Chapter 5 - LUCIA’S LAST NIGHT
Dr. Andrew Keller had retired to Vermont.
He answered Rocco’s call at 1:14 in the morning.
At first, he refused to speak.
Then Rocco played Lucia’s recording.
Silence.
Finally:
“Where did you find that?”
“My mother’s room.”
Another pause.
“And Matteo?”
Rocco looked across the room.
His brother sat beside Teresa’s kitchen table eating soup.
Danny had finally changed into dry clothes.
“Alive.”
The doctor made a sound that was almost a sob.
“Thank God.”
Rocco’s voice hardened.
“What happened to my mother?”
Keller exhaled.
“Not on the phone.”
“You have ten seconds before I decide where we’re meeting.”
Matteo looked up.
Rocco caught himself.
Old instincts.
Threat first.
He closed his eyes.
Then tried again.
“Doctor, I need the truth.”
That worked better.
Keller agreed to meet at his former colleague’s office in Manhattan at seven.
Rocco spent the remaining hours listening to Lucia’s recordings.
They told a story she had apparently built in secret.
She discovered Matteo’s survival four years earlier through a former nurse.
Visited him.
Verified identity.
Hired Keller to review his medications.
Documented sedatives and antipsychotics being administered without a clear medical diagnosis.
Started gathering financial records.
One recording mentioned Bianca’s inheritance distributions.
Another mentioned Anthony Russo’s old pension scheme.
Then Lucia’s voice:
Bianca knows I found him.
She smiled at me today as if nothing happened.
That frightens me more than shouting would.
Rocco stopped the recorder.
Matteo stared.
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
Rocco played another.
If anything happens to me, do not let Rocco react before he thinks.
Matteo actually laughed.
“Mom really knew you.”
Rocco gave him a look.
Matteo smiled faintly.
For one tiny second, they were brothers again.
Then the next recording played.
I had chest pain tonight after tea at Bianca’s.
Dr. Keller says I should go to the hospital.
Bianca says I am being dramatic.
Rocco froze.
Lucia died two days after that recording.
Official cause:
Heart attack.
Natural.
At seven, Dr. Keller met them.
He was eighty.
Tall, thin, nervous.
He stared at Matteo for almost a minute.
Then hugged him.
Matteo stiffened.
Eventually hugged back.
Keller looked at Rocco.
“Your mother was afraid.”
“Of Bianca?”
“Of several people.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Lucia forbade it.”
“She’s dead.”
“I know.”
“That instruction should have ended.”
Keller looked ashamed.
“She told me she would handle it.”
“And then she died.”
“Yes.”
“What happened medically?”
Keller opened a folder.
“Lucia had coronary disease.”
Rocco nodded.
“She had previous episodes.”
“Yes.”
“So the heart attack was possible.”
“Very.”
Rocco leaned forward.
“But?”
Keller slid a lab report across the desk.
“I ordered a toxicology screen privately.”
Rocco stared.
“Why privately?”
“Because Lucia told me she believed her medication had been changed.”
His stomach tightened.
“What did you find?”
“Elevated digoxin.”
Rocco frowned.
“She didn’t take digoxin.”
“No.”
Matteo went still.
“Would it kill her?”
Keller answered carefully.
“At enough concentration, it can cause dangerous arrhythmias.”
“Did it?”
“I cannot prove cause.”
Rocco stared.
“But it was in her blood.”
“Yes.”
“Who knew?”
“Me.”
“And?”
“The lab.”
“No family?”
Keller looked away.
“Bianca.”
Rocco’s voice turned cold.
“Why?”
“She came to the hospital.”
“Before Mom died?”
“Yes.”
“She asked questions?”
“She insisted she was managing Lucia’s medications.”
Rocco stared.
“She wasn’t.”
“I realized that later.”
“Did you tell her about the toxicology?”
Keller nodded.
“Why?”
“I thought she was family.”
That sentence kept returning.
Family.
The word people used when they stopped asking whether trust was deserved.
“What did Bianca say?”
“She said Lucia must have accidentally taken someone else’s medication.”
“Whose?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Did you report it?”
“I raised it with the attending physician.”
“And?”
“With Lucia’s cardiac history, they considered contamination or medication confusion.”
Rocco’s jaw tightened.
“My mother was not confused.”
“No.”
“Then why no investigation?”
Keller looked at him.
“Because you were her son.”
Rocco stopped.
“What does that mean?”
“Everyone knew who the Bellandis were.”
Of course.
Fear had protected him his whole life.
That same fear might have prevented someone from investigating his mother’s death.
Keller continued.
“Police involvement around your family was complicated.”
Rocco sat back.
There it was again.
Power turning into blindness.
“What do you think happened?”
Keller chose each word carefully.
“I think Lucia was intentionally given medication she had not been prescribed.”
Matteo closed his eyes.
Rocco asked:
“By Bianca?”
“I cannot say.”
“But Mom suspected her.”
“Yes.”
They returned to Brooklyn at ten.
Bianca remained under guard.
Not tied.
Not threatened.
She sat at the dining table.
The same table where Danny had been told he didn’t belong.
Rocco placed the lab report in front of her.
She stared.
“What is this?”
“You tell me.”
Her eyes moved across the page.
Then stopped.
“Where did you get it?”
Wrong reaction.
Rocco noticed.
“You recognize it.”
“No.”
“You asked Dr. Keller about it.”
Her face tightened.
“That was years ago.”
“You knew my mother had digoxin in her blood.”
“I knew there was some medication issue.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“No.”
Immediate.
Too immediate.
Matteo entered.
Bianca looked at him.
He sat.
For once, he did not shrink.
