Chapter 4: The Woman They Tried to Silence
Alessandro was through the door before Genevieve finished speaking.
“Dante, lock the estate gates.”
“You cannot imprison sixty guests,” Genevieve called after him.
“No one leaves until Amara is safe.”
They found Fatima in the service kitchen, clutching her daughter against her chest.
Amara’s lamb lay on the floor beside a shattered bowl of gelato.
Fatima backed away when Alessandro entered.
“Please, Mr.
Rienzi.
I did not tell her to speak to you.”
“Did someone come in here?”
“A man from security said you wanted Amara taken upstairs.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“What man?”
“He wore your staff pin, but I had never seen him before.”
Amara pointed toward the service passage.
“He wanted Lamby.”
Alessandro crouched and picked up the toy.
“Why did he want your lamb?”
“He said it was dirty.”
Fatima pulled Amara closer.
“I told him to leave.
Then he said people without proper references should not cause trouble.”
Genevieve entered the kitchen with Silvio behind her.
“This has become absurd,” she said.
“A contractor tried to help a child, and now Alessandro is sealing the gates.”
Fatima’s face changed when she saw Genevieve.
“That is the woman.”
Genevieve stopped.
“Excuse me?”
“You were in the western corridor with Mr.
Silvio.
I saw him give you an envelope.”
Silvio folded his arms.
“Be careful, Fatima.”
“I have been careful for seven months.”
“You need this position,” Genevieve said.
“Do not risk it over something your daughter imagined.”
Alessandro rose and placed himself between them.
“You will not speak to her that way.”
“I am trying to save you from humiliation.”
“No.
You are trying to frighten a mother.”
Fatima’s hands began to shake.
Amara reached up and pressed the stuffed lamb against her mother’s chest.
“Mama, don’t cry.”
Fatima swallowed hard.
“My husband worked at South Harbor,” she said.
“Malik Okafor.
He warned management that a loading platform was unsafe.”
Alessandro went still.
“Why have I never heard his name?”
“Because the report called his fall an employee error.
Your company offered me a settlement if I signed papers promising never to discuss it.”
Silvio moved toward her.
“This is neither the time nor the place.”
Fatima did not step back.
“You signed the letter.”
Alessandro turned to his uncle.
“Did you know?”
“Your father still controlled operations then.”
“That is not an answer.”
Silvio’s voice hardened.
“I prevented one accident from destroying an entire port project.”
“One accident?” Fatima’s words cracked.
“My daughter asks why her father never came home, and you call him one accident?”
Alessandro gripped the counter.
His breathing shortened as Fatima pulled a folded letter from her apron and pushed it against his chest.
“Your name is printed at the bottom.”
“I never saw this.”
“But I saw it every day,” she said.
“I took this job because I wanted to look at the man whose company silenced my husband.
I needed to know whether you were cruel—or merely protected from the truth.”
Alessandro unfolded the letter.
His electronic signature sat beneath language approving the settlement.
“You should have told me.”
“Would you have believed a servant?”
He looked at Amara hiding against her mother, then at Genevieve’s calm face.
“Tonight, I believed her child.”
Fatima covered her mouth.
A sob escaped before she could stop it.
Alessandro lowered the letter.
“I cannot return Malik to you.
But I can put his name back into the record.”
Silvio reached for the document.
“That letter belongs to the company.”
Fatima snatched it away.
“No.
This one belongs to me.”
Dante tore open a seam along the lamb’s battered ear.
A black plastic square slipped into his palm.
“This isn’t stuffing,” he said.
Genevieve lunged forward.
May you like
Dante closed his fist around a miniature data card.
And from the service passage, a man began running.
