Then the money.
For one second, she seemed not to understand.
Then her knees folded, and she sat down hard.
“No.”
Her voice was flat with shock.
“No, that is not mine. Marco, you know me. Six years. You know I could not.”
Marco looked at her.
He did know her.
That was the problem.
Evidence was a crueler language than character. It did not care what a man believed in his gut. It sat on a table and waited for someone to betray either love or procedure.
“Signora,” he said, using the title deliberately, because respect was the only weapon he could give her. “I am not accusing you. I am keeping you safe until the boss wakes.”
“If I had poisoned him,” Elena said, her eyes suddenly dry, “I would have run last night. I would be forty miles from this house by now. You know that.”
Marco said nothing.
Because he did.
And because the vial had been under her floor.
She was escorted back to the master bedroom. Not tied. Not shoved. Not spoken to unkindly.
But the door closed.
The bolt slid from the outside.
At the top of the stairs, behind a marble column, Mateo watched.
Bare feet on cold stone.
Stuffed elephant under one arm.
He saw the vial. He saw the money. He saw his mother led back to a locked room while every adult face said guilty without saying the word.
Something inside the five-year-old began to make a list.
Alessandro woke late the next afternoon with his throat scraped raw and his body heavy as wet sand.
Marco sat beside the bed.
No greeting.
No softness.
“Boss, I need to give you the report.”
Alessandro nodded once.
