Chapter 8
I didn’t have an answer that would undo three weeks of dishwater and rubber gloves. So I gave her the only honest thing I had left.
“I’m going to fix this,” I said. “Not with an apology. With action, starting tonight.”
Isabella found her way to the guest house patio a little after two in the morning, still in her ruined party dress, mascara long since given up on staying in place.
Marco was already there, leaning against the railing, an unlit cigarette between two fingers, watching the pool lights ripple against dark water.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” she said, out of habit more than conviction.
“Neither should you.” He didn’t look over. “Not after tonight.”
She sat on the stone bench a few feet away, knees pulled up despite the dress.
“I didn’t know what Dimitri really was,” she said. “Not at first. He said he wanted to smooth things over before the war got worse. I thought I was being useful. Doing something my brother would finally be proud of.”
“And when you learned he wanted Claire kept small and quiet?”
Isabella’s throat worked before the words came.
“I told myself it was separate from the money. That business and family were two different rooms.”
“They’re never two different rooms.” Marco finally looked at her. “Did it work? Making Claire feel small — did it make you feel any bigger?”
She didn’t answer right away.
“No,” she finally said. “It made me feel exactly like my mother. I used to think that was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.”
Marco set the cigarette down, untouched, on the railing.
“Your brother’s freezing every account by morning. You know that.”
“I know.”
“You could fight it. Drag it out for months with lawyers.”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t want to fight it. I want to fix what I helped break. Claire never did anything except love my brother before any of us gave her a reason to trust us back.”
“That’s the first true thing you’ve said all night.”
She laughed, wet and unsteady. “Doesn’t undo it.”
“No,” Marco agreed. “But it’s a start most people in this family never bother making.”
She stood, smoothing her dress, glancing toward the main house where the study lights still burned.
“Tell Luca I’ll sign whatever needs signing. And tell him I’m sorry — not because I got caught. Because I let it happen at all.”
Marco nodded once, and something quieter than judgment passed between them.
Three days later, the financial records came back complete, and Marco laid the full report across my desk at four in the morning, his face grim in a way I’d seen only twice before in eleven years of working together.
May you like
“There’s more on Ferro Holdings than the transfers,” he said. “It goes back further than your father’s business dealings with Dimitri. There’s a second trust. Older.”
“Older than the one for Claire?”
