14. Massimo
MASSIMO
My mother's summons came while I was in a meeting with the board.
Enzo texted me three words—Palazzo. Now. Family—and that was enough to make me excuse myself and leave Corrado to close the session without me. I didn't ask what it was about. In our family, you don't ask. You just come.
The drive back to the palazzo felt longer than it should have.
Traffic snarled at the corner near the fountain, and I sat there drumming my fingers against the steering wheel, watching an old woman drag a shopping cart across the intersection like she had all the time in the world.
God. My chest tightened for no reason I could name.
Maybe it was the way Enzo had worded the message—short, flat, no explanation.
Maybe it was the fact that he'd texted at all instead of calling.
When I pulled through the gates, Enzo's car was already in the drive. So was another I didn't recognize—sleek, black, the kind of expensive that meant someone important. My hands tightened on the wheel before I shut off the engine.
Whatever this was, it wasn't good.
I found them in my father's study. My mother stood by the tall window overlooking the courtyard, her back straight, hands folded in front of her like she was posing for a portrait.
Enzo leaned against the edge of the desk, arms crossed over his chest. And Signor Greco—Vittoria's father—sat in the leather chair my own father used to favor before his health turned, looking at me with the kind of patience that made my stomach drop.
"Massimo." My mother's voice was cool, controlled. She didn't smile. She gestured toward the chair across from Greco. "Sit down."
I stayed standing. "What's this about?"
She exchanged a glance with Enzo. My brother pushed off the desk and came toward me, and that's when I saw he was holding something. A photograph. He held it out without saying a word.
I took it.
The image was sharp, professional—too clear to be accidental.
A café somewhere, outdoor seating, the kind of place tourists went.
Rome, I realized, recognizing the street behind the tables.
Laney sat at one of the small iron chairs, leaning forward slightly, her hand wrapped around an espresso cup.
She wore a blue shirt. Across from her sat the American—Nate, the one she'd introduced me to in Rome.
He was smiling at her like they'd known each other forever.
I stared at the photograph. My throat tightened.
"When was this taken?" I asked. My voice came out flat, carefully empty.
Enzo watched me. "Does it matter?"
My mother stepped closer. Her heels clicked against the floor, sharp and deliberate. "Your wife was in Rome three days, Massimo. Three full days. With that man."
I looked up from the photograph. "You had her followed."
"Enzo had her followed," my mother said, like the distinction mattered. Like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. "And it's fortunate that he did."
I turned to Enzo. He met my eyes without flinching, without apology.
"I didn't trust the trip," he said. His voice was calm, matter-of-fact.
"She went to Rome, no explanation, no family with her—just work, she said.
The dig, the university, her papers. So I sent someone to make sure that's all it was. "
"And?" I heard myself ask.
"And it wasn't." Enzo nodded at the photograph in my hand. "Three days. One man. No dig. No professors. Just him."
My mother moved to stand beside me. I could smell her perfume, expensive and floral. She tapped the photograph with one manicured fingernail. "Three days, Massimo. She spent three days with this man, and she never said a word to any of us. Not his name. Not who he is. Nothing."
I wanted to put the photograph down, but my fingers wouldn't let go. Laney looked happy in the image—relaxed, open, more at ease than I'd seen her in months. Maybe longer. My chest felt like someone had reached in and squeezed, but I forced the feeling down and looked back at Enzo.
"So what?" I said. "She had coffee with someone. That doesn't mean?—"
"It means," Enzo interrupted, his voice hard now, "that your wife never told us who this man is. Never mentioned him. Not once."
The words hung in the air between us.
I waited for him to go on, but he didn't. He just stood there, watching me with that infuriating calm, like he'd already won an argument I didn't even know we were having.
"She didn't tell you," I said slowly, "because it's none of your damn business who she has coffee with."
Signor Greco cleared his throat.
It wasn't loud, but it pulled the attention in the room to him like a magnet. He stood from the chair—slowly, the way a man moves when he knows his presence alone carries weight—and came around the desk toward me.
