Chapter 9
Marco finally spoke.
“It was an accident.”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
He seemed surprised.
Camilla did too.
I continued.
“The crash was.”
Their faces changed.
“The rest wasn’t.”
Silence.
“You staged threats.”
No answer.
“You followed my wife.”
Marco tightened his jaw.
“You frightened her intentionally because you wanted me to move back toward you.”
He looked away.
“And when she crashed, your first concern was whether your driver could be traced.”
Camilla whispered:
“We never wanted Sofia dead.”
Livia was not in the room.
Thank God.
I stepped closer.
“My wife did not need you to want her dead.”
My voice stayed quiet.
“She needed you to care whether she lived.”
Neither answered.
Rafe placed Sofia’s recorder on the table.
“There’s more.”
I played the final section.
Sofia sounded tired.
“If Camilla tells Domenico I’m trying to separate him from his family, she’s right.”
I stopped breathing.
“Some families should have distance.”
Sofia continued.
“I don’t want Livia growing up believing affection is something elders give only when she obeys.”
Then:
“Camilla told Livia yesterday that good girls stay where family puts them.”
My hands clenched.
Livia had been two.
Barely forming full sentences.
Already being taught.
Sofia said she confronted Camilla.
Camilla replied:
“Children learn obedience before they learn betrayal.”
I looked at my cousin.
“You said that?”
She started crying.
“Yes.”
Of course.
Villains rarely think they are villains.
Camilla thought she was teaching order.
Then Sofia’s voice broke slightly.
“If I don’t get through to Domenico, I’m taking Livia to the mountain house myself.”
That was what she had been doing when she died.
Not leaving me.
Not running from marriage.
Trying to create enough distance for our daughter to grow without the second table shaping her.
I had spent eighteen months wondering why she drove there alone without telling me.
She had tried telling me for months.
I simply never treated the warning like an emergency.
That failure belonged to me.
May you like
Camilla’s choices belonged to her.
Both could exist at once.
