Chapter 2 - The Story Bianca Had Been Building About Lucy
Vittorio carried Lucy upstairs himself.
He did not ask her what had happened while she was still shaking. He found clean pajamas, helped her change without rushing her, and noticed there were no serious injuries beneath the torn clothes. What unsettled him more was how carefully Lucy watched the bedroom door.
Every time footsteps sounded in the hallway, she stopped moving.
Emma remained outside until Vittorio opened the door.
The smartphone was still in her hand.
“I made a copy before I showed you,” she said quietly. “I was afraid somebody would take it.”
Vittorio understood immediately whom she meant.
Downstairs, Bianca had begun demanding that Marcus leave. Marcus refused, insisting he needed ice for his face and threatening to call the police over Vittorio’s punch.
Vittorio almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
Then he remembered something.
For nearly four months, Bianca had been telling him Lucy was becoming difficult.
Not cruel. Not dangerous.
“Difficult.”
Lucy had supposedly started lying about household staff. She had become “obsessed” with adult conversations. She wandered into rooms she had been told to avoid. She took things and later insisted she had not. Three times Bianca had suggested grief counseling because Lucy was “still acting out over Eleanor.”
Eleanor had been Lucy’s mother.
She had died three years earlier after a long illness.
Vittorio had believed he was being responsible by allowing Bianca to handle most of Lucy’s daily routine while he managed the family investment office in Manhattan several days a week.
Now the wording of those conversations came back differently.
Not one accusation had ever been dramatic enough to frighten him.
They had been small.
Plausible.
Constant.
“She lies when she thinks she’s in trouble.”
“She gets confused about what she sees.”
“She makes up explanations.”
“She wants you to take her side against me.”
Vittorio sat beside Lucy on the bed.
“Did Bianca tell you not to tell me things?”
Lucy looked toward Emma before answering.
“She said you already knew.”
That sentence hurt more than he expected.
“Knew what?”
Lucy pulled the blanket over her knees.
“She said you knew I was bad.”
Vittorio closed his eyes for half a second.
Downstairs, a door slammed.
Lucy flinched.
Emma noticed.
So did Vittorio.
He asked Emma when she had started recording.
“Today was the first time I got anything clear,” she said. “But it wasn’t the first time I saw Bianca punish her when you were gone.”
Vittorio turned toward her.
Emma looked ashamed.
“She never did anything like that when other people were close. She’d send me to another room. Marcus started coming over more. I thought they were arguing about money.”
“Why money?”
“Because he kept using the study.”
Vittorio’s attention sharpened.
Marcus had no reason to use his study.
The room contained household records, correspondence, insurance files, and a secure terminal linked to the family office. Marcus had never worked for Vittorio directly.
His construction company had done occasional maintenance work on the property.
That was all.
Emma continued.
“Lucy saw him in there yesterday.”
Vittorio looked at his daughter.
Lucy’s eyes dropped.
“That’s why she was in trouble?”
Emma hesitated.
“I think that’s where it started.”
For the first time, a partial explanation appeared.
Lucy had entered a room Bianca considered off-limits.
She had seen Marcus there.
Bianca had punished her.
Ugly, but understandable as a sequence.
Then Emma added one detail that destroyed the simplicity of it.
“Bianca had already canceled Lucy’s school ride before any of that happened.”
Vittorio frowned.
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
Lucy had not entered the study until later that night.
Which meant Bianca had decided Lucy would remain home this morning before Lucy had done the thing Bianca supposedly punished her for.
Vittorio looked toward the hallway.
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Bianca had not reacted impulsively.
She had been preparing for today.
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