Chapter 18 - Aunt Matilda’s TeaMatilda Romano received guests in a room full of flowers.
Always.
White lilies in crystal vases. Pink roses near the window. Orchids arranged with museum precision. The room smelled sweet enough to hide rot.
She was seventy-one, delicate, silver-haired, and dressed in mourning black though no funeral had been announced. Her hands trembled slightly as she poured tea, but Allessandro no longer believed in harmless trembling.
She looked up when he entered.
“Allessandro,” she said softly. “You should have called.”
Caleb came in behind him.
Nathan followed between two guards, wrists bound.
Matilda’s eyes moved to Nathan.
No surprise.
Only disappointment.
“Poor boy,” she said. “You were always too easy to catch.”
Nathan looked away.
Allessandro remained standing.
“No tea?”
“Not from you.”
Matilda smiled.
For the first time, he saw the family resemblance.
Not to Carlo.
To something older.
Cruelty polished until it looked like etiquette.
“I wondered when you would find your way here,” she said.
“You used Isabella.”
“Yes.”
“You used Carlo.”
“For forty years.”
Caleb’s face tightened.
Nathan laughed once, bitter. “Told you.”
Allessandro’s eyes stayed on Matilda.
“Why?”
Matilda poured tea into her own cup.
“Because Giovanni Romano stole my life.”
Allessandro said nothing.
“My husband worshiped him. The council respected him. Your mother softened him. You inherited him. Everyone orbited Giovanni.” Her hand tightened around the cup. “Carlo was always second. I was less than second. We were furniture in the house Giovanni built.”
“So you killed him.”
“I encouraged a correction.”
“And my mother?”
Matilda’s smile faded.
“She should have stayed grieving.”
Allessandro stepped forward.
Caleb moved with him.
Matilda set down the cup calmly.
“Your mother was going to expose Carlo. Expose me. Expose everything. She said the family could survive truth.”
Her eyes hardened.
“She was wrong. Families survive silence.”
Allessandro’s voice was low. “You pushed her.”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to stop breathing.
Even Nathan looked shaken.
Matilda continued, almost conversational. “She reached for the railing. I remember that. She looked so surprised. Not frightened. Surprised. As if betrayal should announce itself first.”
Allessandro crossed the room in two strides.
Caleb grabbed his arm.
For the first time in twelve years, Caleb physically stopped him.
“Allessandro,” he warned.
Matilda looked pleased.
“There. That is Giovanni in you. Rage pretending to be justice.”
Allessandro breathed once.
Twice.
Then stepped back.
Matilda seemed disappointed.
“You have become less interesting.”
“No,” he said. “I have become harder to use.”
Her eyes narrowed.
He placed a recorder on the table.
A red light blinked.
Matilda looked at it.
Then laughed.
“You recorded me?”
“Yes.”
“You think society will care? Old women confess strange things. Grief confuses the mind. Lawyers will bury this.”
Allessandro looked around the flower-filled room.
“Not lawyers.”
The door opened.
Vittorio Vale entered first.
Then Matteo D’Angelo.
Then Senator Walsh.
Then Father Brennan, the Romano family priest, pale and grim.
Matilda’s smile vanished.
Allessandro said, “Witnesses.”
Matilda’s hand trembled for real now.
“You would bring outsiders into family matters?”
“You killed my family.”
Her eyes flashed. “I preserved it.”
“No. Emma preserved it.”
At the child’s name, Matilda’s expression twisted.
“That little maid ruined forty years of work.”
Caleb stepped forward. “Say one more word about her.”
Matilda ignored him.
She looked at Allessandro.
“You think saving a servant’s child makes you clean?”
“No.”
“You think protecting her redeems the blood on your name?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Allessandro paused.
Because she was innocent.
Because she was brave.
Because his mother had once written that truth could survive if someone protected it.
Because for ten years he had mistaken isolation for strength.
He said only, “Because she told the truth.”
Matilda stared at him.
Then slowly, she began to laugh.
It started softly.
Then grew.
Not madness.
Defiance.
“You still don’t know the final truth.”
Allessandro’s eyes narrowed.
Matilda leaned forward.
“Giovanni did kill Agnes’s son.”
Dominic, standing in the doorway behind the others, went still.
Matilda smiled at him.
“Oh yes. You didn’t know either.”
Agnes Bell had been brought in under guard and stood near the back. Her face collapsed.
Matilda’s voice turned sweet.
“Carlo poisoned Giovanni. I pushed your mother. Isabella poisoned the butter. Nathan planted the doll.” She lifted her teacup with both hands. “But Giovanni Romano ordered the death that began all of this.”
Allessandro felt the room tilt.
Matilda whispered, “Your father was not a saint, darling. None of us are.”
May you like
For once, Allessandro had no answer.
And in that silence, Agnes Bell began to cry.
