Sofia’s question was small but it rang like a bell. “Hai fatto il test?”
I stared at my hands. “Not yet.”
Luisa’s brows shot up. “What test?”
I pulled air into my lungs and let it burn a little. “A pregnancy test. There’s a chance I’m… because of Ferraro.”
Silence lifted its head between us. Then Luisa scooted closer, pens already in her fist like weapons. “Symptoms? Amenorrhea, nausea, emesis?”
“I—everything’s tangled,” I said. “Stress made my body a fun-house mirror. I can’t tell what’s what.”
Sofia nodded, not pushing. “Va bene. But the next steps depend on that result.” She glanced at Matteo.
He didn’t make a speech. He just took my hand and held it in his quiet way, thumb steady against my knuckles. It was like a metronome for my heart.
I looked at him, then at Luisa with her determined mouth, then at Sofia with her unshakeable-warm gaze. “Whatever that test says,” I heard myself say, “he still pays. Ferraro still answers.”
Sofia’s smile was small and fierce. “Così.” She sat forward. “I spoke with Capitano Bianchi. We need primary evidence. We name the charges precisely.”
“Sexual assault,” I said. My voice didn’t waver this time.
“Abuse of authority at the clinic,” Luisa added, already writing headings in neat lines.
“Blackmail with pornographic images,” Matteo said, jaw ticking once.
Sofia tapped the table. “Bene. The photos are in his phone; that’s possession and production. Abuse of power—we can corroborate with those recommendation letters and schedules. Sexual assault is hardest, tesoro, because you froze—coercion without visible force is the snake the law pretends not to see.” She breathed in. “But. He is coming tomorrow morning to ‘collect’ you. We set a trap.”
My stomach flipped. “What kind of trap?”
“Cameras, mics,” she said simply. “The moment we have enough, they enter.”
Luisa’s pen paused. “You’re sure?”
“I’m already coordinating,” Sofia said, phone in hand. “He believes Alessandro is away on business. He will come in confident.” Her eyes went gentle on me. “You will not be alone for one second, capito?”
Something inside me loosened a fraction. “Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
The plan unfolded like crisp paper. Sofia called Bianchi; men arrived with cases that looked like camera bags and produced miracoli—button lenses, tiny mics thinner than my necklace. They tucked eyes into frame corners, hid ears under table lips. Wires disappeared into routers like spaghetti swallowed by a drain.
Sofia squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll sit with your father at the hospital. You three—stay here.”
I didn’t want the night to come back and swallow me, not again. “Don’t go,” I said to Matteo and Luisa, hating how small I sounded. “Stay. Please.”
Luisa didn’t answer; she simply dragged quilts from the linen cupboard like a general issuing uniforms. Matteo fetched pillows. For sleeping, we made a camp in the salon the way we had as kids—blankets over chairs, a small lamp left on like a constellation.
At dawn the house felt arranged, purposeful. By eight, a tech clipped a tiny recorder under my blouse. “Light tap to start,” he said. I practiced once. The little device hummed against my skin like a second heartbeat.
The driveway gravel hissed. A black car turned in neat as a scalpel. Ferraro stepped out as if the world were his coat to shrug on. “Sofia.” He smiled, teeth and charm. Then his eyes found me and did that subtle narrowing, that possession he thought looked like affection. “Isabella. Molto meglio, I see.”
“Alessandro is delayed by business,” Sofia said smoothly. “Join us for breakfast.”
We sat: Sofia, Luca, me, Luisa. Ferraro poured coffee like a caring mentor. He spoke of exam strategies, the value of scaffolding and differential reinforcement, Rome in autumn, my bright future. Under the table his shoe found my foot. Under the noise his fingers brushed mine passing bread and stayed too long. Luisa’s jaw clenched so hard the muscle jumped like a heart.
When plates cleared, he dabbed his mouth. “Sofia, may I borrow Isabella for a walk? A beautiful morning. Some academic matters.”
Sofia’s nostrils flared, a micro-tremor only I caught. But this was the plan. “Certo,” she said, almost light. “A short one.”
I stood. As I did, my hand slipped over the table and closed around a small fruit knife, hiding it in my sleeve without looking.
We stepped into light. The garden swallowed us—rosemary, old stone, sun warm on the gravel. The recorder hummed under my breastbone.
The moment the house fell behind us, his voice shifted. The friendly varnish peeled. “You avoided me last time,” he said softly, fingers clamping around my upper arm hard enough to make me see commas of light. “Made me look foolish in front of your father.”
“I was ill,” I said.
“You were disobedient.” His grip tightened. “And you didn’t come to my room that night.”
“I couldn’t—”
“There is no couldn’t, Isabella. There is what I tell you to do.”
The mic was catching everything. Capitano Bianchi, are you listening? Hear him. Hear him.
“I’m tired of this,” I said, the words from Bianchi’s script sitting clean on my tongue. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“What you want is irrelevant.” He yanked me closer until I smelled the cologne I now associate with panic. “Tonight. My room. No excuses. Or tomorrow morning, every photo—”
“No.”
He blinked. “What?”
“No,” I said again, louder. The knife’s handle bit my palm; I tightened my grip. “I won’t do it anymore. You can send the photos. I’ll deal with it.”
Something flickered in his eyes—panic passing like a shadow over the sun. “You told someone.”
“No—”
“You did.” His mouth curled. “Who? Your friend? Your gardener?”
He seized both arms and shook me once, twice. “Who did you tell?”
“Nobody!”
“Bugiarda!” His palm cracked across my cheek so fast my ears rang. My hand spasmed; the knife slipped, fell, flashed. He saw it.
I stumbled back, the world doubling for a second. “Stop! You’re hurting me!”
“You’re mine,” he hissed. “You’ll always be mine. I waited twenty years for your mother—vent’anni—I’m not losing you.”
His voice climbed, frayed at the edges. The recorder hummed like it was praying too.
“If I can’t have you,” he said, eyes bright and wrong, “no one will. Just like her. Just like Gianna.”
He lunged.
“Get away from her!” Matteo’s voice cut the air from the direction of the house—flat, controlled, the kind of sound a person makes when moving faster than thought.
Ferraro wheeled, feral. “You,” he spat. “The gardener. How dare—”
He scooped the fallen knife without looking, like he’d rehearsed it in his dreams. The blade flashed.
Matteo stepped between us, shoulders squared, breathing steady. He didn’t look at me. “Bella,” he said, and the single word found me like a handrail. “Run.”
“Nobody takes what’s mine,” Ferraro breathed.
He came for Matteo.