Chapter 5 - What Marcella Knew Before the Wedding

The old Marconi chapel had not held a service in fifteen years.

It stood behind iron gates on a hill outside the city.

By the time we arrived, one gate was open.

Marcella’s car was there.

Another black sedan was parked beside it.

Alessio entered first.

I followed with Clara and Thomas.

The chapel was empty.

Except for Marcella.

She was sitting in the front pew.

Alone.

Her face was wet with tears.

Alessio stopped.

“Where is your mother?”

“She left.”

“Why?”

“Because I told her the recording was somewhere else.”

Alessio stared at her.

“You lied to her?”

“Yes.”

“For me?”

Marcella looked at him.

“For the first time, yes.”

The words landed hard.

She stood slowly.

“I knew Clara was alive before we married.”

Alessio said nothing.

“I didn’t know everything.”

“How much?”

“My mother told me Clara was unstable. Dangerous. Obsessed with destroying both families.”

Clara looked at her niece.

Marcella could barely meet her eyes.

“She told me Alessio’s father had hidden Clara because she tried to hurt him.”

Clara’s voice was soft.

“And you believed her?”

“I was raised to believe her.”

Marcella looked at Alessio again.

“She encouraged me to meet you.”

Alessio’s expression changed.

“Encouraged?”

Marcella nodded.

“Our first meeting at the charity dinner was arranged.”

Alessio went still.

“You told me it was chance.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Our engagement?”

“That was my choice.”

“Our marriage?”

“My choice.”

“Keeping my mother from me?”

Marcella began crying again.

“My fear.”

“No.”

Alessio’s voice stayed calm.

“Your choice.”

Marcella accepted it.

“Yes.”

She reached into her coat.

Clara stiffened.

But Marcella removed only a key card.

She held it toward Alessio.

“My mother has a private archive beneath the Marconi offices.”

“What is in it?”

“Everything she thought nobody else should ever see.”

Thomas asked:

“How do you know?”

“Because six months ago she made me remove one file.”

Alessio looked at her.

“What file?”

Marcella swallowed.

“Mine.”

She reached into her bag.

A birth certificate appeared.

She handed it to Clara.

Clara read it.

Then looked up sharply.

Marcella whispered:

“Elena is not my biological mother.”

Alessio stared at her.

“What?”

“My birth mother was Anna Vieri.”

Clara sat down.

“I knew Anna.”

Marcella turned.

“You did?”

“She worked for Elena.”

Marcella looked frightened.

“What happened to her?”

Clara did not answer.

Marcella’s face changed.

“No.”

Clara said carefully:

“Anna disappeared the year you were born.”

Marcella stepped backward.

“All my life my mother told me I was a Marconi.”

“You are legally,” Clara said.

“But not by blood.”

Marcella looked at Alessio.

That truth answered one question neither of them had been willing to say aloud.

They were not blood cousins.

But it did not repair anything else.

Alessio looked at the key card.

“What will we find in the archive?”

Marcella wiped her face.

“I don’t know.”

“You went there.”

“Only once.”

“What did you see?”

“A ledger with Giovanni Romano’s name.”

Clara stood.

“And Luca?”

Marcella nodded.

“Yes.”

Alessio took the card.

“Then we go now.”

Marcella caught his arm.

“Alessio.”

He looked at her hand until she removed it.

She whispered:

“If my mother knows we have the recording, she will destroy the archive.”

Thomas looked toward the chapel windows.

“She may already be there.”

Marcella shook her head.

“No.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

She looked toward the road.

“Because she thinks the recording is still at the estate.”

Alessio’s face changed.

Clara whispered:

“Thomas.”

The old gardener understood first.

“The greenhouse.”

We ran outside.

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In the distance, far beyond the hill, smoke was already rising.

From the Romano estate.