Chapter 18 - The Woman He Used
The first shot never fired.
Carlo kicked the chair sideways, slamming into Cesare’s knees.
The gun hit the floor.
Alessia dropped behind a table as the side door burst open and police flooded the room.
Valerio reached her before the echoes stopped.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
He checked anyway.
Across the room, Cesare was handcuffed against the wall.
Veronica sat on the floor staring at him.
Something in her face had collapsed.
Not innocence.
An illusion.
For years she had believed Cesare protected her because she mattered to him.
Now he had pointed a gun at her the second she became inconvenient.
At the station, Veronica asked to speak to Alessia before giving a formal statement.
Valerio said no.
Alessia said yes.
They sat across from each other in a small interview room.
Veronica looked exhausted without the red dress, makeup, and practiced contempt.
“Why did you pull the chair?” Alessia asked.
“Because Cesare needed witnesses to your decline.”
“You could have killed me.”
“I told myself it would be a fall.”
“You drugged me for five months.”
“I switched the capsules. Yes.”
“And Luca?”
Veronica looked at her hands.
“Cesare had the boat steering sabotaged. I knew he planned to scare Luca. I didn’t know he planned to kill him.”
“You keep using that sentence.”
“I know.”
Alessia leaned forward.
“Did you ever tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Then you helped him.”
Veronica’s eyes filled.
“I loved Luca.”
“That didn’t help Luca.”
The truth landed between them.
Veronica gave investigators passwords, account locations, names of compromised employees, and a recording she had secretly kept of Cesare admitting the brake sabotage.
It was enough.
But before the interview ended, Veronica told Alessia one last thing.
“Cesare didn’t create the competency plan.”
“Who did?”
“I did.”
Alessia stared.
“Why?”
“Because after Luca died, I spent years watching Valerio build the life I thought I should have had.”
“With me.”
“Yes.”
“And you thought taking my shares would fix that?”
“No.” Veronica wiped her face. “I thought making you helpless would make him see you the way I wanted him to.”
Alessia stood carefully.
“He saw me helpless.”
Veronica looked up.
“And he chose me anyway.”
Outside the room, Valerio waited.
Alessia walked toward him without taking his arm.
“I need to ask you something,” she said.
“Anything.”
May you like
“When this is over, what happens to your family business?”
Valerio’s answer would decide whether she went home with him.
