Chapter 5: What Bianca Knew
The lawyer's name was Domenico Ferrara.
He had handled Vittorio's affairs for nineteen years, and he arrived at eleven fifty-two with a leather briefcase, a junior associate, and the particular stillness of a man who has seen worse than this and charged accordingly.
Vittorio met him in the study.
He closed the door.
"She said she knows things about this family she would not want made public," Vittorio said.
"I need to know what that means before she says it to someone else."
Domenico set his briefcase on the desk.
"Do you have any idea what she's referring to?"
"One possibility."
"Tell me."
Vittorio moved to the window.
Outside, the garden was bright and still.
"Before Lucy's mother died, there were questions about the estate.
Elena's family contested a clause in the will — they believed I had pressured her to change it in the final months.
The case was settled privately.
No findings.
But the documents exist."
"And Bianca would have access to those documents?"
"Not through me." He paused.
"But Marcus Hale ran due diligence for two of my acquisitions last year.
He had access to financial records, legal history, subsidiary structures."
Domenico was quiet for a moment.
"You brought Marcus Hale into your business."
"Bianca introduced him as a financial consultant.
I had no reason then—"
"How deep did his access go?"
Vittorio turned from the window.
"Deep enough."
Domenico opened his briefcase.
"Then we are not only dealing with a broken engagement.
We are dealing with a potential information threat." He looked up.
"I need you to tell me everything Hale had access to.
Every file, every deal, every conversation that happened in his presence."
They worked for an hour.
The junior associate took notes without looking up.
At the end of it, Domenico closed his folder and said, "The estate documents are not the vulnerability.
The settlement was clean.
What concerns me is the acquisition records.
If Hale copied anything from the Meridian deal, that is a different category of problem."
"What category?"
"The kind that does not stay private."
A knock at the study door.
Emma's voice, careful.
"Sir.
Miss Bianca is asking to speak with you before she leaves."
Vittorio looked at Domenico.
"Let her speak," Domenico said.
"I'll be in the room."
Bianca came in composed.
She had changed into a coat, her bags apparently already packed — which meant she had started packing before the lawyer arrived, which meant she had already decided how this ended.
She looked at Domenico without surprise.
"I want to be clear about something," she said.
She was speaking to Vittorio, not the lawyer.
"I did not come into this relationship to hurt Lucy.
What happened in that room — I know how it looks.
I know how Emma has framed it.
But I was trying to establish boundaries with a child who has been allowed to behave however she wants since her mother died."
"By using a dog bowl," Vittorio said.
"By making a point that crossed a line.
I accept that." She held his gaze.
"But Marcus and I were not here to take anything from you.
I want you to believe that."
"Marcus and you," Domenico said mildly.
"You use that phrase as a unit."
Bianca glanced at him.
"We're old friends."
"How old?"
A pause.
Very small.
"Ten years."
"And his involvement in Mr.
Conti's acquisitions — was that your suggestion?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"I introduced them," she said.
"That's not unusual."
"No," Domenico agreed.
"It isn't." He wrote something in his folder.
"We may need to speak with you again formally, Miss Ferrante.
Please don't leave the country."
Bianca looked at Vittorio one last time.
Whatever she had planned to say — the thing she knew, the leverage she had arrived with — she folded it back.
She picked up her bag.
At the door she stopped.
"Ask Emma," she said, "how much my predecessor paid her to leave."
Then she walked out.
The room held the silence she left behind.
Domenico looked at his notes.
May you like
Then he looked at Vittorio.
"You had a housekeeper before Emma Clark?"
