Chapter Twenty-Six Antonios Confession
Her father looked smaller than she remembered, folded into the same leather chair in the same study where this had all begun four months ago, his hands shaking around a glass of scotch he hadn't touched.
"Elena." His voice cracked on her name. "I didn't think you'd want to see me. Not after—"
"I don't want apologies right now, Papa.
I want the truth." She sat across from him, Dante a quiet, watchful presence at her shoulder.
"Someone sent a photograph of me to Dante's office.
Someone who's been on the estate grounds without anyone seeing them.
Dante thinks it might be connected to debts you had that weren't his. "
Antonio's face went gray. He looked, for a long moment, like he might actually be sick, and when he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"His name is Enzo Marchetti," he said. "I borrowed from him three years ago, before I ever went to the Morettis — smaller amounts, easier terms, or so I thought.
I never told your mother. I never told anyone.
" His hands were shaking so badly the scotch sloshed over the rim of the glass.
"When Dante settled my debt to him, I thought it was over.
I didn't realize Marchetti still considered the interest outstanding — interest he'd apparently been quietly building for years, interest he never disclosed until three weeks ago, when he came to this house and told me I still owed him, and that if I didn't pay, he'd find another way to collect. "
"And you didn't tell me." Dante's voice had gone very quiet, very controlled — the voice Elena had learned meant he was working extremely hard not to lose his temper entirely. "You let a man threaten my wife, and you said nothing."
"I was afraid! Afraid of you, afraid of him, afraid of losing what little was left of my family's name!
" Antonio's composure cracked entirely, tears spilling down a face that had aged a decade in four months.
"He said if I told you, he'd hurt her before you could stop him.
He said the photograph was just a warning. I didn't know what else to do."
Elena felt something in her chest go cold and very still. "How much does he want?"
"Everything. He wants everything I have left, and he's implied — he's implied that if I can't pay, he'll take payment another way.
" Antonio's eyes, wet and terrified, found his daughter's face.
"I am so sorry, Elena. I am so sorry I have done nothing in this entire disaster except make things worse for you. "
Elena rose, crossed the room, and — to her own surprise as much as her father's — knelt beside his chair and took his shaking hands in hers.
"You should have told us the moment he came to you," she said, gently but without flinching from the truth of it.
"But I'm not going to let you carry this alone anymore, and neither is Dante.
We're going to end this, Papa. All of it. "
Dante had gone very still by the door, watching his wife comfort the man whose weakness had nearly cost them everything, and something in his expression, when Elena glanced back at him, had shifted into something fierce and resolute.
"Marchetti made a mistake," Dante said quietly, "threatening my wife's family to collect a debt he has no legal claim to anymore. I intend to make sure he understands exactly how large a mistake that was."