia said.
Her voice remained steady.
“Gregory is responsible for Gregory.”
Cesare’s expression changed slightly.
He had expected anger.
Not clarity.
Sofia continued.
“But you knew him.”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“No reason.”
“You toasted our marriage.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew my husband’s father disappeared the night my mother died.”
Cesare said nothing.
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“You encouraged that marriage.”
“I approved of it.”
“That is not what I said.”
Cesare looked at him.
Then smiled.
“I introduced them.”
Sofia froze.
“What?”
Two years earlier, Sofia attended a charity dinner in Boston.
Gregory approached her near the terrace.
He claimed they had met by chance.
They spoke for twenty minutes.
He called her three days later.
Their relationship started there.
Now Cesare admitted he told Gregory where she would be.
Lorenzo’s fists closed.
“Why?”
Cesare answered without shame.
“Because the boy spent fourteen years hating us.”
Sofia stared.
“And you sent him to me?”
“I thought marriage might end it.”
A lie.
Everyone heard it.
Lorenzo said:
“Try again.”
Cesare’s face hardened.
Gregory wanted access to the Caruso family.
Cesare believed proximity would force him to see that Lorenzo was not the monster he imagined.
“And Sofia was your experiment?”
Cesare did not answer.
Sofia looked sick.
Then she remembered something.
The first gift Gregory ever gave her.
A book of Italian poetry.
Inside he had written:
Some families only understand love after surrender.
At the time she thought it romantic.
Now it sounded different.
She looked toward Cesare.
“Did Gregory know who I was before Boston?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
Cesare glanced at Lorenzo.
Then answered:
“Since you were a child.”
Sofia’s face went cold.
Cesare continued.
“His father used to talk about you.”
That alone was not the twist.
The next sentence was.
“Gregory attended your mother’s funeral.”
Lorenzo froze.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I would remember Thomas Vale’s son.”
“He didn’t come as Gregory Vale.”
Cesare looked toward Sofia.
“He came with me.”
May you like
A pause.
“And I told him Lorenzo Caruso was the reason both of your parents were gone.”