"Massimo," he said. My name in his mouth sounded too familiar, too comfortable. "May I?"
He held out his hand for the photograph. I looked at it, then at him, then handed it over.
Greco studied the image for a long moment, tilting it slightly toward the light from the window. Then he looked up at me. "Do you know this man?"
"She introduced him in Rome," I said. "Nate Prescott. An old friend from university, she said."
"And before that?" Greco set the photograph down on the desk, face-up, angled so I could still see it. "Had you ever heard his name before that day? Did she tell you she was meeting him? Did she explain who he really was, what he meant to her, why she spent three days with him?"
I said nothing.
"Your wife spent three days in Rome with a man she never mentioned to you—to any of you—until you found them together. A man she kept secret for ten years of marriage."
I opened my mouth to respond, but he kept talking, his voice steady and reasonable.
"That photograph was taken by Enzo's man on the second day. They were together all three days, Massimo. Meals together. Walking the streets together. Alone."
My mother stepped in beside Greco, and the two of them stood there like they were on the same side of something I was only just beginning to see. "She lied to you," my mother said quietly. "By omission, perhaps, but it is still a lie."
"She didn't lie." The words came out harder than I meant them to, rough at the edges. "She went to Rome for her work. For the dig, for the university contacts she maintains. You all know that."
"Work." Enzo laughed—short, sharp, humorless. "Right. Sure. Work."
I turned on him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
He didn't flinch. "It means she went to Rome, Massimo.
Three days. And none of us know what she actually did there.
Who she saw. What she told them about us.
We know she digs up pottery shards and writes academic papers nobody in this country gives a damn about, but beyond that? You don't even know, do you?"
"I know my wife," I said.
"Do you?" My mother's voice was soft, but it cut deep. "Because the woman in that photograph looks very comfortable with a man she never told you about—a man she kept hidden for ten years."
I wanted to defend Laney. God, I wanted to, but my throat had gone dry and tight, and the photograph sat there on the desk between all of us, undeniable and damning.
Greco stepped closer to me. For a second I thought he was going to clap me on the shoulder, but he seemed to think better of it and just stood there, hands clasped in front of him.
"Massimo," he said, and his tone had shifted—gentler now, almost fatherly.
"I understand this is difficult for you.
Believe me, I do. But we are talking about honour here. "
The word landed like a stone dropped into still water.
"Your family's honour," Greco continued.
He gestured to my mother and Enzo, including them.
"Your personal honour. A man's wife does not vanish to another city with another man and then return home as if nothing happened.
It reflects on you. On your family. On your name.
And when that dishonour touches your house, Massimo, it touches mine as well. "
I looked at him, trying to understand. "What does your family have to do with any of this?"
His expression didn't change. Calm. Patient.
Unmoved. "Everything, Massimo. Your father and I have been allies for thirty years.
Our families are bound together by that alliance, by mutual respect and mutual benefit.
But alliances like ours are built on honour, and honour must be protected.
If your house cannot manage its own affairs—if it cannot even keep its own family in order—then how can mine continue to trust it? "
"That's—" I stopped. Swallowed. Took a breath and tried again. "That's not a fair comparison."
"Fair?" Greco's voice hardened, just a fraction.
"Is it fair that my daughter has waited years for a match worthy of her station, only to watch this family spiral into scandal?
Is it fair that I must stand here and explain to a man I once thought highly of why he cannot even keep his own wife faithful to him? "
My jaw tightened. The muscle in my neck jumped.
My mother's hand came to rest on the edge of the desk, her fingers spread lightly against the dark wood.
"Signor Greco has been more than patient with us, Massimo.
He has been a friend to this family when he had no obligation to be.
What he is owed now—what his daughter is owed—is respect. Consideration."
I looked at her, then at Greco. The air in the room felt too thick to breathe. "I'm not discussing Vittoria right now."
