Chapter 5: What Valentina Knew
She came down the stairs slowly, one hand on the rail, still in the clothes she had worn the night before.
She had not slept.
Domenico watched her descend without speaking.
Marcus turned toward her.
"Valentina —"
"Don't," she said.
The same word she had used in the banquet hall.
But this time it was not directed at Marcus to protect him.
It was directed at him to stop him from making it worse.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and looked at her husband.
"I didn't take the money," she said.
"I know," Domenico said.
That surprised her.
She had expected an accusation.
She steadied herself against it.
"But you knew about it," he said.
A long pause.
"I found out six months ago," Valentina said.
"Marcus told me the transfers were a restructuring strategy.
That they were temporary.
That the money would come back."
"And you believed him."
"I wanted to believe him." Her voice dropped.
"Because if I didn't believe him, I had to ask why he told me instead of you.
And I didn't want to know the answer to that."
"Why did he tell you?"
She looked at Marcus.
He said nothing.
"Because he needed me to keep Ruby quiet," she said.
"Ruby had found something in the account files.
She came to me first.
She thought I would tell you." Valentina's hands pressed together at her waist.
"Marcus convinced me that Ruby was confused.
That she had misread the records.
That if I let her go to you with wrong information, it would cause a crisis for nothing."
"So you told Ruby she was wrong."
"I told her she was wrong."
The study door was still open.
Petra Voss was not pretending not to listen.
"She believed me," Valentina said.
"For a while.
Then she started asking again.
And Marcus said the only way to stop her from damaging your trust in the firm was to make you distrust her first."
Domenico went very still.
"He told me to take her chair at the banquet," Valentina said.
"He told me to pack her room.
He said that if you saw her as unstable — as someone who would make a scene — you would dismiss whatever she told you." Her voice cracked slightly at the edge.
"I thought I was protecting the family.
I thought Ruby was wrong and Marcus was right and I was doing what needed to be done."
"And last night?"
"Last night I watched you defend her." Valentina looked at her husband directly for the first time.
"And I realized I had been defending the wrong person for six months."
Marcus moved toward the front door.
"Stop," Domenico said.
Marcus stopped.
His hand was near the door handle but not on it.
"You used my wife to run a campaign against a woman who had been in this family for eleven years," Domenico said.
"You stole seven hundred thousand dollars from a trust account and fabricated the authorization records.
And when Ruby got close enough to expose it, you had her packed up and waiting at the door so that I would throw her out myself and never ask why."
Marcus turned around.
His composure was mostly intact, but the edges had started to go.
"You have no idea what Ruby is," he said.
"She's been feeding you a version of this family that serves her.
Everything she told you in that letter is designed to position her.
She's not a victim, Domenico.
She's been working toward this for years."
"Then you have nothing to fear from an investigation."
"An investigation will cost you more than it costs me.
The Caretti account is tied to three other structures.
If you pull on this thread, you pull on all of them.
Your name is on those accounts too."
The room went quiet.
Petra appeared in the study doorway.
"Mr.
May you like
Ferrante," she said.
"You should hear this part."
