Chapter 9
Enzo denied ordering Isabella’s saddle altered.
Matteo said otherwise.
Vanessa stayed silent.
That interested me.
I turned to her.
“When did you learn?”
She stared.
“About Isabella?”
Nothing.
“When?”
“After we married.”
My expression hardened.
We had been married fourteen months.
She had known while sleeping beside me.
Holding Audrey.
Standing with me at Isabella’s memorial mass.
“How?”
“Enzo told me.”
“Why?”
“He wanted me to understand what happened to women who interfere with family business.”
The room went cold.
Even Matteo looked at Enzo.
My uncle said nothing.
Not denial.
Not anymore.
I looked at Vanessa.
“And that made you help him?”
She laughed bitterly.
“It made me understand him.”
No.
Worse.
She admired the logic.
“Isabella got herself killed fighting over something that wasn’t hers.”
My vision narrowed.
“St. Catherine’s was hers.”
“The route wasn’t.”
I stood so slowly the room became silent.
“She died because she refused to let old men use her property.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
“She took risks.”
I thought of Audrey.
Bad at walking.
Careless like Mommy.
There it was.
The story Vanessa had been feeding a three-year-old.
Victims create their own accidents.
Isabella rode recklessly.
Audrey falls because she is clumsy.
Nobody pushed.
Nobody staged.
Nobody bears responsibility.
I looked at Enzo.
“This is how you taught them to speak.”
He smiled faintly.
“I taught them strength.”
“No.”
My voice lowered.
“You taught them to make harm look deserved.”
That finally moved something in his face.
Matteo stared at the table.
“I never wanted Isabella dead.”
I looked at him.
“Then why touch the saddle?”
He had no answer.
Because people like him always want the action but not the consequence.
They want fear.
Injury.
Compliance.
Never the body at the bottom of the hill.
I had spent two years mourning an accident.
May you like
Now I knew the truth was worse.
Isabella had died inside the same method they were rehearsing on our daughter.
