Chapter 9 - THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERED EVERYTHING|
Eleanor was waiting in the sitting room when they returned to Dante's townhouse.
She had been told only that Dante had found a young man connected to his father's past. Even so, when Adrian stepped through the doorway, she rose so quickly that a nearby vase rattled on the table.
“Oh, my goodness.”
Adrian stopped.
“You know me?”
Eleanor approached him slowly, studying his face with a concentration Sofia had never seen before.
“You have Michael's eyes.”
Adrian's expression crumpled.
“My mother said you helped her.”
Eleanor covered her mouth.
“Laura.”
“You remember her?”
“Of course I remember her.”
Dante stared at his mother.
“You told me Aunt Margaret was the only person who knew about the child.”
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid of whom?”
Eleanor looked toward the windows.
“Vittorio.”
The name fell into the room like a dropped glass.
She sat down, visibly exhausted.
“Your father discovered that your uncle had been using the family's medical investments to pay for things that had nothing to do with hospitals. When Michael threatened to expose him, Vittorio told him the family would collapse if the truth became public.”
Dante's hands curled into fists.
“Why didn't Father go to the police?”
“He planned to. He also planned to bring Laura and Adrian somewhere safe.” Eleanor's voice shook. “Then he died.”
“Do you believe Vittorio caused the accident?”
“I believe he knew more than he admitted.”
“That's not an answer.”
“It's the only honest answer I have.”
Adrian sat beside her.
“My mother said you gave her money to leave New York.”
“I gave her a place to stay and a new name for the records. I thought it would protect you.” Eleanor took his hand. “I was wrong to keep silent afterward.”
Adrian studied her.
“Why did you let them tell me my father didn't want me?”
Eleanor began to cry.
“Because Vittorio said he would make sure you disappeared if I ever tried to bring you home. I believed him. I was a coward, and I am sorry.”
The room remained quiet.
Sofia watched Adrian struggle with the apology. He had spent his life imagining a father who had abandoned him. Now he was being told that the father had tried to protect him, while the family that should have welcomed him had hidden his existence.
“Did you know about the archive?” Dante asked.
“Your father showed me the room once. He said it contained records that could destroy Vittorio if anything happened to him.”
“Then why did you tell me it never existed?”
Eleanor looked at him with devastating sadness.
“Because I was afraid you would become like your uncle while trying to defeat him.”
Dante stepped away.
“You let me believe I was alone.”
“I know.”
“You let me build an empire beside the man who might have killed my father.”
“I know.”
His voice rose.
“You let him sit at my table, speak at my mother's birthday, and call himself my family.”
Eleanor flinched.
Sofia moved closer to Dante.
“Stop.”
He turned toward her.
“He lied to me for eighteen years.”
“And your mother is telling you the truth now.”
“You think that makes it better?”
“No. I think it means you have a choice about what you do next.”
Dante stared at her, breathing hard.
Sofia continued more gently.
“If you punish everyone who was afraid, you'll end up protecting the person who made them afraid. Find the evidence. Don't let anger decide what it means.”
Adrian watched them in silence.
Finally, Dante sat down.
“Ma, I need everything you remember. Every conversation, every name, every document you saw. We will write it down, and we'll have it verified.”
Eleanor nodded.
For the next hour, she spoke in fragments. She remembered a car waiting outside the house after Michael's funeral. She remembered Vittorio burning papers in the kitchen fireplace. She remembered a meeting with Senator Graff in which the word accident had been repeated too many times.
Then she remembered something else.
“Vivienne Ashford was there.”
Sofia looked up.
“Vivienne?”
“She was young, but she was there. She brought a folder to Vittorio. I thought it was business.”
“What was in it?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“A photograph of Michael's car before the crash.”
Dante stood so abruptly his chair struck the wall.
“Where is it?”
“I don't know. Vittorio took it.”
For the first time, Eleanor's memories were no longer only fragments of grief.
May you like
They were evidence.
And somewhere in Manhattan, Vivienne Ashford had just learned that Adrian Michael was alive.
