Chapter 11
Vittorio did not sleep that night.
At six in the morning he entered Claire’s study and sat on the floor beside Nico’s repaired airplane.
The wing had been glued back into place.
The crack remained visible.
He thought about Claire’s unsent sentence.
Hear me as my husband, not as Bianca’s little brother.
He had failed at that.
Rachel arrived shortly after seven.
When Vittorio showed her the recovered email, she cried without making a sound.
“I should’ve forced you to listen.”
“No.”
Vittorio closed the laptop.
“You shouldn’t have had to force me.”
Rachel looked toward the hallway.
“I knew Bianca was discrediting her. I didn’t know about the login key.”
“You knew enough.”
“So did you.”
He looked at her.
Rachel did not back down.
“Claire told you Bianca was interfering. Maybe not with these exact words, but she told you.”
Vittorio remembered fragments now.
Claire asking him to cancel dinner with Bianca.
Claire saying Owen’s invoices made no sense.
Claire becoming angry when Bianca entered the hospital room without knocking.
Vittorio had interpreted every moment separately.
Stress.
Illness.
Family tension.
He had never assembled the pattern.
The audit continued.
Truth did not solve the practical problem.
Northline had received more than a million dollars.
Some money had paid legitimate vendors.
Hundreds of thousands had been transferred onward to Owen’s struggling event-production company.
Bianca had also used foundation resources to cover high-end donor events that benefited her social standing but did little for the programs donors had funded.
Daniel warned Vittorio that the board would have disclosure obligations.
Donors could demand refunds.
The Illinois Attorney General’s office could become involved.
And Bianca’s battery complaint still existed.
“Finding out what she did doesn’t erase what you did in the foyer.”
“I know.”
The words came easier now.
That afternoon, Nico asked where Aunt Bianca was.
Vittorio sat beside his wheelchair.
“She won’t be coming over for a while.”
“Because she broke my plane?”
“Because she hurt you.”
Nico thought.
“And Mommy?”
Vittorio swallowed.
“She hurt Mommy too.”
Nico looked at him.
“Did you stop her?”
There was no answer Vittorio could give a three-year-old that would make the truth prettier.
“No,” he said.
May you like
“I didn’t know how.”
For the first time, Nico reached over and placed the repaired airplane in his father’s hands.