"No one is asking you to discuss her," my mother said smoothly. Too smoothly. "We are simply asking you to see the situation as it is. Your wife has humiliated you, Massimo. She has humiliated all of us. And yet you stand here defending her as if she deserves it."
"She does deserve it," I said. The words came out too loud, filling the study, and I heard the desperation in them. I forced my voice lower, steadier. "Laney wouldn't do what you're implying. She wouldn't. You don't know her the way I do."
Enzo tilted his head slightly, studying me. "Then tell us who he really is. Tell us what he means to her."
I couldn't.
The silence stretched out, thick and suffocating.
"Go ahead," Enzo pressed. His voice was quiet now, almost gentle, which somehow made it worse. "You know his name. But did she tell you anything else? Why she was meeting him? What those three days were about? Why she never mentioned him before—not once in ten years of marriage?"
I didn't have an answer.
"She has her own life," I said finally. It sounded weak even to my own ears. "Her work. Her colleagues from university, from the field. I don't—I don't make her account for every single person she knows from before we were married."
"Colleagues." My mother's tone was dry as bone. "Is that what we're calling him now?"
"Mamma—"
"She never told you who he is, Massimo. That is a fact. You cannot argue your way around it."
I wanted to. God, I wanted to, but the fact sat there between us like the photograph itself—solid, undeniable, impossible to ignore.
Enzo moved closer. He picked the photograph up from the desk and held it out toward me again. "Three days," he said quietly. "She spent three days in Rome with this man. Alone. And then she came home and has told you nothing more about him or those three days."
My hands curled into fists at my sides. "Maybe she didn't say anything because she knew you'd do exactly this. Twist it into something it isn't."
"We're not twisting anything." Enzo's voice stayed level. He set the photograph back down on the desk, right in front of me. "This is what it is, Massimo. Look at it. Really look."
I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it. My eyes went back to the image—Laney's smile, the easy way she leaned toward the man across from her, the comfortable familiarity in the angle of her shoulders.
Enzo exhaled. "You know what I think? I think you're not actually defending her right now.
I think you're defending yourself. Because if she did this—if she lied to your face, if she went to another man and came home like nothing happened—then that means you missed it.
You didn't see it. And you can't stand that, can you? "
"That's not true," I said, but the words felt hollow.
A shake had entered my hands. I shoved them into my pockets so no one would see.
Greco's voice cut through the tension, measured and calm as always. "Massimo. Listen to me. You are a smart man. A capable man. I have always believed that about you. But even smart men—even good men—can be deceived. Especially when the deception comes from someone they love."
The words settled over me like a weight pressing down on my chest.
I looked at the photograph one more time. Laney's face. Nate across from her. The three days I hadn't questioned, hadn't asked about.
"She never told me about him," I said. My voice came out rough. "Not before Rome. I didn't know—I don't know what those three days were."
The admission felt like pulling broken glass out of my own chest.
No one spoke.
I looked up. My mother's expression was carefully, perfectly neutral. Enzo's was something close to pity, which was almost worse. Greco just watched me with that same patient, fatherly look, waiting.
"But that doesn't mean what you think it means," I added. My voice sounded far away, like it belonged to someone else. "It doesn't prove anything."
My mother moved toward the door. She paused there, one hand on the frame. "We're not asking you to decide anything today, Massimo. We are simply asking you to see what is in front of you. To stop pretending everything is fine when it clearly is not."
Greco nodded slowly. "Take the time you need to think," he said. "But do not take too long. Honour does not wait for a man to be ready to face it."
He walked past me, close enough that I could smell the faint scent of his cologne—something sharp and expensive. My mother followed him out, her heels clicking against the floor in a steady rhythm.
Enzo lingered behind for a moment.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. He actually sounded like he meant it. "I know this isn't easy. I know she's your wife. But you needed to see it."
Then he left too.
And I stood there alone in my father's study, staring down at the photograph, trying to convince myself I still knew her.
I wanted to believe her.
I just wasn't sure anymore.