Chapter 4 - Nineteen Missing Seconds

Victor Santoro was still downstairs.

Marcello could see him from the balcony.

Gray suit.

Silver tie.

Calm smile.

A glass of wine in one hand.

He was speaking to two board members as though the evening were perfectly normal.

Marcello watched him for several seconds.

Then he told his security chief, Dante, “Do not approach him.”

Dante looked surprised.

“You think he deleted the footage?”

“I think someone wants me to think about the footage before I think about what was inside it.”

Marcello returned to the security room.

The upstairs cameras showed Bianca entering the west corridor at 8:41 p.m.

Her stomach was visibly rounded beneath her silver gown.

She disappeared into the dressing room.

Thirty-two seconds later, Lily wandered into the hallway carrying a small paper flower from the dessert table.

Then the image jumped.

Nineteen seconds were gone.

When the footage returned, Lily was standing outside the dressing room.

Bianca emerged moments later.

Her stomach was rounded again.

Nothing else seemed strange.

Dante slowed the recording.

“Look at her left hand.”

Bianca’s silver evening bag was now clutched against her body.

Before the missing nineteen seconds, she had carried it on her shoulder.

Marcello leaned closer.

“There.”

A flash of gold appeared between her fingers.

The crown key.

Francesca whispered, “Lily was right.”

A three-year-old had noticed what a house full of adults had missed.

Marcello ordered a quiet search of the upstairs rooms.

Ten minutes later, Rosa, the elderly housekeeper, entered the security room holding a cream envelope.

“I found this beneath the dressing-room vanity.”

Inside was an ultrasound photograph.

Bianca’s name had been printed across the top.

But beneath it, partly hidden under a white correction label, another name was visible.

NADIA ROSSI.

The date was four years old.

Marcello felt something cold move through his chest.

He had looked at that image before.

Bianca had placed it in his hand and cried.

She had told him it was their baby at twelve weeks.

Rosa placed a second item on the desk.

A small adhesive label from Saint Aurelia Women’s Clinic.

The physician listed was Dr. Aldo Caruso.

The same doctor who had confirmed Bianca’s pregnancy.

The same doctor who had left the gala minutes before Lily spoke.

Dante checked his tablet.

“I found the deletion request.”

Marcello turned.

“Victor?”

“No.”

Dante looked unsettled.

“The deletion came from Victor’s administrator credentials, but the request originated from a terminal in the old library.”

“Who was in the library?”

“We’re checking.”

Rosa cleared her throat.

“I saw someone.”

Marcello looked at her.

“Who?”

She hesitated.

“At about eight-thirty, Mr. Santoro went into the library.”

That seemed to confirm everything.

Then Rosa continued.

“But five minutes later, I saw him downstairs speaking to your uncle.”

“Which uncle?”

“Arturo.”

Marcello’s expression changed.

Arturo Moretti was his father’s younger brother.

A man who had spent twenty years smiling at family photographs while resenting every decision made above his head.

Marcello returned his attention to the ultrasound.

If Bianca’s pregnancy was fake, the stolen agreement made sense.

If Victor had helped forge medical records, the deleted footage made sense.

But Arturo did not.

Not yet.

Francesca touched the corner of the ultrasound.

“Find Nadia Rossi.”

Marcello nodded.

Before he could respond, Lily spoke from the doorway.

Everyone had forgotten she was still there.

She pointed to a tiny symbol printed near the bottom of the ultrasound image.

A black rose.

“Mommy, that’s the flower from the man’s button.”

Francesca frowned.

“What man?”

Lily turned toward the ballroom.

“The old man who gave the pretty lady her drink.”

Marcello followed her gaze.

Across the room, Uncle Arturo adjusted one of his cufflinks.

Black enamel.

A rose surrounded by silver.

The same symbol printed beside the clinic file number.

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And suddenly the fake pregnancy no longer looked like one woman’s lie.

It looked organized.