Chapter 10: What Bianca Knew
She was waiting in the garden.
Alaric found her on the stone bench near the far wall, the one that caught the morning sun.
She was dressed as if she had slept and prepared carefully, which meant she hadn't slept at all.
Her coat was buttoned.
Her hands were folded in her lap.
She looked like a woman who had decided exactly what she was going to say and was conserving energy until she could say it.
Alaric sat on the bench across from her.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
The garden was quiet.
Somewhere beyond the wall, a car passed on the road outside.
"You know where he is," Alaric said.
"I know where he was at six this morning," Bianca said.
"I don't know where he is now."
"Did you help him leave?"
"I told him to stop running and come back." She looked at Alaric steadily.
"He didn't listen.
He rarely does, when it matters."
Alaric said nothing.
Bianca looked at her hands.
"I want to tell you something.
And I need you to let me finish before you say anything."
"Go ahead."
"I knew about the money," she said.
"Not all of it.
Not the amounts.
But I knew he had been moving funds.
He came to me fourteen months ago and told me he was restructuring some investments.
I didn't ask enough questions." She paused.
"I didn't ask enough questions because I didn't want to know the answers."
Alaric looked at her.
"I didn't know about the competitor," she said.
"The information he was selling.
I want to be clear about that.
I would not have permitted that."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Bianca looked up.
Her face in the morning light was older than Alaric had seen it in years.
Not weaker — just older.
The kind of old that comes from carrying something too long.
"Because Petra Holt is going to find the connection," she said.
"Between the restructured investments and my personal account.
It's indirect.
It's not what it looks like.
But it's there, and she will find it, and I would rather you hear it from me first."
Alaric was quiet for a long moment.
"How indirect?" he said.
"Three transfers.
Over eight months.
He told me it was a return on a private investment I had made years ago." She pressed her lips together.
"The investment was real.
The timing was not a coincidence."
"You received money that came from the diverted funds."
"Without knowing its origin.
Yes."
"Bianca."
"I know." She said it quietly.
"I know."
A bird moved through the hedge at the far end of the garden.
The sound of it was very small in the silence.
"What do you want from me?" Alaric said.
"I want to cooperate with Petra's process.
Fully.
I want to provide whatever documentation she needs to establish that I was not a knowing participant." She looked at him.
"And I want you to know that what I did last night — the offer to Marco, the way I spoke to Faye, the way I treated Serena—" She stopped.
"I was protecting my son.
I have always been protecting my son.
And I have spent thirty years not asking myself whether what I was protecting him from was the truth."
Alaric looked at her for a long time.
"He sold client information to a competitor," he said.
"People in this family trusted us with their business.
Their livelihoods.
He sold that."
"I know."
"There is no protecting him from that, Bianca."
"I know." Her voice was very quiet.
"I'm not asking you to."
The sun had moved while they sat there.
The bench where Bianca sat was no longer in full light.
"I'll tell Petra you'll cooperate," Alaric said.
"She'll want a full account of the transfers."
"I'll have my records ready by this afternoon."
He stood.
She stayed seated.
"Alaric." She looked up at him.
"Serena.
The baby." She paused.
"I was wrong.
About what I said.
About what I did to her."
He waited.
"I don't expect her to forgive me," Bianca said.
"I'm not asking for that.
I just—" She looked at the garden.
"I want the child to be safe.
Whatever else happens.
I want the child to be safe."
Alaric looked at her for a moment longer.
"Then cooperate with Petra," he said.
"That's the best thing you can do for any of them now."
He left her on the bench.
She was still sitting there when he reached the door.
He didn't look back.
But he heard, very faintly, the sound of her exhaling — a long, slow breath, like something being set down after a very long time.
Inside, Serena was waiting in the hallway.
"Well?" she said.
"She's cooperating," Alaric said.
Serena looked past him toward the garden.
"Do you believe her?
About not knowing?"
Alaric considered it honestly.
"About the competitor — yes," he said.
"About the money — I think she knew more than she's admitting and less than she could have known, and she made a choice not to look too closely." He paused.
"Which is its own kind of answer."
Serena nodded slowly.
"And Bastian?" she said.
Alaric's phone buzzed again.
He looked at the screen.
It was Petra.
He answered it.
"They found him," Petra said.
"He's at the regional office.
He went in this morning and asked to speak with the family's external auditor directly." A pause.
"He's offering to return the funds in exchange for no referral to authorities."
"The referral has already been made," Alaric said.
"I told him that," Petra said.
"He's still there.
He hasn't left."
Alaric looked at Serena.
"Tell him," Alaric said into the phone, "that if he wants to speak to anyone, he speaks to you.
And that the only conversation I'm willing to have is about the terms of his cooperation — not the terms of his escape."
"Understood," Petra said.
"There's one more thing."
"Go on."
"He asked about Faye," Petra said.
"He wants to know if she's filed anything yet."
May you like
Alaric looked down the hallway toward the stairs.
"Tell him," he said, "that that's not his question to ask anymore."
