Chapter 5
The recorder could not be played immediately.
Heat had damaged the casing.
Vittorio sent it to a private forensic lab.
Marcus laughed when he heard.
“You think burned electronics are going to resurrect your wife?”
Vittorio turned slowly.
Marcus was still trying to provoke violence.
Vittorio understood why now.
An angry Vittorio was predictable.
A quiet one was not.
So he stayed quiet.
That evening Bianca asked to speak privately.
Vittorio refused.
She smiled without humor.
“You don't trust yourself alone with me?”
“No.”
The answer landed.
“I don't trust you alone with the truth.”
Bianca's fingers tightened around her engagement ring.
Then she took it off.
Not dramatically.
Slowly.
She placed it on the table.
“You think this makes me guilty?”
“No.”
Vittorio looked at the ring.
“It makes you nervous.”
Bianca’s eyes flashed.
She changed tactics.
“Elena was going to leave you.”
That stopped him.
Marcus looked up.
Even he had not expected her to say it.
Bianca reached into her handbag and removed a folded photocopy.
Vittorio did not take it.
“What is that?”
“A letter Elena wrote to her sister.”
“She didn't have a sister.”
“To her attorney.”
Bianca corrected herself too quickly.
Vittorio heard it.
So did Emma.
Bianca opened the copy herself.
Elena’s handwriting.
Vittorio recognized it immediately.
I cannot raise Lucy in a house where everyone is afraid to tell her father the truth.
His face changed.
Bianca kept reading.
I love him, but power has become the only language he trusts.
Vittorio looked away.
For the first time that day, Bianca had hurt him without touching Lucy.
She knew it.
Her breathing steadied.
Her confidence returned.
“Elena was planning to take Lucy away.”
Vittorio looked back.
“Where did you get that?”
“She gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“Because she trusted me.”
The contradiction was obvious.
Elena’s recording said she feared Bianca.
Bianca held a letter suggesting Elena trusted her.
One of those things had context missing.
Maybe both.
Then Emma spoke quietly.
“Mrs. Romano never gave you that.”
Bianca's eyes snapped toward her.
Emma’s hands were shaking.
But she did not look away.
“I typed that letter.”
Vittorio turned.
Emma swallowed.
“I was helping Mrs. Romano organize documents.”
She pointed toward the page.
“That sentence is real.”
Bianca smiled triumphantly.
Then Emma added:
“But the next page said why she was leaving.”
May you like
Bianca’s smile vanished.
“And Bianca didn't bring that page.”