“Did Anthony teach you how?” he asked.
She stared.
“How what?”
“To make deaths look natural.”
Her face collapsed.
Rocco watched.
“No,” she whispered.
Matteo continued.
“Because that’s what he tried with me first.”
Rocco turned.
“What?”
Matteo had never mentioned that.
“He poisoned me once.”
“When?”
“Before the bomb.”
Rocco went cold.
“What?”
“Small amount. I got sick.”
“What did they use?”
“Digoxin.”
The room became silent.
Bianca began crying.
“No.”
Matteo stared at her.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“Your father kept it.”
“No.”
“Bianca.”
“I didn’t kill Lucia!”
Her voice broke.
Rocco leaned forward.
“Then who did?”
She covered her face.
“No one.”
“Wrong.”
“I gave her something.”
There it was.
Rocco did not move.
Matteo’s eyes filled.
“What?”
Bianca shook her head violently.
“Not enough to kill her.”
“What?”
“She wouldn’t stop.”
Rocco’s voice was barely audible.
“What did you give my mother?”
“Her tea.”
“What was in it?”
“A pill.”
“Which pill?”
“I didn’t know the name.”
Rocco pushed the lab report.
“Did it look like this?”
She cried harder.
“Anthony had kept bottles.”
“Your father had been dead five years.”
“I know.”
“And you still had them.”
“Yes.”
Matteo looked sick.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
“I was scared!”
Rocco slammed his palm on the table.
“No more.”
Everyone froze.
He lowered his voice.
“No more fear as an alibi.”
Bianca stared.
Rocco continued.
“You were scared when Matteo survived.”
“Yes.”
“You were scared when Anthony died.”
“Yes.”
“You were scared when Mom found him.”
“Yes.”
“And every time you were scared, someone else paid.”
Bianca sobbed.
“I only wanted Lucia to feel sick.”
Rocco stared.
“Why?”
“So she would cancel the trip.”
“What trip?”
“Connecticut.”
Matteo’s face changed.
“She was coming for me.”
Bianca nodded.
“She was going to bring you home.”
Rocco felt tears burn his eyes.
His mother had been preparing to rescue Matteo.
Bianca poisoned her to delay it.
And Lucia died before she could try again.
Bianca whispered:
“I didn’t mean for her heart to stop.”
Rocco stood.
“That doesn’t bring her back.”
“No.”
“Doesn’t restore eleven years.”
“No.”
“Doesn’t make Danny dry.”
Bianca looked confused.
Rocco glanced toward the hallway.
“You think that doesn’t belong in the same conversation?”
She said nothing.
“It does.”
He pointed toward the chair.
“You decide who deserves comfort based on usefulness.”
His voice hardened.
“Matteo became dangerous to you, so you locked him away.”
“Mom became dangerous, so you drugged her.”
“Teresa became inconvenient, so you humiliated her.”
“Danny became beneath you, so you put him in the rain.”
Bianca stared at him.
Rocco finally understood what he was looking at.
Not one terrible mistake.
A worldview.
“People stop being human to you when they stop being useful.”
She whispered:
“That’s not fair.”
“No.”
Rocco looked at his brother.
“Neither was eleven years.”
Police arrived that afternoon.
This time Rocco did not hesitate.
Bianca was arrested pending investigation into fraud, unlawful confinement, financial crimes, and Lucia’s death.
Her lawyer screamed.
Family members called.
Three older cousins told Rocco he had lost his mind.
One said family problems should remain family problems.
Rocco answered:
“That belief is how we got here.”
Then hung up.
By evening, the brownstone finally quieted.
Danny sat at the kitchen island eating reheated chicken and potatoes.
Rocco entered.
The boy looked worried.
“Am I allowed?”
Rocco frowned.
“To eat?”
Danny nodded.
“Teresa said we should go downstairs.”
Rocco looked at Teresa.
She looked embarrassed.
“Habit.”
He pulled out the chair beside Danny.
“New habit.”
Teresa smiled faintly.
Matteo appeared in the doorway.
Danny looked up.
“You’re the dead guy.”
Rocco closed his eyes.
“Danny.”
Matteo started laughing.
Real laughter.
The first Rocco had heard from him.
“Kid’s not wrong.”
Danny smiled.
Then held out a dinner roll.
“You want one?”
Matteo stared.
A simple piece of bread.
An eight-year-old offering food to a man erased from his own family.
His eyes filled.
“Yeah.”
He took it.
Then Danny asked:
“Are you staying here?”
Matteo looked at Rocco.
Neither brother knew.
Finally Rocco said:
“If he wants.”
Matteo’s face changed.
“Do I?”
Rocco stared.
“What?”
“Want?”
It was such a small question.
Such a massive one for a man whose choices had been stolen for eleven years.
Rocco pulled out another chair.
“You don’t have to decide tonight.”
Matteo sat.
Danny nodded approvingly.
“That’s good.”
Rocco almost smiled.
Then Teresa’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her face changed.
“Mr. Bellandi.”
“What?”
“It’s the school.”
Rocco frowned.
“At night?”
“No.”
She turned the screen toward him.
An email.
Danny’s private scholarship had been terminated.
Effective immediately.
Rocco stared.
“Why?”
Teresa whispered:
“The Bellandi Family Foundation funds it.”
Rocco looked at the signature.
Bianca Bellandi.
She had canceled Danny’s scholarship at 8:41 that morning.
Hours before Rocco came home.
Before the rain.
Before Matteo was discovered.
May you like
And suddenly the cruelty on the front steps looked less impulsive.
Bianca had already been punishing Teresa and Danny before anyone knew why.
