59
LUCA BELLANDI
Two weeks later, Beatrice asked to meet me at the Aurea Foundation’s Brazilian headquarters. I was in S?o Paulo for Camila’s follow-up appointment. Gabriela and Cris stayed with her at the hospital while I went to the office.
Beatrice said she’d left her phone in Rome and changed hotels since arriving. Her lawyer already had copies of the threats. There were also photographs of a damaged lock at her Italian apartment; we still didn’t know who had tried to get in.
Her lawyer came with her. I also invited the lawyer overseeing the external investigation. Before we began, I asked them to document the handover of the files.
I found Beatrice in a windowless conference room. The woman who once entered every room as if she owned it now sat with her hands clenched around a purse.
“Does Lorenzo know you’re here?”
“If he did, I wouldn’t be alive much longer.”
“What did he say?”
“That if I talked, I’d have nowhere to hide. My lawyer has the messages.”
I offered no comfort.
“Talk.”
Beatrice took a flash drive from her purse.
“There are messages he sent me, receipts I received when I arranged the payments, and recordings of our conversations. I kept copies because I knew he’d leave me to take the blame.”
“Why hand them over now?”
“Because he intends to blame all of it on me. And because he threatened to release the girl’s medical records.”
My body went rigid.
“Did you access those records?”
“No. I told him where you were after recognizing the institute in a photograph. I thought he’d use it to put pressure on you.”
“And you thought that was acceptable?”
“At the time, yes.”
She held my gaze. I couldn’t tell whether her honesty came from fear or calculation. Either way, I wanted her to continue.
“He plans to release Camila’s information?” I asked.
“He sent me this image,” she said, opening a photograph of a screen displaying Camila’s name and diagnosis. “He said a journalist already knew there was a child connected to you. He wants to expose all three when the board starts questioning him.”
“Which journalist?”
“I don’t know the name. Lorenzo was dealing with an intermediary in London. There’s an email address in the messages.”
The investigation’s lawyer raised her hand before I could ask another question.
“Let’s separate what you saw from what Lorenzo told you,” she said. “We need the original messages and any names you can identify.”
I nodded impatiently. Beatrice pointed out the file; the lawyer noted which device it had come from and who still had access to it.
“If any of the children’s information is published…”
“What will you do to me?” Beatrice took off her glasses. A purple bruise darkened her temple. “I already know what the Bellandis are capable of.”
I stopped myself from threatening her. She’d helped destroy Gabriela, but her fear was real.
“Your lawyer will take the threats to the authorities. Whatever you hand over here will go to them too. I won’t conceal your part in it.”
“Including the hotel?”
“Especially the hotel, the messages, and the defamation.”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“I wanted her to feel the humiliation I felt when you left me. Lorenzo promised Gabriela would leave with money and no one would really get hurt.”
“Was his room ready?” I asked.
“It was. I asked them to delay giving it to him.”
The lawyer asked for the name of the person who’d received that instruction. Beatrice answered and pointed to a conversation in the files she’d brought. I read the date. The message had been sent before Gabriela and Cris went upstairs.
“You wanted them together in the room,” I said.
“I wanted you to see them together. The photographer had been in the building opposite since that afternoon.”
I found the four pictures in the folder I’d brought and laid them in order on the table. Beatrice touched the first two.
“These weren’t altered. The hug before dinner and the kiss afterward. He sent me everything that night.”
“And this one?”
Cris’s departure was still marked six forty-two. The real time appeared in the confirmation the hotel had sent Gabriela’s lawyer five years earlier. I’d only read that document during the investigation. I wanted to hear Beatrice say it.
“They changed the time. He left at eleven forty-three that night. It’s the same image.”
Her files contained the screenshot with the original time and a message from Lorenzo asking for it to be changed before printing.
The key card was still in Cris’s hand. That detail had been right in front of me when Gabriela asked me to speak to the employee.
The confession explained how they’d fabricated the story; it didn’t make the evidence I’d refused to examine new.
“And the record showing his room was empty?”
“We only included entries made with his assigned card. The employee used the master key. Lorenzo had that line removed from the report.”
The lawyer noted the names and times to check against the records and statements.
There was no forensic report on these files yet.
There was Beatrice, sitting in front of me, describing what she’d done, and files that could be checked against the documents already collected to establish her involvement.
“Were the messages fabricated too?” I asked.
She nodded. Gabriela had used the organizers’ phone to speak to a supplier.
It had been collected before dinner; the intimate conversations existed only on the pages prepared for me.
Beatrice had given phrases and names to the man who assembled the data extraction report.
The contractor worked for the hotel’s security team. I’d trusted his letterhead.
“How did you get the pregnancy test result?”
“Lorenzo found out Cris had gone to the lab with her. An employee sent him a copy and the ultrasound order. Lorenzo forwarded the message to me. Her name is in there; I wasn’t the one who spoke to her.”
I pushed the sheets away. That night, I could have waited for a call from reception. I wouldn’t even have needed to uncover all this to keep Gabriela from being thrown out.
In another recording, Beatrice and Lorenzo discussed the test from the week of the opening.
He said he’d arranged with Marinelli to replace the result and pressed her for the second payment.
The amount matched one the audit had uncovered.
There were also messages to Beatrice about letters received and Paola’s transfer.
The lawyer set the files aside to compare with the records already preserved.
A spreadsheet and accompanying messages showed payments to the agency that had spread the rumors after the opening. Lorenzo demanded updates on the contracts Gabriela had lost. I read the name of a client whose cancellation I’d seen in the report at the time.
“Did you approve this?”
Beatrice lowered her eyes.
