1. Chapter One #2
Every conversation stops.
No one reaches for another plate. Even the small sounds from the babies seem louder in the silence.
Alessio looks around the table before his eyes settle on me.
“I met her at the club earlier tonight,” he says.
His voice is steady, but his hand remains wrapped around the coffee cup.
“What happened?” I ask.
He draws a breath.
“It was immediate. The attraction.” He glances down for a moment, searching for the right words. “She was sexy. Seductive. There was something about her.”
Tomasso leans back slightly in his chair. Dante’s expression tightens, though he says nothing.
“We started talking,” Alessio continues. “We hit it off quickly.”
I have questions, but I know he needs to tell it in his own way.
“Yes, we went back to the hotel together,” Alessio says. “I’m not denying that. I was with her. I left when I did because I was on duty this morning.”
He lifts his eyes and seems to realize that everyone in the family is at the table, and he probably shouldn't go into too much detail about what his duty was.
Mario watches him from the other end of the table, one hand resting near Victoria’s chair.
“So you left when you… finished,” Ricardo says.
“Yes.” Alessio nods. “But we were going to meet again. Tonight.”
Julia lowers her fork. She is an attorney as well, but not a criminal attorney. However, she would still be familiar with just how serious this situation is.
“I don’t know what happened after I left,” Alessio says. “I don’t know who came into that room or how long she was alone.”
His grip tightens around the cup.
“But she was alive when I walked out.”
His jaw clenches hard enough for me to see the muscle shift.
No one interrupts him.
Alessio stares into his coffee.
“If I had stayed, she would still be alive.”
Edoardo turns toward him at once. “You don’t know that.”
Alessio looks at his brother, anger and grief cutting through the exhaustion on his face.
“Yes, I do,” he says angrily. “I know I left her there.”
“You might be dead too,” Edoardo says, showing emotion that is rare from him.
“Either way, this is on me,” Alessio says.
“This is on whoever killed her,” I say. “You left her in a hotel room having no reason to think that she wouldn't be perfectly fine.”
“I should have taken her home myself,” he says. “Made sure she got there safe.”
Alessio looks away.
Tomasso rubs a hand over his mouth. Matteo stares down at his plate. Dante’s attention stays fixed on Alessio.
Victoria watches Alessio with worry in her eyes. Mario remains still beside her, studying my son as carefully as I am.
I let the silence hold for another moment.
“The only thing we can do now is figure out what happened after you left, and why the police think you're the one who did it.” I lean forward. “Tell us everything you remember.”
***
Julian keeps us waiting for less than five minutes.
It is still long enough for Alessio to stand, cross the length of the office, turn near the windows, and walk back again.
I remain in one of the chairs facing Julian’s desk.
My son has been restless since we left the house, though restless is too mild a word for what I am watching.
Every movement is edged with anger. He pushes one hand through his hair, drops it, then reaches for his phone before remembering that the police still have it.
Julian has assured us that they cannot look through it without a warrant, and I know for a fact that there's nothing damning on it.
But it still doesn't sit right with me
“Sit down,” I tell him.
“I’ve been sitting all night.”
“Then stand still.”
He stops near the window and looks at me.
The exhaustion in his face makes him look older than his twenty-four years. There are shadows beneath his eyes that were not there yesterday. Alessio is usually the most polished, charming person in any room. Even after a night out, he somehow manages to come out on top.
This morning, he looks like a man who just realized that one single night can tear your entire life apart.
The door opens, and Julian walks in carrying a folder beneath one arm and Alessio's phone in his hand.
He closes the door behind him and crosses to his desk. He has removed his suit jacket since the station, but the rest of him remains exactly as it was before dawn. His tie is straight. His sleeves are buttoned. There is no sign that he has gotten any more sleep than the rest of us.
Alessio moves away from the window. “How did you get that? I thought it was evidence.”
Julian places the phone on the desk. “The police couldn't come up with a substantial enough reason to admit it into evidence.”
I look at the phone, then at him. “What changed?”
Julian takes his seat and places the folder on the desk between us. “There may be benefit to having a judge in the family after all.”
“Hmm” is all I say.
Who could have guessed that after Julia married Ricardo and had the baby, her father, Judge Patrick O’Brien, would be more open to dealing with our family?
“You said you had something,” I say, moving on.
“I do.”
Alessio returns to the chair beside mine. He sits forward, forearms braced on his thighs, his attention fixed on the folder.
Julian opens it.
“I got my hands on some of the evidence the police have against you.”
“What evidence?” Alessio asks.
Julian turns one page, then slides a photograph across the desk.
It is a still image taken from hotel security footage. The angle is high, looking down on part of a hallway. Alessio is in the frame, his head turned slightly as he walks beneath one of the cameras.
A timestamp runs along the bottom.
1:30 a.m.
Alessio takes the page before I can reach for it.
He stares at the image.
“What is this?”
“Footage from the hotel,” Julian says. “According to the timestamp, you left at 1:30 this morning.”
Alessio looks up sharply. “No.”
“That is what the recording shows.”
“No.” He drops the page onto the desk and points at the time. “That’s wrong.”
Julian folds his hands in front of him. “How so?”
“I left just after midnight.”
“How long after?”
“I don’t know. A few minutes. I wasn’t checking the exact second when I walked out.”
“Could it have been later than you remember?”
“Well, it sure wasn’t 1:30.”
Julian watches him without reacting.
Alessio leans closer to the desk. “I was home before 1:00. I know that much.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes.”
“You had been drinking.”
Alessio gives a short, humorless laugh and sits back. “Hours before. I wasn't drunk.”
Julian glances down at the file. “The police are going to press that point.”
“They can press whatever they want. I left just after midnight.”
I pick up the still image and study it.
The man in the footage is clearly Alessio. His face is visible. His clothes match what he was wearing when the police took him from the house. Anyone looking at the image would know exactly who it is.
The time beneath him is the lie.
“What did the hotel give them?” I ask.
“More than this still.” Julian turns another page. “They have footage of Alessio entering with Genevieve. They have footage that shows him leaving at 1:30. At the moment, they are treating the timestamps as accurate.”
“What was the time of death?” I ask.
Julian’s gaze comes to mine.
“They put it between 12:30 and 1:00. That's an preliminary estimate until the autopsy.”
Alessio looks from Julian to me.
Then he reaches for the photograph again.
“No,” he says. “I was already gone.”
Julian says nothing.
“I was gone before 12:30,” Alessio continues. “I left her alive. I told you that.”
“I know what you told me.”
Alessio pushes the photograph away. “They have the wrong time.”