Chapter 5
The Wrong Death Certificate
Grace laid the certificate on the library desk without letting Alessandro touch it.
“The date is right,” he said. “The hospital's wrong.”
Sofia had died after a collision on a rain-soaked access road near the Rizzano docks. He remembered the emergency room, a coffee machine with a broken button, and a doctor asking him to identify her bracelet. He would never forget that night. The document claimed she had died at a private clinic miles away.
“The wording is too neat,” Grace said. “Somebody needed a different record of her death to support the property transfer.”
Alessandro looked at the framed photograph on his desk: Sofia laughing, Livia as a baby in her arms. He had trusted Enzo to handle the paperwork after the funeral because he couldn't bear to read it.
“Call Detective Ortiz,” he said.
Gabriel appeared in the doorway. “There are reporters outside. Bianca's father just arrived with two attorneys.”
“Let them wait.”
“He says you signed an agreement guaranteeing their family's shipping contract when the ceremony happened.”
“It didn't happen.”
“He says there's a penalty anyway. Twenty million dollars.”
Grace took off her glasses. “A contract can be contested. A child can't be used as collateral. Keep those issues separate.”
Then she pointed to a map included in the trust papers. The waterfront parcel had a small clinic building on it, the Harbor House, where Sofia had paid for medical care and temporary housing for women and children. A handwritten annotation crossed it out: SALE AUTHORIZED AFTER MARITAL EVENT.
“She wasn't just marrying me,” Alessandro said. “She was trying to get my signature on Sofia's land.”
His phone rang from an unknown number. He almost declined it. Then a man's rough voice said, “If you want to know why your wife died, ask Enzo who was at Pier Nine that night.”
“Who's this?” Alessandro demanded.
“Somebody who helped clean the wreck.”
“Where are you?”
“Don't use your people. One of them is listening.”
May you like
The call ended. Gabriel, standing beside the open door, had gone very still.
