Chapter 4 - What Victor Had Been Protecting
Nobody moved.
Victor held the folder against his side.
He looked older than he had at the church.
Not by years.
By consequences.
Carlo stepped forward.
"Give it to me."
Victor shook his head.
"You don't know what's in here."
Diane laughed softly.
"I put it together."
"You knew half."
"Then enlighten us."
Victor looked at Ethan.
"This isn't your business."
Ethan stared at him.
"You interrupted my wedding without even showing up."
Victor frowned.
"Diane did that."
"No. She showed up. Whatever happened twenty-one years ago did the interrupting."
Carlo extended his hand.
"The file."
Victor didn't move.
"You're really going to do this?"
"Yes."
"To Dad?"
Carlo's face tightened.
"He's dead."
"Exactly."
"And Diane isn't."
That stopped Victor.
Diane looked at Carlo.
Something in her expression shifted.
Only slightly.
Victor noticed too.
"So that's it? You destroy Dad's name for her?"
"No."
Carlo shook his head.
"I tell the truth because I should've told it years ago."
Victor's mouth hardened.
"You think Dad was the only one who would've gone down?"
Carlo didn't answer.
Victor opened the folder.
Inside were bank records, photocopied checks, authorization forms and handwritten notes.
He pulled out one page.
"This account wasn't Dad's."
Carlo stared at it.
Victor handed it over.
Carlo read.
His face changed.
Ethan moved closer.
"What?"
Carlo didn't answer.
Ethan took the document.
The beneficiary was a shell corporation.
Behind it sat another name.
Not Antonio Romano.
Not Victor.
Romano Development Holdings.
Carlo's company.
Ethan looked at his father.
Diane did too.
Carlo stared at Victor.
"You told me that account had been closed."
"It was."
"When?"
"After the last transfer."
"You moved charity money through my company."
Victor nodded.
Carlo crossed the room so fast Ethan barely saw it happen.
He grabbed Victor by the jacket.
"Carlo!"
Elena wasn't there to stop him.
Diane was.
She stepped between them.
"Don't."
Carlo's breathing was heavy.
Victor didn't fight back.
Perhaps because he knew his brother had earned the anger.
Perhaps because he had been waiting twenty-one years for it.
Diane put one hand on Carlo's arm.
"Not like this."
Carlo released him.
Victor straightened his jacket.
Ethan looked at the records.
"Why use Dad's company?"
"Because it made the books harder to trace."
"So if anyone found them..."
Victor nodded.
"They'd think Carlo was involved."
Diane stared at him.
"That's what I thought."
"I know."
"You let me think that."
Victor gave her a tired look.
"You weren't supposed to be investigating anything."
She stepped closer.
"I was the accountant."
"You were supposed to balance the books."
"That's what accountants do when six hundred thousand dollars vanishes."
Despite everything, Ethan almost laughed.
Victor didn't.
Diane pointed at him.
"You came to my apartment."
Victor's eyes shifted.
Carlo noticed.
"What?"
Diane's voice shook.
"Two nights before I left. Someone stood outside my building for almost three hours."
Victor looked away.
"Was it you?"
Silence.
"Victor."
"Yes."
Carlo stepped forward again.
Diane stopped him with one look.
"Why?"
Victor sat in an old chair.
For the first time, he looked defeated.
"To scare you."
"Into what?"
"Stopping."
"You could've asked."
"You weren't going to stop."
"No."
"I knew."
Diane folded her arms.
"And when frightening me didn't work?"
Victor looked toward Carlo.
"That's when he found out."
Ethan frowned.
"About the money?"
"No."
Victor looked at Diane.
"About what Dad wanted done."
The room went silent.
Carlo's voice became low.
"You told me he wanted her out of Boston."
"He did."
"You said he'd ordered you to make her disappear."
Victor looked at him.
"He did."
Carlo's face darkened.
Victor added:
"But not the way you thought."
Diane stopped breathing.
"What does that mean?"
Victor rubbed his hands over his face.
"He wanted you fired. Discredited. Gone from the fund."
Carlo stared at his brother.
"You told me he meant kill her."
"I never said kill."
"You knew exactly what I would think."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Victor finally shouted.
"Because I needed you to act!"
His voice echoed through the abandoned center.
"She had everything, Carlo. Every transfer. Every shell company. Dad was panicking. You were trying to protect everybody at once. I needed Diane gone before she handed those records to someone who couldn't be controlled."
Diane stared at him.
"So you made Carlo think my life was in danger."
Victor shook his head.
"Your life was in danger."
"From whom?"
"Not Dad."
"Then who?"
Victor looked away.
Carlo understood first.
"You."
Victor didn't answer.
Ethan felt the room become colder.
Diane whispered:
"You?"
Victor looked at her.
"I was scared."
Twenty-one years of mythology collapsed into four words.
Not a mastermind.
Not a monster plotting in a dark room.
A frightened man protecting himself.
Victor continued.
