Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT ALESSANDRO FORGOT
Alessandro sat alone in the first pew.
For once, nobody feared him.
He looked too shaken to be frightening.
Serafina stood behind him holding the Polaroid.
Gabriel’s arm was around Alessandro’s shoulders.
Not as a hostage.
Not as an enemy.
As if supporting him.
“You were injured too,” she said.
Alessandro touched the scar near his hairline.
“I got this in the crash outside Zurich.”
Silas shook his head.
“You were found outside Zurich.”
Alessandro looked back.
“What?”
Silas’s expression hardened.
“I never saw the crash.”
“You told me—”
“I told you what the doctors told me.”
“Who hired them?”
Silas already knew the answer.
“Emilio.”
The shape of the lie finally appeared.
Three years ago Alessandro had not been in Zurich when Gabriel died.
At least not the entire time.
Someone had moved him.
Injured him.
Then returned him to a road hundreds of miles away with a story everyone accepted because the Moretti heir was alive.
The caretaker found another object inside the parish ledger.
A coat-check ticket.
OBSIDIAN — 17.
Serafina recognized the handwriting on the back.
Gabriel’s.
17 keeps the second truth.
They returned to the restaurant before sunrise.
The building was empty except for security.
Locker seventeen in the staff cloakroom was old.
Unused.
The current manager thought it had been jammed for years.
Silas pried it open.
Inside hung one garment.
A man’s dark overcoat.
Alessandro touched it.
“Mine.”
The lining was torn.
Blood stained the inside near the shoulder.
Three years old.
In the pocket sat a small recorder.
Serafina’s hands shook as she pressed play.
Static.
Footsteps.
Then Gabriel’s voice.
“You are bleeding.”
Alessandro answered.
Young.
Disoriented.
“I’ve been worse.”
“You don’t know where you are.”
“Obsidian.”
“No.”
A pause.
“I mean you don’t know what Emilio has been doing.”
Everyone stopped breathing.
Gabriel continued.
“He used your authorization codes to move weapons.”
Alessandro on the recording swore.
“You have proof?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Not with me.”
“Good.”
Another sound.
Glass.
A chair scraping.
Gabriel said, “If he knows you believe me, he kills us both.”
Then Alessandro’s voice.
“What does Serafina know?”
The real Alessandro beside the locker went rigid.
On the recording Gabriel answered, “Nothing.”
“You’re sure?”
“She thinks her father works in financial compliance and complains too much about coffee.”
Serafina closed her eyes.
For one second, she could see Gabriel standing in their kitchen.
Alive.
Ordinary.
The recording continued.
Alessandro said, “My father’s trust?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“So Emilio doesn’t know she’s—”
Gabriel interrupted sharply.
“Do not say it here.”
The recording crackled.
Then came Alessandro’s voice.
“Fine. We move her tonight.”
“No.”
“Gabriel.”
“If Serafina disappears when we expose Emilio, he understands exactly what she is.”
Silence.
Alessandro finally said, “Then what do you want from me?”
“Survive until morning.”
A door opened somewhere on the recording.
Then a third voice.
Emilio.
“Well.”
The recorder hissed.
“Look what honesty has done.”
A struggle.
Furniture overturned.
Gabriel shouted.
A gunshot.
Clara grabbed Serafina’s hand.
On the tape Alessandro groaned.
Emilio’s voice became clearer.
“You were supposed to stay in Zurich.”
Alessandro answered through pain.
“You used my name.”
“I preserved it.”
“You trafficked weapons.”
“I kept our buyers loyal.”
“You killed dockworkers.”
“They were not family.”
A second gunshot.
Serafina stopped breathing.
Gabriel cried out.
Then chaos.
Silas leaned closer to the recorder.
Emilio said, “Take Alessandro.”
Another man asked, “And Torres?”
A long pause.
Emilio answered, “Not yet.”
The tape skipped.
When sound returned, Gabriel was breathing hard.
Alessandro’s voice was faint.
“Serafina.”
Gabriel answered.
“She is not your responsibility.”
“She’s my—”
The recording cut.
Serafina stared.
The word had never been completed.
Sister.
Even then Alessandro knew.
At least for a few minutes before somebody took the memory from him.
The tape resumed after several seconds.
Another location.
Church bells.
Santa Lucia.
Alessandro whispered, “He’ll kill her.”
Gabriel answered, “Not if he thinks you forgot.”
Then Alessandro:
“Make me.”
Everyone froze.
Serafina looked at him.
Alessandro stared at the recorder.
On the tape Gabriel said, “What?”
“Emilio’s doctor uses midazolam. I saw him use it on Marco.”
Silas swore.
Alessandro continued.
“If I remember this tomorrow, I go after him. He expects that.”
“You’re asking me to drug you?”
“I’m asking you to give him what he expects.”
Gabriel’s voice became furious.
“You’re thirty-one years old.”
“And she is your daughter.”
A long silence.
Then:
“My sister.”
Serafina’s eyes filled.
Alessandro had known.
Briefly.
And his first decision had been to protect her.
Not claim her.
Not control her.
Protect her by destroying his own memory of the truth.
Gabriel said, “There has to be another way.”
Alessandro answered, “Find one before they find us.”
The recording ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then Silas said, “So Emilio didn’t erase your memory.”
Alessandro looked toward Serafina.
“I asked Gabriel to help do it.”
Reversal.
The man she suspected had hidden the truth from her had intentionally made himself forget it.
Serafina almost hated that more.
“Dad agreed?”
“Apparently.”
“Why?”
“Because Emilio would read me immediately.”
Alessandro looked sick.
“Your father chose your safety over the truth.”
“Again.”
“Yes.”
She looked away.
He did not defend Gabriel.
That mattered.
Vincenzo searched the locker.
“There should be more.”
“Why?”
“Gabriel said seventeen keeps the second truth.”
The recorder was the first.
Serafina ran her fingers inside the coat.
A hard square sat beneath the lining.
She cut the seam.
A photograph slid out.
Not Gabriel.
Not Emilio.
Vittorio Moretti sat at a desk.
Healthy enough to write.
Across from him sat Emilio.
The date was three months before Gabriel’s murder.
Between them lay the trust documents.
On the back Gabriel had written:
EMILIO DID NOT DISCOVER SERAFINA BY ACCIDENT.
VITTORIO TOLD HIM.
Alessandro stared.
“That can’t be right.”
Serafina felt cold.
Their father had claimed Emilio found the papers after the stroke.
Apparently he lied.
Again.
Clara whispered, “Why would Vittorio tell him?”
Vincenzo turned the photograph toward the light.
Something was taped beneath it.
A medical consent form.
Signed by Vittorio.
Authorization for Serafina Torres to be listed as emergency family contact.
Three years earlier.
A second signature appeared below.
Witness:
EMILIO MORETTI.
Serafina stared at it.
Vittorio had not merely told Emilio she existed.
He had formally acknowledged her.
And done it before Gabriel was killed.
Alessandro’s face hardened.
“We go back to the villa.”
Silas looked toward the windows.
Dawn was beginning to gray the harbor.
Then one of Alessandro’s men entered carrying a document recovered from Emilio’s old office.
A council notice.
Meeting time: 7:00 a.m.
Location: Obsidian.
Agenda:
REMOVAL OF ALESSANDRO MORETTI.
Below it, handwritten in Emilio’s heavy script:
May you like
And settlement of the Torres problem.
Before sunrise, someone really was going to lose an empire.
