Chapter 7 - The Man Who Helped Carry the Coffin
Renato Greco had kissed my forehead at Salvatore Vitale's funeral.
I remembered it clearly.
The church had been crowded with men in dark suits and women wearing black veils.
Alessandro stood beside his father's coffin, his face so rigid with grief that I was afraid he might collapse if anyone touched him.
Renato approached us after the service.
He was a broad-shouldered man with graying hair and a quiet manner.
He had served Salvatore for almost twenty years.
He told Alessandro that loyalty did not end with death.
Then he turned to me.
"Take care of him, Serena," he said, kissing my forehead. "He will need someone who remembers the man he was before all this."
For eleven years, I believed Renato had been one of the few decent men in Alessandro's world.
Now a former garage employee was telling prosecutors that Renato had participated in Salvatore's murder.
I sat in Prosecutor Conti's office while she explained what investigators had learned.
Gabriele Fontana had worked for Vittorio for years.
He admitted arranging the unauthorized removal of my father's car and delivering it to a garage where its braking system was tampered with.
He claimed he had not personally performed the sabotage.
But he identified the mechanic who had.
That mechanic was dead.
According to Fontana, Vittorio ordered the operation.
Fontana also described meetings held before Salvatore's assassination.
Renato Greco attended at least two.
Conti cautioned us that Fontana's statements still required independent corroboration.
"He has reasons to cooperate," she said. "That can make his information useful, but it also means we need to verify it."
I nodded.
"What about Renato?"
"Investigators are examining his movements and communications around both deaths."
"Does Alessandro know?"
"Not yet. I wanted to speak to him in person."
I thought of the hospital.
Alessandro was recovering from the shooting.
Renato had been one of the first people to send flowers.
I suddenly remembered the card.
The family stands beside you.
I looked at Conti.
"Has Renato visited him?"
She reached for her phone.
A few minutes later, she confirmed that Renato had requested access to Alessandro's hospital room.
He had not been admitted.
I felt a wave of relief.
Then a worse thought followed.
"If Renato has been working with Vittorio, he knows Alessandro is cooperating."
Conti nodded.
"We're taking that possibility seriously."
I drove to the hospital with Giulia.
For the first time, I was relieved to see police officers outside Alessandro's room.
He was sitting upright when we entered, arguing with a nurse about how soon he could leave.
The argument stopped when he saw me.
"Serena."
I closed the door.
"There's something you need to know."
He looked at Giulia.
Then back at me.
I told him about Fontana.
About the garage.
About Renato.
For several seconds, Alessandro didn't move.
Then he shook his head.
"No."
I had expected that reaction.
"Alessandro—"
"Renato raised me after my father died."
His voice was almost inaudible.
"He was at our table every Sunday. He knew my mother. He knew my father's habits. He knew everything."
I sat opposite him.
"That doesn't mean Fontana is telling the truth."
Alessandro looked at me with something close to desperation.
"Renato helped me investigate the assassination."
"I know."
"He gave me the names."
I held his gaze.
"Yes."
His face changed.
It was a terrible thing to watch.
A man realizing that the person who helped him identify his enemies might have manufactured them.
Alessandro looked down at his hands.
"God."
He whispered the word.
Then again.
"God."
I wanted to touch him.
I didn't.
He reached for the phone beside his bed.
"I'm calling Conti."
"She already knows."
"Then I need to tell her something."
He looked up.
"Renato controlled the security records after my father's death."
My heart accelerated.
"He handled the surveillance cameras, the access logs, and the staff interviews. He was the one who told me the cameras outside my father's office had malfunctioned."
Giulia immediately began writing.
Alessandro's voice became harder.
"He also arranged for certain witnesses to leave Rome."
"Which witnesses?" she asked.
He gave her names.
Two former employees.
A driver.
A security technician.
And a bookkeeper who had been dismissed after questioning irregular payments.
Conti's investigators were notified.
Within forty-eight hours, the investigation produced its strongest evidence yet.
An old computer backup, recovered from a retired security technician, contained access logs that contradicted Renato's original report.
On the night of Salvatore's murder, Renato had entered the building through a private service entrance.
He had left twenty-six minutes before the police were called.
His official statement claimed he had been at home.
More importantly, the backup showed that someone used his administrative credentials to disable two cameras shortly before the shooting.
Investigators found evidence that the original incident report had been altered.
Then they found something else.
A payment record linking Renato to a shell company funded through Vittorio's accounts.
The transfer occurred the day after Salvatore's death.
I read the report in silence.
There were many things money could buy.
Alessandro had spent his life believing loyalty was not one of them.
But Renato had apparently sold it.
And two fathers had paid the price.
That evening, Alessandro asked to see me alone.
When I entered, he was standing beside the hospital window.
He wore a plain white shirt, one arm supported in a sling.
Without the tailored suits and expensive watch, he looked like any other exhausted man recovering from violence.
"I spoke to Conti," he said.
"I know."
"I gave her Renato's old office records and the locations of two storage properties he used."
"Good."
He turned toward me.
"I also told her about the men I ordered detained after my father's death."
I felt a knot form in my stomach.
"Why?"
"Because some of those decisions were based entirely on Renato's accusations."
I waited.
