Chapter 3: What the Will Actually Said
Alessandro held out his hand.
"Give me the folder, Samuel."
Samuel's grip tightened on it.
He looked at Helena again — that same small, sideways look, the one Alessandro now understood had been happening for years in rooms he had never thought to question.
"Alessandro, this isn't the moment—"
"My mother is sitting on a basement floor in torn clothing." Alessandro's voice was quiet.
Completely quiet.
"Give me the folder."
Samuel's hand went still.
Then he placed it on the small table beside the door.
Alessandro opened it.
The first page was a copy of his father's will — the original, not the version the family solicitor had read aloud at the estate office three years ago.
The signatures were different.
The beneficiaries were different.
In the version Alessandro had been shown, the Moretti estate had passed jointly to him and Helena as co-trustees, with Helena holding primary authority until Alessandro reached forty.
In this version, there was no mention of Helena at all.
The estate passed entirely to Isabella.
Then to Alessandro.
Helena's name did not appear once.
"This is the real will," Alessandro said.
It was not a question.
Helena stepped into the room.
"That document is outdated.
Your father revised it."
"Then where is the revision?"
"It was lost during the estate settlement.
You know how complicated that period was.
Your mother was ill—"
"My mother was not ill." He turned to look at Isabella, still seated on the floor, watching Helena with the focused, careful attention of someone who had learned that looking away was dangerous.
"She was locked in this room."
"She was being cared for.
She was not well enough to—"
"Stop." Alessandro set the folder down.
"I want everyone out of this room except my mother.
Now."
Helena did not move.
"Alessandro, I understand you're upset, but you need to hear the full picture before you—"
"Helena." He looked at her directly.
"Get out of this room."
She left.
Samuel followed without a word, pulling the door almost closed behind him.
Alessandro crouched down in front of his mother.
Up close, she looked smaller than he remembered.
Her hair had gone fully white.
There was a fading mark along her left wrist that he did not want to think about yet.
"How long?" he asked.
Isabella looked at the closed door.
Then back at him.
"Since three months before your father d*ed," she said.
Alessandro sat down on the floor beside her.
The cold of the stone came through his trousers immediately.
He didn't move.
"She came to me the week he went into hospital," Isabella continued.
Her voice was steadier than he expected.
"She told me that your father had changed the will.
That he had left everything to her.
That if I made any trouble, she would have me declared incompetent and I would lose you entirely." She paused.
"I didn't believe her.
So she showed me a document."
"Was it real?"
"I don't know.
I never saw it again." Isabella folded her hands in her lap.
"After your father passed, she moved me down here.
She told the staff I had gone to a care facility in the north.
She told you I had d*ed." A long pause.
"She told me you had agreed to it."
Alessandro's jaw tightened.
"She said you signed the paperwork yourself," Isabella said.
"That you were relieved."
He stood up.
Slowly.
"I visited your grave," he said.
"Every year on your birthday.
I brought white roses because you always said yellow ones looked like they were trying too hard."
Isabella made a sound that was almost a laugh.
Her eyes filled.
"She planted a grave?" he said.
"I didn't know that until Claire told me.
Claire used to bring me food when Helena wasn't watching.
She was the only one who spoke to me like a person." Isabella looked up at him.
"That's why I gave her the shoes.
I thought — if someone saw them, if someone who knew recognized them—"
"Lily recognized them."
"Lily." Isabella said the name carefully, like she was learning it.
"Who is Lily?"
"My daughter." He watched his mother's face change.
"She's four.
She's upstairs right now with her nanny, probably wondering why everyone is standing in the basement."
Isabella pressed one hand over her mouth.
"You have a child," she said.
"I do."
"She doesn't know me."
"She will."
He reached down and helped his mother to her feet.
Her legs were unsteady.
He kept hold of her arm.
"I need to make a phone call," he said.
"And then I need you to tell me everything.
Every detail, from the beginning.
Can you do that?"
Isabella straightened.
Something in her posture shifted — not back to what it had been, but forward into something new.
"I've been waiting three years to do exactly that," she said.
Alessandro pulled out his phone.
He dialed his solicitor first.
Then, after a moment's thought, he dialed the police.
Down the hall, he could hear Helena's heels on the marble floor.
Moving quickly.
Toward the study where the household safe was kept.
He ended the call and looked at Samuel, who had not gone far.
"Is there anything else in that safe I should know about before she gets to it?"
Samuel opened his mouth.
Closed it.
"Samuel." Alessandro's voice dropped.
"This is the last moment you have to be on the right side of this."
Samuel looked at the floor.
May you like
Then he said, very quietly: "There's a second folder.
It's taped to the back panel."
