Genevieve’s Father Was Not a Witness
Chapter 06 - Genevieve’s Father Was Not a Witness
Genevieve did not deny it.
Again.
That began to frighten Alessandro more than denial would have.
They met at Edmund Ashworth’s assisted-living residence.
Daylight.
No estate.
No hidden phones.
Edmund sat in a wheelchair near a window overlooking a garden.
Seventy-two.
Right side weakened from stroke.
Speech slow.
Mind clear.
Genevieve stood beside him.
Alessandro remained across the room.
“Did you know your father signed the trust opinion?”
“Yes.”
There.
“When did you know?”
“Before I met you.”
Alessandro looked away.
He had expected that.
Still hurt.
“So you lied yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“You said he discovered irregularities two years ago.”
“He rediscovered the extent two years ago.”
“That is lawyer language.”
“Yes.”
Good.
At least she hated herself for it.
Edmund tapped the armrest.
“Mine.”
His voice came rough.
“My language.”
Alessandro looked at him.
Edmund struggled through words.
“I wrote opinion.”
“Yes.”
“Coward.”
Genevieve’s eyes filled.
Alessandro did not rescue either of them from the sentence.
Edmund continued.
“Photo gone.”
He lifted his left hand.
“Affidavit draft. Not signed.”
He looked at Alessandro.
“I told myself no evidence.”
Silence.
“False.”
Not legally perhaps.
Morally yes.
Edmund’s eyes moved to Genevieve.
“I told her.”
“When?” Alessandro asked.
“Five years.”
Before Alessandro met her.
Genevieve had known everything.
Almost.
She said:
“My father told me he had helped close a worker trust dishonestly.”
“Did he tell you Silvio paid him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you the amount?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you about Kwame?”
“Yes.”
Every answer landed cleanly.
Alessandro laughed once.
“You researched me before we met.”
“Yes.”
“Where did we first meet?”
“The Lyric Opera benefit.”
“You arranged it.”
“No.”
He stared.
Genevieve shook her head.
“I knew you would attend.”
“That is arranging proximity.”
“Yes.”
Good.
“Did you speak to me because of Calumet?”
“Yes.”
There.
Then:
“Did you sleep with me because of it?”
Her face changed.
“No.”
“Did you accept my proposal because of it?”
Silence.
Then:
“Not only.”
Wrong answer.
Alessandro closed his eyes.
Edmund watched them.
No fatherly defense.
Good.
Genevieve continued:
“I need you to understand the sequence.”
“I understand enough.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“For once, let me finish.”
Alessandro looked at her.
She did.
At first, she wanted access.
Conversation.
Maybe a chance to learn whether Alessandro knew about Calumet.
He did not.
That became clear within weeks.
Then she kept seeing him.
Not because of strategy.
Because she liked him.
Then loved him.
She stopped searching his private spaces.
Stopped asking leading questions.
She told her father she would find another way.
Edmund confirmed with a slow nod.
Then Alessandro proposed.
And Genevieve saw the prenup.
Reciprocal disclosure schedules.
A path to trust records.
She hated herself for noticing.
Still noticed.
Then she accepted.
“Did you say yes because you loved me?”
“Yes.”
“Did you also know marriage might open records?”
“Yes.”
Both.
That was the problem.
Genevieve took one breath.
“I told myself the second motive didn’t contaminate the first.”
“Did it?”
“I don’t know.”
Good.
Not easy.
Alessandro looked at Edmund.
“Why not go to authorities?”
Edmund laughed weakly.
One harsh sound.
“Me?”
He tapped his chest.
“I signed.”
There.
Self-preservation.
Also.
Genevieve said:
“We had copies, not originals.”
“You had Kwame’s texts.”
“From my father’s archive.”
“Enough for inquiry.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I was afraid they would bury it again.”
That was plausible.
Still not permission to use him.
Alessandro paced once.
Then stopped.
“Amara.”
Genevieve’s face softened.
“I never approached her.”
“I know.”
“When I saw her in the corridor, I panicked.”
“You smiled.”
“She looked scared.”
“She called it fake.”
Genevieve almost laughed through pain.
“She was right.”
Good.
Then Edmund raised his hand.
“Silvio.”
All three looked at him.
“What?” Genevieve asked.
Edmund forced words.
“Not only him.”
Alessandro’s attention sharpened.
“Who else?”
Edmund looked toward a cabinet.
Genevieve opened it.
Inside was a leather file case.
Old.
He pointed.
She brought it.
The file contained one original trust memo Edmund never turned over.
Attached was a handwritten note from Arthur Voss.
E.A.—
Silvio wants closure.
A.R. wants no bodies in the press.
Use the missing-photo issue.
He will not ask.
A.R.
Alessandro stared.
A.R.
His initials.
But he had not written it.
“Voss wrote this?”
“Yes,” Edmund said.
“Who is ‘he’?”
Edmund looked at Alessandro.
“You.”
Alessandro went still.
Voss believed Alessandro would not ask.
Correct.
Then Genevieve flipped the memo.
On the back:
DANTE CONFIRMS YOUNG BOSS WANTS IT QUIET.
Alessandro’s eyes lifted.
Dante.
Again.
Not only his brother.
Dante himself.
He had told Voss Alessandro wanted it quiet.
Had he?
Maybe.
Alessandro remembered a hallway four years earlier.
Flash of memory.
Bodies not yet recovered.
Reporters.
His father in ICU.
Silvio shouting.
Alessandro telling Dante:
I need this quiet until we know what happened.
Not:
Threaten workers.
Not:
Bury evidence.
Still.
Dante had carried those words into rooms Alessandro never entered.
Genevieve said:
“He may have thought he was following you.”
That did not make it better.
Alessandro stood.
“I need to speak to him.”
Edmund said:
“Wait.”
He struggled.
Genevieve moved closer.
Her father forced out:
“Your father.”
Alessandro turned.
“Mine?”
Edmund nodded.
“Stroke. Still signed.”
Alessandro froze.
His father, Victor Rienzi, had been in ICU.
Half-paralyzed.
Mostly unable to speak.
Yet Silvio had claimed he remained chairman.
Edmund pointed to a trust resolution.
Victor Rienzi’s signature.
Three days after the stroke.
Alessandro stared.
That signature was too smooth.
Too steady.
He knew his father’s hand after the stroke.
This was not it.
For the first time, the investigation contained a signature that might have been forged.
May you like
And if Victor’s name had been falsified, then someone had used the dying patriarch exactly the way powerful families often used the weak—
as authority without consent.
