Chapter 5 - Bianca's Confession
Bianca texted me at 11:38 that night.
Not Dante.
Me.
We need to talk where Vittoria can't see us.
I stared at the message for nearly a minute.
Then I sent an address.
Miriam owned a small townhouse near Lincoln Park that she used as an office for clients who did not want to be photographed entering her downtown firm. At midnight, Bianca arrived in jeans, a black coat, and no makeup.
She looked younger without the armor.
Miriam let her in.
“No phones on the table unless we're recording,” she said.
Bianca handed hers over voluntarily.
I sat across from her.
“Start with the underwear.”
Her face went red.
Miriam looked at me, then Bianca, then decided not to ask.
Bianca exhaled.
“I told you the truth about getting my period.”
“The garment bag?”
“Also true.”
“And how it became loose in Dante's coat?”
She looked down.
“I know how.”
I waited.
“Dante put the garment bag in the inside pocket of his overcoat. Later, he gave the coat to Vittoria because she said she was cold while we were waiting for the cars.”
My skin prickled.
“I saw her take the bag out.”
“Why?”
“She said she was looking for Dante's car key.”
“Did she put it back?”
“Yes.”
“The bag?”
Bianca hesitated.
“No.”
Miriam leaned forward.
“What did she put back?”
Bianca closed her eyes.
“The underwear.”
Loose.
Exactly where I found it.
I felt sick.
“You watched her do that?”
“I watched her fold it into the pocket.”
“And you said nothing.”
Bianca flinched.
“No.”
“Why?”
Her eyes lifted.
“Because I wanted you to find it.”
There it was.
Not innocence.
Not misunderstanding.
Choice.
Miriam was silent.
So was I.
Bianca's voice broke first.
“I never slept with Dante.”
“That does not make you a good person.”
“I know.”
“Did you want him?”
She swallowed.
“Yes.”
The answer hurt less than I expected.
Maybe because pain had limits. Maybe I had reached mine.
“How long?”
“Since college.”
I stared at her.
“You knew him before me.”
“Barely. Our families knew each other. He never looked at me that way.”
“But Vittoria did.”
Bianca nodded.
“After the first rumors about your DNA started, she called my father. She said the Romano-Moretti alliance was effectively dead and the company needed a new one.”
“An alliance with a uterus.”
Bianca winced.
“That's what it felt like.”
“And you agreed.”
“At first, I agreed to the financing.”
“Then what?”
“Then Vittoria started telling me your marriage was already over.”
I laughed bitterly.
“She told Dante the same thing.”
Bianca stared.
“What?”
“She told him I had hired a divorce attorney months ago.”
Bianca's face lost color.
“I didn't know that.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That you were staying only until you could protect your financial position. That you had someone else in New York. That Dante knew and didn't care.”
I almost admired the symmetry.
Vittoria had built three different realities and placed us in separate rooms.
“What did Dante say to you about me?” I asked.
Bianca looked uncomfortable.
“Not much.”
“That is not an answer.”
“He said things were difficult.”
“Did he discuss our marriage with you?”
“Yes.”
My heart tightened.
“What did he say?”
“That he thought you were leaving. That he didn't know how to ask you without giving you the chance to lie.”
I stared at the wall.
That sounded exactly like Dante when he was wounded.
He became colder instead of more honest.
It was one of the things I had once mistaken for strength.
“Did you encourage him to believe that?”
Bianca's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought if he believed the marriage was ending, eventually he might see me.”
I looked back at her.
“And did he?”
“No.”
She laughed through tears.
“That's the humiliating part. He used me to talk about you.”
I said nothing.
“He never touched me,” she continued. “He never kissed me. Once, after a dinner, I put my hand on his face. He removed it and told me not to do it again.”
“Yet you kept showing up.”
“Because my father needed the deal. Because Vittoria kept promising it was temporary. Because I wanted something I should have walked away from.”
At least she did not ask forgiveness.
That would have insulted me.
Miriam tapped the table.
“You said you had information.”
Bianca nodded.
She opened her bag and removed a flash drive.
“My father has a side letter from Vittoria.”
Miriam's eyes sharpened.
“Signed?”
“Initialed. Not fully executed.”
“What does it say?”
“That if the refinancing closes after Alessandra's removal, Russo Capital receives an additional four percent warrant package.”
My stomach dropped.
Bianca continued.
“And if there is a ‘family consolidation event’ within twelve months, another three percent.”
I stared at her.
“Family consolidation event.”
“My engagement to Dante.”
Miriam swore softly.
“Did Dante know?” I asked.
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I asked him directly three weeks ago whether he would ever consider marrying me if you divorced.”
The room became very quiet.
“And?”
Bianca's expression crumpled.
“He said, ‘If Alessandra leaves me, I will still have had one wife.’”
I looked down.
Damn him.
Damn him for still being capable of hurting me with loyalty delivered too late.
Bianca pushed the flash drive toward Miriam.
“There are emails too. Vittoria telling my father she expected Alessandra to ‘act emotionally’ once the separation process began. She said your public behavior could solve the governance problem.”
