Chapter 3: What the Neighbors Heard
Giorgio turned to the bodyguard.
His name was Renzo.
He had worked for the Ferrante family for eleven years.
"Explain that."
Renzo didn't look at Colin.
He looked only at Giorgio.
"Four weeks ago.
A call came in from the building's front desk.
A neighbor on this floor reported shouting.
We responded.
When we arrived, Alessandra said everything was fine." He paused.
"She had a mark on her cheek.
She said she'd walked into a cabinet door."
The room went very still.
"You didn't tell me." Giorgio's voice had dropped to almost nothing.
"She asked us not to.
She said it would only make things worse." Renzo's jaw was tight.
"I should have told you anyway.
That's on me."
Colin moved toward the door.
"This is getting out of hand.
Alessandra, tell him—"
"Sit down." Giorgio didn't look at him.
"Sit.
Down."
Colin sat.
Alessandra had her eyes on Theo, who had finally quieted against her chest.
She was holding him the way people hold something they are afraid of losing.
"Alessandra." Giorgio pulled a chair close and sat in front of her.
Not above her.
In front of her.
"I need you to tell me the truth.
All of it.
I'm not leaving this room until you do."
"Papa—"
"All of it."
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them, something in her face had shifted.
Not strength exactly.
More like exhaustion finally winning over fear.
"It started before Theo was born," she said quietly.
"Marcia moved in two months after the wedding.
Colin said it was temporary.
She needed somewhere to stay.
I believed him."
Marcia made a sound from across the table.
"I was helping—"
"You were not helping." Alessandra's voice didn't rise.
It didn't need to.
"You gave me a list every morning.
What to clean.
What to cook.
What to buy.
If anything was wrong, if the soup was too salty or the floors weren't dry enough, you told Colin.
And Colin—" She stopped.
"Colin what?" Giorgio asked.
She looked at her husband.
He was staring at the floor.
"He never disagreed with her.
Not once.
Not in two years."
Giorgio looked at his son-in-law for a long moment.
Then he stood and walked to the window.
Outside, the city moved the way cities always do — indifferent, continuous, unconcerned with what happened inside one apartment on the fourteenth floor.
"The bruise on your wrist," he said, without turning around.
"Who did that?"
Silence stretched across the room.
Then Marcia said, very calmly, "She bruises easily.
She always has.
Even as a child, I imagine."
Giorgio turned around.
It was the wrong thing to say.
He hadn't known it until she said it.
But the way she said it — that casual, proprietary confidence, as if she had known Alessandra her whole life, as if she had any right to speak about her body — something in Giorgio's expression changed.
Renzo saw it.
He took one step back toward the door and quietly blocked it.
"Marcia." Giorgio's voice was almost gentle.
"How long have you lived in this apartment?"
She lifted her chin.
"Colin invited me.
This is his home."
"It is not his home." Giorgio picked up the grocery receipt from the table where he'd set it.
He held it up.
"This is a four A.M.
receipt.
My daughter's name is on the loyalty card.
My daughter's feet walked to that store.
My daughter carried those bags back up fourteen floors because the elevator was broken — I checked with the front desk on my way in." He set the receipt back down.
"This is not his home.
It is her prison.
And you built it."
Marcia's expression didn't crack.
That was the thing about her.
She didn't crack easily.
"You're being dramatic," she said.
"Just like her."
Colin finally looked up.
"Mom.
Stop."
She turned to him.
"Don't you dare take his side."
And there it was.
The thing Giorgio had needed to see.
Colin flinched.
A grown man, flinched, at his mother's voice, in front of his wife and his newborn son.
Giorgio had seen enough.
"Renzo," he said.
"Call Dr.
Marchetti.
I want Alessandra examined tonight." He looked at Alessandra.
"You're not staying here."
"Giorgio—" Colin stood.
"You had two years." Giorgio picked up Theo's baby bag himself.
"You had two years to be her husband.
You chose differently." He moved to Alessandra's side.
"Get up, sweetheart.
Slowly."
Alessandra stood.
Her legs were unsteady.
Renzo moved to her other side.
Marcia's voice followed them toward the door.
"If you take her, Colin will file for custody.
You know that.
You take her tonight and this becomes a legal matter."
Giorgio stopped walking.
He didn't turn around immediately.
He stood with his back to the room for just a moment.
Then he turned.
May you like
"Good," he said.
"I was hoping you'd say that."
