The Man Beside the Coffin

Elena brought Mia a clean napkin and asked Rosa to take her to the sitting room.

“I want my rabbit,” Mia said.

“I’ll bring him back as soon as I fix his ear.”

“Please don’t hurt him.”

“I’ll be careful.”

Elena waited until the door closed before she handed Lorenzo the scissors.

He cut three stitches.

A folded strip of paper slipped onto the table.

Marco stopped moving.

Lorenzo unfolded it.

Elena stood close enough to read over his shoulder.

Before you trust Marco with my location, ask him who burned the boat. I will contact you when Vale can no longer follow me home.

Underneath was a short number and Matteo’s signature.

Lorenzo laid the paper flat.

“Did you know he was alive?”

Marco’s face had lost its color.

“I knew he was alive.”

The answer was almost inaudible.

Elena felt Lorenzo go still beside her.

“How long have you known?”

“I have known since before the fire.”

Lorenzo stepped away from the table.

Marco slowly removed the pistol beneath his jacket and set it beside the fruit bowl.

Elena watched the weapon until his hands were empty.

“I arranged the fire,” he said. “Nobody was aboard.”

Lorenzo looked at him as if he had become a stranger.

“You stood beside me at the funeral.”

“I know.”

“You watched my mother fall.”

Marco closed his eyes.

“I caught her.”

“Yes,” Lorenzo said. “You did.”

The quiet was worse than shouting.

Elena remembered that funeral from a distance. Lorenzo had asked her not to come because he could not bear to manage his father and her in the same room. She had thought he was shutting her out again.

He had been grieving his brother.

Marco had known there was nobody in the coffin.

“Tell him,” she said.

Marco looked at her.

“Tell him everything this time.”

He gripped the back of a chair.

“Matteo showed me the Argento records. He had copies of the payments to Sofia and enough to prove Vale was using the old accounts. Someone had searched his apartment. He thought your father’s staff were involved.”

“So he came to you.”

“Yes. He asked for three weeks. He wanted Vale to believe the documents had burned with him.”

“And I was meant to mourn for three weeks.”

Marco did not answer.

Lorenzo moved so quickly that Elena caught her breath.

He stopped inches from Marco.

“You let me beg you to find him.”

Marco’s mouth shook.

“I thought I could bring him home before you learned how we had done it.”

“When did he stop calling?”

“Six weeks after the fire. He said Vale had found evidence of Elena’s pregnancy. He thought anyone searching openly for either of them would lead Vale to the other.”

Elena folded her arms around herself.

“And you let Lorenzo believe I simply did not want to be found.”

“I did not know where you were. Matteo fed the search false information, and I suspected him, but I could not prove it.”

“You could have told me he was alive,” Lorenzo said.

Marco nodded.

“I should have told you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

For a moment, Elena thought he would repeat the explanation about protection.

Instead, Marco looked down.

“Because I was afraid you would never forgive me.”

Lorenzo backed away.

The answer seemed to have exhausted his anger rather than relieved it.

Elena touched the table to steady herself.

“When did you last hear from him?” she asked.

“Seven months ago. He warned me Vale still had someone inside the estate. He would not tell me who.”

“Did he tell you about Mia?”

Marco looked at her.

“He said there might be a child. I did not know whether he meant yours.”

Lorenzo turned sharply.

“You did not think to ask me?”

“I thought if Elena had told you, you would have told me.”

“You thought a great many things.”

Marco lowered his head.

Outside the room, Mia laughed at something Rosa said.

The sound made Lorenzo look toward the door.

Elena saw the effort it took him to draw a full breath.

“Give me your keys,” he said.

Marco placed them on the table.

“I want your access card, too.”

He set that down, too.

“Davide will take over security. You will give him every file, every code, every name connected with Matteo. You will remain available.”

“I will.”

“You will not approach my daughter without Elena’s permission.”

Marco looked at her then, and for the first time she saw the full shame in his face.

“I understand.”

Lorenzo opened the door.

Davide was waiting in the corridor.

“Take him to the office. He has work to hand over.”

Marco paused beside Elena.

“I am sorry.”

She looked at the key ring on the table.

“I believe you,” she said. “That does not make me ready to trust you.”

He nodded and left.

Lorenzo remained in the doorway after the footsteps faded.

Elena approached carefully.

“Do you want me to go?”

“I want you to stay.”

She waited.

He turned toward her.

“I don’t know what I want to do with him.”

“You don’t have to decide today.”

“He held my mother while she cried.”

“I heard.”

“He was the one who told me to eat. He slept outside my room the first night because I had been drinking.”

Elena touched his arm.

His face changed, and suddenly she saw how young he must have been inside his grief, however composed he had looked to everyone else.

She put both arms around him.

For a second, he did not respond.

Then he held her so hard that she felt the breath leave her chest.

She stayed.

He pressed his face into her hair. She could feel his jaw working beside her temple.

“I thought he died believing I hated him,” he said.

Elena closed her eyes.

She did not tell him everything would be all right. She could not know that.

She held him until his breathing changed.

When he finally loosened his arms, she kept one hand against his chest.

“We have a number,” she said.

He looked toward the table.

“And he wants to come home.”

Lorenzo nodded once.

They made the call together.

It rang until Elena thought nobody would answer.

Then a man said, cautiously, “Who is this?”

Lorenzo’s hand tightened around the phone.

“You can ask me yourself when you come through the front door.”

There was silence.

Then a breath broke on the other end.

“Lorenzo.”