There it was.
The trap.
Not imagined.
Not theoretical.
Documented.
Miriam inserted the drive into an offline laptop.
We read for twenty minutes.
One email stopped me.
Vittoria to Carlo Russo:
A. has always confused being loved with being secure. Once both are threatened, she will lash out. We only need one material breach.
I read it twice.
Something inside me went completely still.
Vittoria knew me.
Or she thought she did.
She knew the version of me who had spent years trying to earn a permanent place at every table.
The adopted daughter who did not know she was adopted.
The daughter-in-law desperate to prove she belonged.
The wife terrified that asking too many questions would make her difficult to love.
That woman had been real.
But she was not weak.
She had simply spent her strength protecting the wrong people.
“Why are you giving me this?” I asked Bianca.
She looked toward the dark window.
“Because my father is willing to let Vittoria ruin you if it gets him the company.”
“That didn't bother you earlier.”
“No.”
I appreciated the honesty more than an excuse.
“What changed?”
Bianca looked at me.
“Yesterday, after the board meeting, Vittoria told my father to prepare a media leak about you.”
“What kind?”
“That you misrepresented yourself as a biological Moretti to obtain ownership in Romano Meridian.”
Miriam laughed once.
“That is legally absurd.”
“It doesn't have to survive court,” Bianca said. “It only has to survive forty-eight hours online.”
She was right.
Reputation moved faster than truth.
“What else?” I asked.
Bianca hesitated.
“She wants to accuse you of interfering with the refinancing out of revenge because Dante and I are having an affair.”
I stared at her.
“The affair that isn't happening.”
“Yes.”
“She wants to use the lie she planted to explain the reaction she tried to provoke.”
“Yes.”
Miriam leaned back.
“That is impressively ugly.”
Bianca looked at me.
“I helped create the appearance. If she leaks it, I'll publicly deny the affair.”
“Your father will destroy you.”
“Probably.”
“Dante may never speak to you again.”
Her smile was sad.
“He shouldn't.”
I stood.
Bianca did too.
“Alessandra.”
I paused.
“I'm sorry.”
I studied her.
“I believe you are.”
Hope flickered across her face.
“That does not mean I forgive you.”
It disappeared.
“I understand.”
“Good.”
I left Miriam with the drive.
When I stepped outside, a black car was parked across the street.
Dante leaned against it.
I stopped.
He pushed away from the door.
“How did you find me?”
“I didn't. Security did.”
I looked at the driver.
“He works for me too.”
Dante's face tightened.
“Fair.”
He looked toward the townhouse.
“Bianca is in there.”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Everything she should have told me weeks ago.”
His jaw flexed.
“Did my mother plant the underwear?”
I stared at him.
He had guessed.
“Yes.”
For a moment, Dante Romano looked dangerous in the way Chicago whispered about.
He reached for his phone.
I stepped between him and the car.
“No.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“She used you.”
“She used both of us.”
“She humiliated you in our house.”
“And you helped her.”
That stopped him.
I stepped closer.
“Do not make the mistake of thinking her guilt erases yours.”
He lowered the phone slowly.
“I don't.”
“Good.”
“Tell me what she did.”
“I will. Tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow?”
“Because tonight I need to decide whether you're someone I can use to stop her without becoming the woman who keeps mistaking you for someone I can trust.”
The words hurt him.
I saw it.
For once, I did not soften them.
I got into my car.
Dante did not try to stop me.
As we pulled away, I looked back once.
He was still standing under the streetlight.
Alone.
For months, I had been the one left alone with questions.
He could survive one night with answers.
Before Bianca left the townhouse, she stopped beside the door and turned back.
“There is something else you should know.”
I almost told her I had reached my daily limit for revelations.
Instead I waited.
“Dante rejected the engagement idea in front of my father,” she said. “Not privately. Not politely.”
“What did he say?”
Bianca looked embarrassed.
“He said if my father brought your marriage into another financing conversation, he could take his money and finance someone else.”
Miriam lifted an eyebrow.
“That sounds more like him.”
“It cost us leverage,” Bianca continued. “My father was furious. Vittoria told him Dante would change his mind once you were gone.”
I folded my arms.
“Why didn't that stop you?”
“Because I believed the part I wanted to believe. That your marriage was ending whether he admitted it or not.”
Her eyes lowered.
“I kept telling myself I wasn't taking him from you. I was waiting for you to leave.”
“And when I didn't?”
“I helped make it look like you should.”
There was no defense after that.
Bianca put her hand on the doorknob.
“I don't expect you to forgive me.”
“I won't today.”
She nodded.
“Maybe don't ever.”
Then she left.
Miriam watched the door close.
“You know what the dangerous part is?” she asked.
“What?”
“If Dante really did refuse the deal, you're going to have to separate two questions.”
I knew what she meant.
Was he unfaithful?
And was he a good husband?
The answers could be no and no.
May you like
That possibility hurt in a way betrayal was not supposed to.
At least betrayal gave anger somewhere simple to go.
