Chapter 8 - WHAT CARLO SAW
Carlo Bianchi looked twenty years older than Vincent remembered.
The former security chief sat beneath a blanket on the enclosed porch of his small coastal house.
His hair had gone almost completely white.
A cane rested against his chair.
When Matteo entered, Carlo tried to stand.
Matteo shook his head.
“You don’t have to.”
Carlo slowly sat again.
“Still giving orders.”
Matteo almost smiled.
“Sometimes.”
Carlo looked at Clara.
Recognition appeared immediately.
“You.”
Clara stopped.
“You remember me?”
“I remember everyone I failed.”
Vincent closed the porch door.
“Then start talking.”
Carlo looked at him.
“You still enter rooms like you own the air.”
Vincent might once have responded.
Today he pulled out a chair.
Matteo noticed.
So did Clara.
Carlo looked toward the sea.
“I photographed the garden.”
Vincent had expected denial.
The admission unsettled him more.
“Why?”
“Because Teresa asked me to test your security.”
Vincent turned toward his mother’s absence as if she could somehow hear.
“She asked you?”
“Months before the accident.”
Carlo nodded.
“She kept saying Matteo was exposed. You kept telling her the house was secure.”
“So she hired my own security chief to prove me wrong?”
“She asked me to prove her right or wrong.”
“And?”
Carlo looked ashamed.
“I found seven blind spots.”
Gabriel had supervised several exterior teams then.
Vincent felt anger rising.
Carlo lifted one hand.
“Gabriel didn’t create them.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were about to.”
Vincent said nothing.
Carlo continued.
“I took photographs from each blind spot. The garden picture was one of them.”
“Why put it in Gabriel’s room?”
“I didn’t.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Then who did?”
Carlo looked at Matteo.
The boy had gone still.
Clara placed one hand over his.
Carlo sighed.
“Me, indirectly.”
“That makes no sense.”
“The photographs were locked in my office.”
“One disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The afternoon before Matteo fell.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You said nothing.”
“I thought I had misplaced it.”
“You do not misplace things.”
“No.”
Carlo’s voice became bitter.
“That was my first mistake.”
“What was the second?”
“I saw someone leaving the storage room after midnight.”
Matteo gripped Clara’s fingers.
Vincent spoke carefully.
“Who?”
Carlo looked at him for a long time.
“Gabriel.”
Matteo shook his head immediately.
“No.”
Carlo’s eyes moved to him.
“I saw your uncle in the third-floor hallway.”
“He didn’t wear Mom’s coat.”
“I didn’t say he did.”
Vincent frowned.
“What exactly did you see?”
“Gabriel leaving the hallway near storage.”
Carlo coughed.
“Two minutes later, I saw another person.”
Clara asked, “Who?”
Carlo looked down.
“I never saw the face.”
Vincent’s patience thinned.
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“Build?”
“Average. Maybe five-ten. Dark clothes.”
“Gloves?”
Carlo nodded.
Matteo began breathing faster.
Clara moved closer.
“You’re here,” she whispered.
He nodded.
“Porch. Daylight. Me. Dad.”
Matteo looked at Vincent.
“Dad.”
Vincent placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“I’m here.”
His breathing settled.
Carlo watched them.
Something like regret crossed his face.
“The man took Elena’s coat.”
Vincent stared.
“You saw him?”
“I saw the navy hem beneath his arm.”
“And you let him walk away?”
“I followed.”
“What happened?”
“He went toward the west stairs.”
Matteo closed his eyes.
Carlo’s voice lowered.
“Then I heard shouting.”
Gabriel.
Teresa.
Matteo.
“I started running.”
He swallowed.
“By the time I reached the landing, Matteo had fallen.”
Vincent stood.
“You knew someone had lured him.”
“I suspected.”
“And you buried it.”
Carlo looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because when I reached the stairs, I found something.”
Carlo reached into a drawer beside his chair.
He removed a small black leather glove.
Old.
Creased.
The cuff had been torn.
Matteo made a frightened sound.
Clara looked sharply at Carlo.
“You kept it?”
“For fourteen months.”
Vincent took it.
Inside the cuff were two letters stitched in gray thread.
G.R.
