Chapter 6: # CHAPTER 6: What Ricci Wanted
I should have gone upstairs.
I knew that.
I was the maid.
This was not my room.
But Teresa's hand was still resting near mine, and nobody told me to leave, and so I stayed in the corner near Rosa and I listened to the next hour happen.
Luca made two phone calls.
He stepped into the hallway for both of them.
I could not hear the words but I could hear the rhythm — short, flat, controlled.
The voice of someone issuing instructions they had thought about for longer than tonight.
When he came back, he sat across from Vanessa again.
"Ricci contacted you in July," he said.
"Not four months ago."
Vanessa's eyes moved.
"I don't see how that matters."
"It matters because in July, I was negotiating a contract that would have given Ricci's family access to a distribution network they've been trying to reach for six years.
And in August, I declined."
"That's your business.
I don't interfere in your business."
"He reached you in July to interfere in mine." Luca set a folded piece of paper on the table.
"This is a bank transfer.
Forty-two thousand dollars.
Deposited into an account registered to a company called Bellini Consulting, which was incorporated in Delaware eight months ago." He looked at her.
"I didn't know you had a consulting company."
The paper sat between them.
Vanessa did not look at it.
She looked at Luca.
"Whoever gave you that has an agenda," she said.
"It came from Enzo."
"Enzo has been against me since the day I walked into this house."
"Enzo has worked for my family for twenty-two years," Luca said.
"He was my father's driver.
He carried my mother home from the hospital after her stroke." A pause.
"He also has the phone now.
And I suspect what's on it is going to make this piece of paper look minor."
Vanessa was quiet for a moment.
Then she shifted forward.
"Luca." Her voice found a different register — lower, more careful.
The voice she used when she wanted something.
"I made a mistake.
I understand that.
Ricci scared me and I handled it badly.
But I love this family.
I love Sophie.
I would never have let anything happen to her."
"She was in a car going to a man who claims she's his child."
"I would have stopped it before it went that far."
"You were in the dining room telling forty guests she was asleep upstairs."
Vanessa pressed on.
"I know how this looks.
But think about what we have together.
Think about what we've built.
You don't throw that away over one terrible mistake."
Marco made a sound that wasn't quite a word.
Vanessa looked at him sharply.
"Marco, you don't understand the full picture—"
"Did you know about Ricci before July?" Marco asked.
He was not looking at her with anger.
He was looking at her the way you look at someone you thought you recognized and have just realized you don't.
"Before he approached you.
Did you know him?"
Vanessa said nothing.
Marco looked at Luca.
"I introduced them," he said.
"At a dinner in Milan.
Two years ago.
She said she'd never heard of him."
The room was very quiet.
"Two years ago," Luca said slowly.
Teresa made a small sound.
I looked at her.
Her hand had found the arm of the wheelchair and she was pressing it steadily, the way she pressed mine when she wanted me to pay attention.
"The doctors," Teresa said.
Luca looked at his mother.
"The doctors she chose for me," Teresa said.
"After the stroke." She stopped to breathe.
"She chose them."
"You had a full medical team, Mom.
The hospital recommended—"
"She changed them." Teresa's voice was thin but certain.
"Three weeks after I came home.
I heard her on the telephone.
She said the first team talked too much."
The word sat in the room like something no one wanted to be the first to pick up.
Luca turned to Vanessa.
"You replaced my mother's medical team," he said.
"I was trying to help.
The first team was—"
"The first team was making progress with her speech," I said.
Everyone looked at me.
I hadn't planned to speak.
But Teresa's hand had found mine again, and the pressure was unmistakable.
"I found her old files," I said.
"In the bottom of the wardrobe in her room.
Session notes from the first therapist.
There were eighteen sessions.
The notes said she was responding well.
That she was producing short phrases consistently." I stopped.
"The new team said she hadn't made any progress in over a year."
Vanessa stood up.
"You went through my mother-in-law's personal files—"
"She showed them to me," I said.
"She pointed to the wardrobe herself.
Two months ago."
Luca's face had gone very still.
"The new team," he said.
"The ones Vanessa chose.
They told me there was no improvement to expect."
"Yes," I said.
He stood up slowly.
"Get out of this house," he said to Vanessa.
It was barely above a whisper.
Vanessa stepped back.
"Luca—"
"Get out tonight."
"You don't have the full picture yet.
The phone will explain—"
"Get.
Out."
She looked around the room.
At Marco, who had dropped his gaze to the floor.
At Rosa, who had not moved.
At Teresa, who was watching her with the clear, patient eyes of someone who had been waiting a very long time for this exact moment.
Then she looked at me.
"You," she said.
"You did this."
"Mrs.
Moretti did this," I said.
"I just listened."
Vanessa picked up her bag from the chair.
Her hands were steady.
Her chin was up.
"You'll be hearing from my attorney," she said to Luca.
"I expect so," he said.
She walked out of the sitting room.
Her heels crossed the marble entrance hall.
The front door opened and closed.
Teresa exhaled slowly.
May you like
And then, quietly and without warning, she began to cry.
* * *
