Chapter 3: The Wrong Question
Lorenzo didn't answer Marco's question.
He looked at his cousin — the man who had grown up at his table, who had stood beside him at his father's funeral, who had given a speech at the engagement party six months before the accident — and he waited.
Marco's eyes dropped to the capsule.
Then came back up.
"Lorenzo.
Where did you find it?"
"You're asking the wrong question," Lorenzo said.
"What?"
"The right question is what it is.
You didn't ask that."
Marco's jaw tightened.
"I assumed—"
"You recognized it."
The word landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
Marco didn't move.
He didn't reach for a denial quickly enough, and that half-second of stillness told Lorenzo everything he needed.
"Sit down," Lorenzo said.
"I don't think—"
"Marco." His voice didn't rise.
It never needed to.
"Sit down."
Marco sat.
Mia had retreated to her corner near the window without being asked.
She had the copper basin in her lap and her eyes on the floor.
She was seven years old and she understood, somehow, that this was not a moment for children to be visible.
Lorenzo set the capsule on the table between them.
"Tell me how long," he said.
"I don't know what you're—"
"Tell me how long, or I make a call right now and you explain it to someone who will not sit across from you like this."
Marco looked at the capsule.
His hands were flat on his knees.
"Eight months," he said.
"I was involved for eight months."
The number hit Lorenzo somewhere behind the sternum.
He kept his face still.
"And before that?"
"Before that it was only Celeste."
"How did she start it?"
Marco exhaled slowly.
"She came to me after the accident.
Said the specialists had given her a private assessment — that there was a chance you could recover partially.
Enough to resume control.
She said if that happened, the board restructuring she'd been planning with me would collapse.
She said she needed more time."
"And you agreed."
"She said it wasn't permanent.
She said it was just — slowing things down.
Buying time."
Lorenzo looked at him for a long moment.
"You watched me in that wheelchair for eight months," he said.
"You came to dinner.
You asked how I was sleeping.
You told me the physio team was doing everything they could."
Marco said nothing.
"And you knew."
"I told her to stop," Marco said.
"Six months ago.
I told her it had gone too far."
"But you didn't tell me."
Silence.
"You didn't tell me," Lorenzo said again.
Not as a question.
As a door closing.
He picked up his phone.
Marco's hand shot across the table.
"Lorenzo, wait.
If you call the police, Celeste will disappear.
She has contingencies.
She's been preparing for this.
She has documents — she told me if anything happened to her arrangement, she would release information about the Genova contracts.
About your father's—"
"Take your hand off my arm."
Marco pulled back.
Lorenzo stood up.
Not quickly.
Not dramatically.
He gripped the armrest, pushed, and rose to his feet for the first time in fourteen months.
His legs shook.
His vision blurred at the edges.
But he stood.
Marco stared at him.
"The dr*g was suppressing recovery," Lorenzo said, his voice steady even as his knees were not.
"Not preventing it."
He took one step.
Then another.
Then he stopped, because that was enough for now.
Enough to know.
He lowered himself back into the chair.
"The Genova contracts," he said calmly.
"What does she have?"
Marco's face had gone the color of old paper.
"Enough to damage the family name.
Your father made arrangements in 2009 that were never disclosed to the board.
Celeste found the records two years ago.
That's why he agreed to the engagement."
Lorenzo went still.
"My father arranged the engagement."
"Yes."
"To keep her quiet."
"Yes."
He looked at the capsule on the table.
Then at Marco.
Then at the doorway where Mia was pretending not to exist.
"Leave," he said to Marco.
"Don't go to Celeste.
Don't call her.
Don't send a message.
If you do, I will know within the hour, and what happens after that will not involve a conversation."
Marco stood.
He opened his mouth once, then closed it.
He walked out.
Lorenzo sat alone in the sunroom.
After a moment, Mia's quiet voice came from the corner.
"Are you going to be all right?"
He looked at her.
Seven years old.
Serious eyes.
"I don't know yet," he said honestly.
May you like
She nodded, as if that was a reasonable answer.
Then she picked up the copper basin and walked out, leaving him with the capsule, the silence, and the knowledge that the woman he had planned to marry had been put in his life specifically to destroy him.