“I approved the contact with the press. I didn’t know they’d go after the firm’s contracts.”
“You read the plan and chose not to ask. I know how that works.”
In one recording, Beatrice asked whether the material would be enough to convince me. Lorenzo answered with a laugh.
“Luca will do the rest. My brother would rather destroy what he loves than admit he can be fooled.”
I asked them to play it again. The second time, I looked at the photographs. Lorenzo had supplied the pages; I’d chosen every word I said to Gabriela.
“And the first tests?” I asked. “The ones from almost twenty years ago?”
Beatrice shook her head.
“They already existed when I found out about them. Lorenzo only spoke to me about the new report.”
The lawyer marked that question on the list. We still needed to hear from Marinelli and trace the origin of the old documents. I closed the folder without the answer that had been hidden the longest.
Gabriela called from the hospital. I told her I needed to speak to her and went to meet her. In a private room, I told her about the threat to leak the records while Cris stayed with Camila. Gabriela wanted to see the documents that day and asked for her lawyer to receive the same copies.
“Does he have her medical records?”
“We received a photograph of a screen with her name and diagnosis. They’re still checking where it came from. The institute has been informed and has preserved the access logs. Your lawyer is already in touch with the team about the threat to release it.”
“How did someone get that inside the institute?”
“Management has opened an inquiry. I don’t have that answer yet.”
“Luca, you promised to protect them from the press.”
“And I will.”
“Don’t make promises that depend on hundreds of people.”
I took a breath.
“You’re right. I can’t guarantee absolute silence. I can guarantee we won’t hide a crime to protect the Bellandi name.”
“What does that mean?”
“The evidence goes to the authorities. The board needs to know what Lorenzo did with the group’s resources. The children’s details don’t need to go to a press conference.”
Gabriela sat down.
“Do you have proof?”
I showed her the message Lorenzo had sent Beatrice after Gabriela’s admission to the hospital. Beside it lay the record of the notification Paola had forwarded to the president’s on-call staff. Gabriela drew the two sheets together.
“He already knew when he met me in reception.”
“Yes. This notice arrived before your visit.”
She covered her face with her hands.
“Sofia also told me about the hemorrhage and the three babies,” I added. “Lorenzo kept the messages. I turned away the other people who tried to speak to me.”
She folded forward in the chair. I stayed close without touching her.
“I want a copy of everything that mentions me or the children.”
“Your lawyer will receive it directly from the team preserving the files.”
“I don’t want a version filtered through the group.”
“She can deal directly with the investigation’s lawyer. I’ll send her the contact information.”
“And you had dinner with him. Worked with him.”
“Yes.”
“He looked at the ultrasound and pretended I was making it all up.”
I knelt in front of her chair.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You weren’t the one who intercepted it.”
“I was the one who gave him the power to act in my name.”
The tears came.
“At reception, I asked them to put the image in your hands. I left with a receipt,” she said. “You were there, Luca.”
I lowered my eyes.
“I could have come downstairs.”
“You could have.”
Gabriela gathered the papers. No file changed what I’d seen on the camera or what I’d chosen to do afterward. I waited while she put everything in the folder.
“The board will protect him,” she said.
“Some will try.”
“And you?”
“I won’t protect him or myself.”
I stood and wrote down the contact details for the lawyer handling the request to protect Camila’s information.
“We can speak to a security firm in Paraty. Or find somewhere to stay until we know how far the threat goes.”
“I’m not running from my own home because of Lorenzo.”
“Then we’ll arrange support there once we’re back.”
“And you? Are you going to Italy?”
“I need to attend the meeting. I’ll agree on the dates with you first. And we can meet the security people together.”
“I don’t want strangers coming into the guesthouse.”
“I’ll ask them to meet with us first. Your lawyer can join us too.”
“And the school?”
“We’ll speak to the principal and review the contacts and who’s authorized to collect the children.”
“The pickup list stays the same. You, me, my mother, and Cris. No one sends a driver or employee instead.”
“Agreed. I’ll tell my team too.”
Gabriela nodded. The next day, back in Paraty, we spoke to the principal. Gabriela’s mother came to the guesthouse with Cris so we could arrange the schedule. With the children, we simply went over who would be picking them up.
“What if the person says you sent them?” Noah asked me.
“If it isn’t me, your mother, your grandmother, or Cris, you stay with your teacher. She’ll call us.”
Camila pointed to her grandmother by the window and asked whether she would be picking them up the next day. Gabriela’s mother said yes. Heitor asked her to bring the usual snack.
That night, I requested an extraordinary board meeting in Como. The lawyers needed a few days to organize the material. I agreed on the travel dates with Gabriela and booked my return for the day before I was due to collect the children from school.
The files went to the Italian authorities. The auditors preserved copies outside the group, and Lorenzo was notified of his precautionary suspension and the revocation of his access, decided in a remote board session. Matteo called me after the notice went out.
“Now he knows what we have,” he said. I didn’t answer. An incoming call from Lorenzo was flashing on my screen.
I ended the call with Matteo and answered my brother.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I stepped away from the table so the children in the next room wouldn’t hear.
“Finishing what you started.”
“Everything I did was to protect the family from an opportunist.”
“She was my family. So were the children.”
Silence.
“You’ll sacrifice the group for a woman who’s already chosen another man?”
I looked at the photograph in my wallet: the three of them with flour-covered faces.
“I’m not doing this so she’ll choose me.”
“She’s always made you weak.”
“No. I was weak when I threw her out. Now I’m simply telling the truth.”
He hung up. I kept the phone against my ear until the screen went dark. Then I told the lawyers Lorenzo had contacted me and wrote down what he’d said.