Chapter 7: The Confrontation She Didn't See Coming
I called Valentina on Sunday morning and told her I needed to see her.
Something important.
Could she come by the house at noon?
She said of course.
She arrived at five minutes to twelve, which told me she had been waiting for the call.
She was dressed simply.
She had not overdone it.
She was very good at reading the register of a situation.
Marco let her in and brought her to the sitting room.
I was already there, standing near the fireplace.
I did not sit when she entered.
She looked at my face and the first small fracture appeared in her composure.
Just for a moment.
Then it closed.
"You sounded serious on the phone," she said.
"I am serious."
She sat without being invited to.
"What's happened?"
I reached into my jacket pocket and set the listening device on the coffee table between us.
She looked at it.
She looked at it for exactly the right amount of time — not too long, not too short.
Then she looked up at me with an expression of careful confusion.
"What is that?"
"You know what it is."
"Luca—"
"It was behind the main spring of my father's clock," I said.
"It has been there for at least three weeks.
It broadcasts in real time to a SIM registered to a shell company called Meridian Consulting Group.
Meridian was incorporated fourteen months ago.
Six months before we met."
The confusion on her face did not disappear.
It deepened.
She was committed to it.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.
"Someone put a device in your study?
That's — Luca, that's serious.
Who would—"
"Valentina."
She stopped.
"I know about Caruso," I said.
"I know about Meridian.
I know about Fabrizio Ricci.
And I know that you stepped into the powder room off the entrance hall on Saturday night and told Caruso that I don't know.
That I'm completely relaxed."
The room went very quiet.
Her hands were in her lap.
They did not move.
"I want you to understand something," I said.
"I'm not angry.
Anger is for people who were surprised.
I am not surprised.
I am simply finished."
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then something shifted behind her eyes — a decision being made, a door closing on one approach and opening on another.
"You have no proof," she said.
Her voice was different now.
Quieter.
Harder.
"I have the device.
I have the SIM records.
I have the Meridian incorporation documents.
I have a recording of your call to Caruso on Saturday night, because the device in the clock was transmitting in both directions by then."
Her jaw tightened.
"And I have a witness," I said, "who saw you place it."
"A witness." The word came out flat.
"Who?"
I did not answer.
She stood up.
The softness was completely gone now.
What was underneath it was not what I had expected — not fear, not desperation.
It was something colder.
"You think you've won something," she said.
"I think I've learned something."
"Caruso has been building this for two years.
You have a device and some documents.
He has the information that was transmitted.
He has your father's history.
He has Fabrizio." She tilted her head.
"You can expose me.
Fine.
But Caruso moves with or without me.
You've gained one day, maybe two."
"I know."
"Then what exactly do you think you've accomplished?"
"I've accomplished this conversation," I said.
"Which is the only thing I needed."
She looked at me.
The cold thing behind her eyes flickered.
"You're recording this," she said.
"I am."
She picked up her bag from the settee.
Her movements were controlled.
Precise.
She was angry but she was not going to let me see it fully.
"Tell me one thing," I said, before she reached the door.
She stopped.
Did not turn.
"Was any of it real?"
A long pause.
She turned halfway.
Her profile against the pale winter light from the window.
"The Barolo was real," she said.
"I did think you'd like it."
Then she walked out.
The front door closed.
Marco's footsteps crossed the entrance hall.
A moment later his knock came at the sitting room door.
"Her phone," he said, stepping in.
"She made a call from the driveway.
Thirty seconds.
Caruso's number."
"What did she say?"
"Three words." He set a small recorder on the coffee table beside the device.
"'He knows everything.'"
I looked at the recorder.
"Good," I said.
"Then Caruso knows we're ready."
Marco looked at me steadily.
"Are we?"
I thought about my father's letter on the desk upstairs.
*Do not make the same mistake.*
"We will be," I said.
May you like
"Get Enzo.
Tonight."
