Chapter 16 - Five Years
Alessandro served five years and four months.
Good conduct.
Cooperation credits.
No special favors I could prove.
I checked.
Marco accused me of conducting my own investigation.
Correct.
During those five years, life refused to wait.
Emma turned twelve.
Noah turned fifteen.
Lucia went back to work part-time as a seamstress.
Her hands remembered skills before her mind recovered every memory.
She eventually opened a tiny alterations shop.
Bellini & Daughter.
Emma hated sewing.
The name remained.
Sofia became director of the Moretti Medical Foundation and rebuilt it around transparent governance.
She refused to put the Moretti name on every building.
Alessandro complained from prison.
She ignored him.
Brother and sister learned each other through letters.
Slowly.
Awkwardly.
Beautifully.
Rachel served her sentence.
Lucia chose not to contact her.
Emma eventually wrote one letter.
I don’t hate you, but I don’t want to know you yet.
Rachel replied:
That is fair.
Nothing more.
Mara disappeared into another life.
I hoped it was peaceful.
Marco retired from “security.”
Then lasted eleven days.
He opened a private risk-consulting company because apparently relaxation offended him.
He married a woman named Theresa who laughed every time he tried to look intimidating.
Best thing that ever happened to him.
And me?
I lived.
Just as Alessandro asked.
I expanded my arts foundation.
Traveled to Sicily.
Twice.
Went to Palermo and met Arturo Vescari, the man who hid Isabella’s film inside the score.
He cried when I told him Alessandro had seen it.
He had been Isabella’s friend.
Not romantic.
Not criminal.
A musician’s son who helped her collect manuscripts.
“Why didn’t you send the evidence directly?”
I asked.
“Because everyone around Moretti opened his mail.”
Fair.
“Why me?”
“Isabella wrote your name.”
He showed me an old note.
If Elena is still beside him when the truth comes, trust her.
My throat closed.
Isabella had known me only briefly.
“Why?”
Arturo smiled.
“She said you argued with Alessandro in public.”
“That was her standard?”
“She considered it promising.”
I laughed.
That sounded exactly like Isabella.
The original score returned home with me.
I framed one page.
Not the hidden film.
The music.
We deserved some objects not connected to murder.
I visited Alessandro twice a month at first.
Then monthly.
Not because love faded.
Because prison can consume the lives of people outside too.
He insisted I stop structuring my calendar around him.
Sometimes we fought.
Sometimes badly.
One year, I didn’t visit for three months after he tried to interfere with a business decision from prison.
“You do not run my foundation from a correctional facility.”
“I was offering advice.”
“You were issuing commands.”
“Same tone.”
“Exactly.”
He apologized.
Eventually.
We learned something we should have learned earlier.
Love does not require constant access.
Boundaries survived prison better than control.
When release became real, I became terrified.
Not of Alessandro.
Of expectation.
Who would he be?
Who was I?
Could two people remain engaged through five years and still belong together afterward?
I did not know.
I told him.
He said:
“Good.”
“Good?”
“If you were certain, I would worry.”
He had changed too.
Release day came in early October.
No photographers.
No Moretti convoy.
No black SUVs.
Marco drove.
I waited at a small private residence outside the city.
Not a mansion.
Not a penthouse.
A house with too many trees.
The car arrived at 3:12 p.m.
Alessandro stepped out.
Gray at his temples.
Thinner.
Still unmistakably himself.
For five seconds, neither of us moved.
Then he smiled.
“You cut your hair.”
“That’s your first sentence?”
“I had five years to prepare.”
“Terrible use of time.”
He walked toward me.
Stopped.
Did not touch me.
“Can I?”
That question almost broke me.
Can I?
The old Alessandro would simply have taken.
I stepped forward.
He wrapped his arms around me.
Home did not feel like fireworks.
It felt like exhaling.
Emma arrived later.
Twelve years old.
Shoes on.
Bright yellow sneakers.
She stood in the doorway.
Alessandro stared.
“You grew.”
Emma rolled her eyes.
“That happens.”
Noah laughed.
Lucia cried.
Sofia brought food.
Marco brought wine.
Theresa corrected him and brought sparkling cider for Emma.
We sat around a table.
Not Il Cielo.
No gold.
No security perimeter.
No whispered men watching doors.
At dessert, everyone became silent.
Chocolate cake.
Emma looked at Alessandro.
He looked at me.
I looked at the cake.
Marco said:
“I’ll taste it.”
Everyone laughed.
Even Alessandro.
Especially me.
Then Emma switched Alessandro’s plate with hers.
His face went white.
She grinned.
“Relax.”
“You are a terrible child.”
“You taught me.”
“I did not.”
Elena almost died because you switched cake.
“You have been waiting five years for that joke?”
“Yes.”
We laughed until Lucia cried harder.
May you like
The memory remained.
But it no longer owned the room.
