Chapter 16 - THE UNCLE WHO NEVER CAME HOME|
Gabriel Moretti had been a ghost in the family for ten years.
Alessandro remembered him as a brilliant but reckless man who argued with his father about the future of the business. Gabriel had believed that the family's wealth would eventually collapse under the weight of its secrets. His father had called him disloyal.
After one final confrontation, Gabriel vanished.
Now the investigators had reason to believe he was alive.
A bank account linked to one of Richard's shell companies had been used to pay for a property in Wisconsin. The registered owner was an alias, but the property records contained an emergency contact connected to Gabriel's old identity.
The police located him at a small lakeside house.
He did not resist when officers arrived.
Alessandro went to the interview with his attorney and the lead investigator. Elena remained at the mansion, unwilling to insert herself into a family confrontation that was not hers to control.
Gabriel looked older than Alessandro remembered. His hair had turned silver, and his hands trembled when he reached for a glass of water.
“You look like your father,” Gabriel said.
Alessandro sat opposite him.
“I've spent years trying not to.”
Gabriel lowered his eyes.
The old financial scheme, he explained, had begun as an attempt to protect several struggling businesses during a period of instability. Thomas Vale had proposed a network of private accounts. Richard had handled the paperwork. Alessandro's father had approved some of the arrangements without understanding how extensively they would be abused.
When Gabriel discovered the deception, he tried to expose it.
But he had also made mistakes.
He had given Richard access credentials, believing the accounts were being used for legitimate restructuring. When he realized the money was being diverted, he panicked. He left the country and later returned under an alias, convinced that speaking out would put his family in danger.
“Did you know about Elena's mother?” the investigator asked.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“I knew she had found the records. I didn't know anyone would hurt her.”
“Did you order anyone to interfere with her car?”
“No.”
“Did you know who did?”
“I heard Thomas say he had a problem handled. I assumed he meant the documents.”
Alessandro's expression hardened.
“You assumed?”
“I was afraid.”
“So was she. So was Maria. So was everyone you left behind.”
Gabriel accepted the rebuke without defending himself.
He agreed to provide the investigators with his correspondence and the names of the people who had worked with Thomas Vale. He also admitted that he had kept a copy of a private ledger that might identify the person who arranged the attack on Elena's mother.
The ledger had been stored in a bank deposit box.
The authorities secured a warrant.
When the box was opened, it contained the missing financial records and a sealed letter addressed to Alessandro's father. The letter described a dispute over money and warned that Thomas Vale intended to remove anyone who threatened the operation.
A second document contained a payment authorization bearing a signature that appeared to belong to a former business partner of the Moretti family.
The investigators would need expert analysis to establish whether the signature was genuine.
That evening, Alessandro returned to the mansion looking exhausted.
“He's cooperating,” he told Elena. “But he can't give us certainty about your mother's death.”
“Maybe certainty isn't something we'll get.”
“Would that be enough?”
She thought about the years she had spent imagining that one final answer would make everything bearable.
“No. But I can live with unanswered questions better than I can live with lies.”
Alessandro sat beside her.
For a while, neither spoke.
Then he said, “I want to ask you something, but I need you to know that you can say no.”
Elena turned toward him.
“What is it?”
“Would you let me take you to dinner? Somewhere outside this house. Somewhere with no security meeting and no investigation.”
She considered the man who had stopped when she stepped away, who had allowed her to choose, and who had begun dismantling the habits that made his world so frightening.
“Yes,” she said. “I'd like that.”
For the first time in weeks, Alessandro smiled.
But the next morning, the laboratory report arrived.
May you like
The signature on the payment authorization was genuine.
And it belonged to Alessandro's late father.