"I can't undo what happened," he continued. "But I can stop pretending I had proof when I didn't."
His eyes were tired.
"I spent eleven years building my identity around avenging my father."
I looked at him.
"And now?"
"Now I have to face the possibility that I punished people who had nothing to do with his murder."
His voice broke.
I had never heard Alessandro sound so defeated.
Not at Salvatore's funeral.
Not when his businesses were threatened.
Not even on the day I canceled our wedding.
He sat slowly.
"I thought power meant no one could ever make me helpless again."
I moved closer.
"And did it?"
He shook his head.
"It made me certain. That's worse."
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he asked, "Did your father ever talk about forgiveness?"
The question surprised me.
"Sometimes."
"What did he say?"
I looked at the floor.
"He said forgiveness wasn't the same as pretending nothing happened."
Alessandro nodded.
"That sounds like him."
I almost smiled.
"You didn't know him."
"No."
He looked at the photograph on his bedside table.
It was the picture from the boathouse.
Marco.
Salvatore.
Vittorio.
Three men standing together before everything fell apart.
"But I wish I had."
That night, I went home and found my mother waiting at the kitchen table.
She had been recovering from the kidnapping and sleeping badly.
The marks on her wrists had begun to fade.
But some wounds remained invisible.
"How is he?" she asked.
"Recovering."
She nodded.
Then she looked at me carefully.
"You still love him."
I sat down.
"Yes."
My mother didn't seem surprised.
"Do you want to marry him?"
I looked away.
"I don't know."
She reached for my hand.
"That's a different question, Serena."
I felt tears gather.
"For thirteen years, it was the same question."
She squeezed my fingers.
"Love can survive things a marriage shouldn't have to."
I looked at her.
"You stayed silent about Daddy for fifteen years because you thought it would keep me safe."
"Yes."
"Do you regret it?"
"Every day."
"Would you make the same decision again?"
She thought for a long moment.
"No."
Her answer surprised me.
"I would still protect you," she continued. "But I would not teach you to survive by hiding from the truth."
She touched my cheek.
"Whatever you decide about Alessandro, make sure it's a decision you can live with when no one is watching."
I leaned into her hand.
For the first time in years, I felt like her daughter again.
The following week, Renato Greco was arrested.
He had been attempting to access records held in a storage office connected to the old security company.
Investigators found documents concerning Salvatore's murder and several earlier attacks.
Renato initially refused to speak.
Then Carlo Moretti was detained in connection with the financial transfers.
And the silence began to crack.
Carlo's attorneys approached prosecutors about a possible cooperation agreement.
Renato's representatives did the same.
Everyone wanted to protect themselves.
Everyone wanted to trade someone else's secrets for a better outcome.
Vittorio remained missing.
But the walls were closing around him.
Then Conti called me.
She wanted me to come to her office immediately.
When I arrived, she placed a sealed evidence photograph in front of me.
It showed an old envelope recovered from Renato's private storage.
On the front, in Salvatore's handwriting, were five words.
For Alessandro, if I die.
I stared at it.
Inside was a letter.
Conti explained that investigators had preserved the original and prepared a copy for review.
Alessandro was being informed separately.
I unfolded the paper.
My son,
If this reaches you, then the people I trusted have succeeded in keeping the truth from me until it was too late.
Do not avenge me blindly.
Do not let grief make you the weapon of another man's ambition.
I failed Marco Bellini because I believed I could correct my brother's crimes without exposing my own compromises.
I was wrong.
My eyes filled with tears.
The letter continued.
I allowed Vittorio to operate too freely. I ignored warnings because I feared what an investigation would reveal about our family.
Marco paid for that cowardice.
You must not repeat my mistake.
I covered my mouth.
Salvatore had known.
He had known his failure to act contributed to my father's death.
And he had been trying to put things right.
At the bottom was one final sentence.
If you ever love someone enough to promise her a life, make sure the truth is part of that promise.
I began to cry.
Not because Salvatore had been innocent.
He had not been.
He had admitted his own failures.
But because the letter revealed a man trying, too late, to prevent his son from becoming what he had been.
And Alessandro had never received it.
Renato had hidden it for eleven years.
When Alessandro read his copy, he called me.
His voice was rough.
"Serena."
"Yes?"
"I think my father knew exactly who I would become if I kept following Vittorio."
I swallowed.
"Maybe."
"He tried to warn me."
"Yes."
A long silence.
Then he asked, "Can you ever believe in me again?"
I closed my eyes.
"I don't know."
He took a breath.
"Then I won't ask you to answer."
Before the call ended, he said something I would remember for years.
"I don't want you to return because I'm suffering, Serena. I want to become someone who would never make you suffer that way again."
I sat beside the window long after he hung up.
For the first time, I believed he might mean it.
But believing someone wanted to change was not the same as trusting that they had.
And the truth was about to demand a price neither of us could avoid.
Because the next morning, Conti told Alessandro that his cooperation would not protect him from prosecution.
He could testify against Vittorio.
He could help recover the stolen assets.
He could disclose the crimes Renato had concealed.
But he would still have to answer for his own actions.
Alessandro listened.
May you like
Then he signed the first formal statement.
And with that signature, he began dismantling the empire he had inherited.
