Chapter 4: What Carla Knew
Alessandro sat on the edge of the vanity stool, the photograph in one hand and the printed email in the other.
He hadn't spoken since Bianca walked out.
Elena stood near the window.
Rosalie had her arm around Livia, who had stopped shaking but still hadn't let go of the small fistful of her own hair.
"Someone needs to tell me," Alessandro said, "how long this has been going on."
Elena turned from the window.
"I don't know the full story.
That's why we need to talk to Carla."
"Carla." He said the name flatly.
"Carla, who I haven't spoken to in two years.
Carla, who I ended things with because Bianca told me she had been sending threatening messages."
Elena said nothing.
"Were there messages?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Did you ever see them?"
A pause.
"No."
Alessandro set both pieces of paper down.
He pressed his hands flat on his knees.
"I need to call her," he said.
Rosalie looked up.
"Alessandro—"
"I know." He stood.
"I know how it looks.
But that email is real.
That money is real.
And if Bianca paid Carla forty thousand euros eleven days before our wedding, I need to know why."
He took his phone from his jacket pocket.
He found the number — still there, buried under two years of silence — and pressed call.
It rang four times.
Then a voice answered.
Careful.
Quiet.
"Alessandro."
"Carla." He kept his voice even.
"I need you to tell me the truth.
Whatever Bianca paid you to keep quiet about — I need to know what it is."
A long silence on the other end.
"How did you find out about the money?" Carla said finally.
"My mother found the email."
Another silence.
Longer.
"She told me you'd ended it because of me," Carla said.
"That you'd decided I was unstable.
That the messages I supposedly sent had frightened you." Her voice was steady but thin.
"I never sent any messages, Alessandro.
I want you to know that first."
His hand tightened around the phone.
"What did she pay you for?"
"She came to me six weeks ago.
She said she had evidence — photographs, a recorded call — that would make me look like I'd been harassing you for two years.
She said she would go to my employer, my landlord, my family." A breath.
"She said if I signed a document agreeing never to contact you or speak about her, she would pay me and leave me alone."
"And you signed it."
"I had no choice.
I have a daughter, Alessandro.
I couldn't risk—" She stopped.
"I'm sorry.
I should have found a way to warn you."
He stood very still.
"What was in the photographs?" he asked.
"The ones she said she had."
"They were real photographs.
From when we were together.
But she'd had them altered.
Changed the dates.
Made them look recent." Carla's voice dropped.
"She wanted to make it look like I had never stopped following you."
Elena was watching her son's face.
"There's one more thing," Carla said.
"The document she had me sign — I kept a copy.
My lawyer told me to.
And there's a clause in it, Alessandro.
A clause that says if the marriage doesn't take place, the money has to be returned."
Alessandro looked at the email on the vanity.
"She was protecting herself," he said.
"She was protecting the plan," Carla said.
"Whatever the plan was."
He thanked her.
He ended the call.
The room was quiet for a moment.
Then Livia spoke from the settee, her voice small but clear.
"Daddy.
Who is Carla?"
Alessandro looked at his daughter.
At the uneven line of her hair.
At the fistful she still held in her hand.
May you like
"Someone I should have listened to a long time ago," he said.
From somewhere below them, faint and distant, came the sound of the wedding guests still waiting in the hall.