"I had signed everything. Dad could blame me. Carlo could blame me. You could send me to prison."
"So you threatened me."
"I watched you."
"You broke into my apartment?"
Victor nodded.
Diane closed her eyes.
"You called my mother."
Victor looked ashamed.
"Yes."
That surprised Carlo.
"What call?"
Diane opened her eyes.
"Someone called my mother and told her I'd been stealing."
Carlo stared at Victor.
"You did that?"
Victor said nothing.
Carlo's fists clenched.
Diane spoke before he could move.
"Don't."
Carlo looked at her.
"You keep stopping me."
"Because beating him won't give me twenty-one years back."
That ended it.
Victor put the file on the desk.
"There."
Nobody touched it.
"Everything's there."
Diane looked at him.
"Why keep it?"
Victor laughed weakly.
"Insurance."
"Against Carlo?"
"Against everyone."
Ethan looked at his uncle and suddenly understood something about the Romano family.
Every secret had been called protection.
Every lie had been called loyalty.
Every silence had been justified by some future disaster it supposedly prevented.
And after enough years, nobody remembered who was protecting whom.
Carlo picked up the file.
"We're going back."
Victor looked at him.
"To the church?"
"Yes."
"You can't tell them."
Carlo stared at his brother.
"Watch me."
Victor stood.
"Carlo, Dad's name is on half the buildings our foundation owns."
"Then we'll take it off."
"Scholarships."
"Rename them."
"The community center."
"Rename it."
"You'll destroy everything he built."
Diane spoke quietly.
"No."
Everyone looked at her.
"He did that himself."
Victor's face collapsed.
Nobody had an answer.
They returned to Saint Cecilia's shortly after noon.
The guests were still there.
Some because they cared about Ethan.
Some because they cared about Olivia.
Most because nobody leaves the theater during the best part.
Ethan found Olivia downstairs.
She was eating wedding cake with a fork directly from a plate.
He stared at her.
"What?"
"We haven't cut it yet."
"You disappeared for an hour."
"Fair."
She handed him the fork.
"Are we still getting married?"
Ethan looked at her.
"Do you still want to?"
"Ask me after your family finishes confessing to financial crimes."
He laughed.
He hadn't expected to.
Then he kissed her forehead.
"Give me ten minutes."
"Take fifteen."
Upstairs, Carlo stood outside the sanctuary.
Diane approached.
"You don't have to do this today."
He looked at her.
"Yes, I do."
"Your son's wedding."
"That's why."
She frowned.
Carlo looked through the doors toward Ethan.
"He said something earlier."
"What?"
"No more protecting people by lying to them."
Diane remained silent.
Carlo looked at her.
"I thought keeping you alive was enough."
"It wasn't."
"I know."
"Do you?"
He nodded.
"Now I do."
They entered together.
Conversation stopped.
Carlo walked to the front of the church.
He didn't use the microphone.
He didn't need one.
"My son was supposed to get married here this morning."
A few nervous smiles.
"He still is."
Ethan looked at Olivia.
She smiled.
Carlo continued.
"But first, I owe someone in this room something twenty-one years overdue."
Diane stood near the aisle.
People turned toward her.
She hated it.
Ethan could tell.
Carlo looked at the faces around him.
Some had known Diane.
Some had repeated stories about her.
Some had probably forgotten her until today.
"Diane Mercer did not steal money from the Romano Children's Community Fund."
Silence.
"She discovered that money was being stolen."
Mrs. Donnelly began crying.
Carlo continued.
"My father authorized the misuse of those funds. My brother Victor helped conceal it."
Victor stood at the back of the church.
He didn't leave.
"And I..."
Carlo stopped.
This was the hard part.
Not blaming the dead.
Blaming himself.
"I discovered what was happening too late."
Diane watched him.
"I believed Diane was in danger. I gave her money and helped her leave Boston."
Whispers spread.
Carlo raised his voice.
"The eighty-five thousand dollars I gave her was not payment for silence."
He looked directly at Diane.
"But I allowed people to believe it was."
Silence returned.
"I allowed newspapers to call her a thief. I allowed people who trusted her to doubt her. I allowed her family to wonder whether they knew her at all."
Diane's eyes filled.
Carlo's voice weakened.
Just a little.
"I told myself she was alive."
He paused.
"As if that made the rest acceptable."
Nobody moved.
Carlo looked at Diane.
"I kept you alive and called that enough."
His voice dropped.
"It wasn't."
Diane swallowed.
Carlo took one breath.
"I'm sorry."
No excuses.
No explanation.
Nothing after it.
Just the apology.
Diane stood beneath the stained glass with hundreds of eyes on her.
Carlo waited.
Perhaps some part of him hoped she would forgive him.
She didn't.
Not yet.
She simply looked around at the people who had once believed the worst about her.
Then she looked back at Carlo.
"Now they know."
May you like
Carlo nodded.
"They should have known twenty-one years ago."
