Chapter 3
Lorenzo did not begin with threats.
Men like him rarely do.
He began with nostalgia.
Old photographs sent anonymously to Agnes.
My father and Lorenzo as boys.
The first Rinaldi restaurant.
Their mother.
Their first crew.
Then a handwritten note.
WE BUILT THIS BEFORE BIANCA EXISTED.
Agnes ignored it.
The second note arrived with a black funeral ribbon.
OLD THINGS SHOULD BE BURIED BEFORE NEW THINGS ARE CORRECTED.
My mother still told no one.
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because I thought I could handle him.”
There it was.
The family disease.
Love mixed with secrecy until it became danger.
“What happened next?”
Lorenzo called.
He knew details he should not know.
My travel schedule.
Which room I used during council meetings.
Which guards rotated around my mother.
Someone inside Rinaldi was feeding him access.
Then he made Agnes an offer.
Announce a sudden illness.
Withdraw from public dinners.
Disappear quietly.
In exchange, Lorenzo would leave me alone.
My mother believed him.
Of course.
“So you started pretending to be sick.”
She nodded.
I remembered.
Cancelled lunches.
Missed events.
Short calls.
I thought she was tired.
She was preparing to vanish to protect me.
“And today?”
“He changed the deal.”
Lorenzo ordered Owen to stage her death during the private chapel rehearsal before the family memorial dinner.
No public body.
No questions.
Just tell everyone Agnes had died suddenly and been buried privately by her own request.
Then the second casket.
Mine.
My mother looked at me.
“I didn’t know about yours until they brought me inside.”
“What did Owen say?”
Her hands tightened.
“He said one funeral makes people sad.”
Then she whispered:
“Two make them obedient.”
That sounded like Owen.
Cruel enough to enjoy repeating another man’s philosophy.
I stood.
“Where is Luca?”
Agnes frowned.
“Why Luca?”
I showed her Corinne’s unsent message.
L.R.
My mother studied it.
Then shook her head.
“That isn’t Luca.”
I waited.
“Lorenzo’s middle name is Raphael.”
Lorenzo Raphael Rinaldi.
L.R.
The message had not been reporting to my nephew.
May you like
It had been reporting directly to the dead man.
And if Corinne could text Lorenzo from inside my chapel, he was much closer than Canada.
