Chương 3 - WHAT BIANCA WAS AFRAID TO SAY
Bianca called on the fourth day.
Not Lorenzo.
Enzo.
“I need to speak with him.”
Enzo looked across the study.
Lorenzo shook his head.
“Tell her to call my attorney.”
Bianca heard.
“Lorenzo.”
He closed his eyes.
Her voice through the speaker.
The same voice that had spent sixteen months saying his name with affection.
He took the phone.
“What?”
She cried immediately.
He hated that it still affected him.
“I’m sorry.”
“You covered that in the letter.”
“The letter—”
“Was yours.”
Silence.
“Yes.”
Good.
No easy escape.
Ferreri had not forged it.
Lorenzo’s chest tightened anyway.
“He made me write the first sentence.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
“He told me what to say.”
“And you wrote it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Matteo.”
She explained.
Her brother owed Ferreri.
Not only money.
Matteo had used DeSanto family companies to secure loans without board approval.
Some signatures were forged.
If exposed, prison was possible.
Ferreri threatened to release everything.
Then came the second threat.
Matteo’s car.
Photographs of his home.
His girlfriend.
Ferreri never explicitly said kill.
Men like Ferreri rarely needed verbs.
Bianca whispered:
“He told me if I married you, Matteo would not see New Year’s.”
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I was afraid you’d start a war.”
“You didn’t trust me.”
“I was trying to prevent blood.”
“You trusted Ferreri more.”
“No.”
“You believed his threat more than my ability to hear you.”
Silence.
That one landed.
Bianca cried.
“He wanted the letter humiliating.”
“I noticed.”
“He said if I wrote something kind, you’d search.”
“So you wrote something cruel enough to make me stop.”
“Yes.”
“Did you think it worked?”
Silence.
Lorenzo looked toward the windows.
Snow beginning over the lake.
“When did Ferreri first approach you?”
“Three months ago.”
Three months.
Ninety days.
Dinner beside Lorenzo.
Wedding fittings.
Sleeping beside him.
Discussing flowers.
All while carrying this.
“You had three months.”
“I know.”
“To tell me one sentence.”
“I know.”
“Instead you waited until wedding morning.”
“I thought Matteo could fix it.”
There it was.
Not only fear.
Denial.
Secrecy.
Choice.
Lorenzo’s anger became colder.
“Are you safe?”
Bianca stopped crying for a second.
“Yes.”
“Is Matteo?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Hope entered her voice.
“Lorenzo—”
“We are done.”
Silence.
“Please.”
“I will help keep you and Matteo alive because Ferreri does not get to use people as property.”
His voice remained steady.
“But that does not restore our engagement.”
“I love you.”
“I believe you.”
That seemed to hurt more.
“Then why?”
“Because you loved me while lying to me every day.”
Silence.
“And when you finally chose honesty, you wrapped it in the cruelest sentence you could find and left me to read it in front of three hundred people.”
“Ferreri chose the words.”
“You chose the pen.”
Bianca sobbed.
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
“Give everything you have to Enzo.”
Then he ended the call.
His hand shook afterward.
First time in two years.
Sofia, waiting near the windows with revised port plans, noticed.
She did not mention it.
Instead she moved a glass of water closer.
Lorenzo looked at her.
“No pity?”
“For what?”
He almost laughed.
“Nothing.”
“Excellent.”
She returned to the blueprints.
May you like
And somehow that helped.
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