Gabriel Rossi.
Vincent stared.
“No.”
Carlo’s face was heavy.
“That’s why I said nothing.”
“You thought Gabriel wore Elena’s coat?”
“I thought he took it off before you found him.”
Matteo shook his head harder.
“He didn’t.”
Vincent looked at his son.
Matteo’s eyes filled.
“Uncle Gabe gave me his gloves.”
Gabriel’s voice seemed to echo from the past.
It was cold.
Put these on.
Matteo looked toward his father.
“My hands were freezing.”
Carlo closed his eyes.
Vincent understood.
The glove was not evidence against Gabriel.
It was evidence Matteo had been there with him.
“Then whose glove tore inside Elena’s coat?” Clara asked.
Carlo looked toward the ocean.
“I never knew.”
Vincent sat again.
“So you silenced Clara because you feared she had seen Gabriel with Elena’s watch.”
Carlo nodded.
“I thought Gabriel caused the accident.”
“And you protected him.”
“I protected you.”
Vincent laughed quietly.
Carlo looked at him.
“You had just lost Elena two years earlier. Matteo might never walk again. If you learned your own brother had caused it…”
“You thought I would kill him.”
Carlo did not answer.
He did not need to.
Matteo looked down.
Vincent felt shame burn hotter than anger.
This was what his reputation had purchased.
Men lied to him because truth around Vincent Rossi felt dangerous.
His mother manufactured threats because he did not listen.
His brother kidnapped his child for one night because asking permission seemed useless.
His security chief buried evidence because he feared what Vincent might do with it.
His son had stopped speaking because everyone around him was louder than he was.
Clara whispered, “Vincent.”
He looked at her.
She did not need to say anything else.
He understood.
He sat beside Matteo.
“I’m sorry.”
Matteo looked surprised.
“For what?”
“For building a house where everybody thought hiding things from me was safer than telling me the truth.”
The boy considered that.
Then he held out the little red wooden conductor.
Carlo stared at it.
“You kept it,” Matteo said.
Carlo smiled sadly.
“I lost mine.”
“It was in Mom’s coat.”
Carlo’s smile vanished.
“What?”
Clara explained.
Carlo leaned forward.
“I never put that in her coat.”
Matteo looked confused.
“You had it.”
“Yes.”
“Then who got it?”
Carlo looked suddenly alarmed.
“Matteo, when did you give this to me?”
“After Mom died.”
“Where?”
“In your office.”
Carlo turned toward Vincent.
“My office was never accessible without a key.”
Vincent understood.
“Who had one?”
“Me.”
A pause.
“And my deputy.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“Name.”
Carlo hesitated.
Then said it.
“Anthony Moretti.”
Clara frowned.
Vincent did not.
Anthony Moretti had been dead for ten months.
A stroke.
Natural causes.
He had also been Teresa Rossi’s personal driver for eleven years before joining security.
Carlo rubbed both hands over his face.
“Anthony knew where Elena’s coat was. He knew Matteo trusted anything that belonged to her. And he knew every blind spot in this house.”
Vincent’s voice was quiet.
“Why would he lure my son onto those stairs?”
Carlo looked at Matteo.
“I don’t think he meant for him to fall.”
“Then what did he want?”
Carlo’s answer came slowly.
“To make sure Teresa’s fake threat became real enough that you finally sent Matteo away.”
Vincent stared at him.
Carlo continued.
“Anthony agreed with her.”
Teresa’s plan.
Expanded without her knowledge.
A manufactured danger turned into an actual terror.
Matteo whispered, “He was trying to scare Dad?”
Carlo nodded.
“I think so.”
“Not hurt me?”
“I don’t believe so.”
Matteo looked at Vincent.
Then something changed in his face.
A memory returning.
“He caught me.”
Vincent leaned closer.
“Who?”
“The man in Mom’s coat.”
Matteo touched his right wrist.
“When I slipped…”
His voice shook.
“He grabbed me.”
Clara whispered, “But he lost you.”
Matteo nodded.
Then his eyes widened.
“No.”
Everyone waited.
“He didn’t lose me.”
Vincent’s chest tightened.
“What do you mean?”
May you like
Matteo looked directly at his father.
“He let go.”
