Alessandra Had Loved Matteo and Still Used His Mother
Chapter 06 - Alessandra Had Loved Matteo and Still Used His Mother
Alessandra asked to meet Lucia.
Lucia refused.
Not forever.
For now.
That distinction mattered.
So Alessandra met Matteo instead.
Public law office.
Separate counsel.
No ring.
No mansion.
No red dress.
She wore a plain cream blouse and dark trousers.
Matteo almost hated how ordinary she looked.
As if the woman who had stood beside his mother with a false-labeled bottle belonged to another life.
Alessandra sat.
“I want to explain.”
Matteo said:
“Explain is fine.”
A pause.
“Just don’t ask it to become forgiveness.”
Her eyes filled.
“I won’t.”
She began at twenty-two.
The night Vittorio died.
Alessandra had discovered Dominic shredding draft trust documents at home.
She did not understand the business structure.
She understood fear.
Dominic told her the Romanos would destroy the Vale family if Vittorio removed him.
She called Marina because Marina was the only relative who ever told Dominic no.
They went to the mansion.
Vittorio caught them.
Marina told him everything.
Then he signed the amendment in front of them.
Alessandra witnessed.
An hour later he died.
“What happened after?” Matteo asked.
“Your uncle arrived.”
Paolo.
Dominic came ten minutes after.
Paramedics were still upstairs.
Lucia was in shock.
Alessandra saw Paolo take the signed amendment from Vittorio’s desk.
“Did you say anything?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was terrified.”
At twenty-two, fear deserved context.
Then:
“Later?”
She looked down.
Later Dominic told her the amendment had legal problems and would destroy Romano businesses.
He said Paolo would preserve the older trust temporarily.
Temporary became twelve years.
Alessandra eventually studied enough finance to understand the lie.
By then she was benefiting from it indirectly.
Vale Legal survived.
Her father remained wealthy.
Her own life stayed intact.
“Why not tell me when we started dating?”
Her eyes met his.
“Because I loved you.”
Matteo almost laughed.
“That is not an answer.”
“It is.”
“No.”
Alessandra breathed.
“I loved the version of us that existed before you knew what my family did.”
More honest.
She met Mateo socially years after Vittorio’s death.
At first casually.
Then seriously.
She told herself old trust history had nothing to do with their relationship.
Then they became engaged.
Lucia started sorting papers.
The past walked back into the room.
“What did you think would happen if she remembered?”
“You would ask questions.”
“Yes.”
“You would find the amendment.”
“Yes.”
“You would hate me.”
Matteo looked at her.
“You chose making my mother look confused instead.”
“I know.”
She cried quietly, shoulders held stiff as if even grief needed permission.
“I know.”
He did not rescue her from the sentence.
Then Alessandra explained the medication plan from her side.
Dominic suggested documenting Lucia’s “episodes.”
Alessandra said no initially.
He pushed.
Said one or two sleepy evenings would make any later accusation look unreliable.
Alessandra took Marina’s bottle after their argument.
At first, she claimed, she intended only to scare Dominic with proof she had it.
That made little sense.
She knew.
Then Dominic printed the label.
Alessandra kept it in her bag for two days.
She could have thrown it away.
She did not.
At dinner, Lucia began talking to a guest about Vittorio’s old papers.
Panic.
Alessandra handed her the bottle.
Action.
Not intent abstractly.
Choice.
Claire stopped it.
“Did you know the strength?”
“No.”
“Did you know it wasn’t prescribed to my mother?”
“Yes.”
Enough.
Then Matteo asked:
“Did you ever believe my mother was actually confused?”
“Sometimes.”
He waited.
“She repeats stories.”
“So do you.”
Alessandra almost smiled.
Did not.
“She forgot my birthday last year.”
“My mother forgets my birthday half the time.”
That was true.
Lucia remembered people.
Promises.
Insults.
Birthdays lost out.
Alessandra looked ashamed.
“I used normal aging because it was useful.”
That sentence was the center.
Not attempted murder.
Not poison plot.
Control.
Then Matteo asked:
“Did you know Dominic was being paid by the trust?”
“No.”
“Paolo?”
“No.”
“Do you believe them?”
She looked at him.
“No.”
Her cooperation began.
She turned over emails.
Messages with Dominic.
A voice memo from three months earlier.
Alessandra:
I want to tell Matteo.
Dominic:
And destroy his mother with a twelve-year-old scandal?
Alessandra:
She already knows something.
Dominic:
Then make sure everyone understands she forgets things.
Silence after.
That memo mattered.
It showed Dominic’s idea.
It did not erase Alessandra’s action.
Then Alessandra gave investigators another file.
A photograph of Vittorio’s signed trust amendment.
Taken on her old phone the night he died.
Why photograph it?
She said:
“I didn’t trust my father.”
Interesting.
She had distrusted Dominic enough to preserve evidence.
Then obeyed him enough to hide it.
People are allowed to be contradictory.
The photograph was clearer than Marina’s photocopy.
Signatures.
Date.
Vittorio’s handwritten notation:
LUCIA FIRST.
OUTSIDE FIDUCIARY SECOND.
MATTEO WHEN HE IS READY.
Matteo stared at the last line.
“When he is ready.”
Not entitlement.
Condition.
His father had seen something in him at twenty-seven that Matteo now recognized.
The appetite to control before listening.
Then Alessandra said:
“There is one more message.”
Of course.
This one from Paolo Romano.
Sent six years earlier.
After Alessandra and Matteo met at a fundraiser but before they dated.
Paolo wrote:
Your father kept his word. Keep the old woman comfortable and there will never be a reason to reopen anything.
Matteo’s face went cold.
“What does comfortable mean?”
Alessandra shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Maybe money.
Maybe silence.
Maybe nothing sinister.
Investigators would decide.
Then she said:
“Paolo always knew Lucia was the danger.”
Lucia.
Not Matteo.
Because Vittorio’s amendment gave her first voice.
May you like
An elderly widow everyone treated as ornamental had been the person the conspirators feared most for twelve years.
And once Lucia began remembering out loud, Alessandra had reached for a bottle.
