Chapter 6 - Why He Chose Me
I grabbed Enzo’s face and shouted, “Open your eyes.”
A paramedic cut through his black shirt.
Something fell from the inner pocket.
A photograph landed beside my shoe.
It was a photograph of me.
Taken a year before I had met him.
I forgot how to breathe.
The bullet had grazed Enzo’s ribs.
He had lost blood, but the doctors said he would survive.
I should have felt relief.
I did.
But the photograph stayed in my hand.
It showed me leaving a downtown accounting firm.
On the back was a handwritten date.
Fourteen months ago.
Three months before Enzo hired me.
When he woke in the hospital, I was sitting beside him.
His first words were my name.
“Sofia.”
“Why did you have this?”
He saw the photograph.
Closed his eyes.
“That wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.”
“Find out what?”
He tried to sit.
Pain stopped him.
I didn’t help.
He deserved at least five uncomfortable seconds.
“Talk.”
“My father’s companies were losing money.”
“I know.”
“I hired investigators.”
“And they investigated me?”
“One of the transfers passed through the accounting firm where you worked.”
My anger faltered.
“You thought I was involved.”
“At first.”
“So you hired me to watch me.”
“Yes.”
The word hurt more than I expected.
Eleven months.
Every late night.
Every conversation.
Every moment I had believed I was earning his trust.
Maybe I had simply been under surveillance.
I stood.
“Sofia.”
“I need air.”
“I stopped investigating you ten months ago.”
I turned.
“Congratulations.”
“I knew you weren’t involved after three weeks.”
“Then why keep me?”
His expression changed.
“Because you were the best person who had ever worked in my office.”
I said nothing.
“You corrected me in your second week.”
“You had the wrong quarterly figures.”
“Nobody corrects me.”
“Maybe hire better people.”
His mouth almost smiled.
I refused to let mine do the same.
“You reorganized five years of records. You found mistakes nobody else saw. You remembered the names of employees’ children. You made my office function without making anyone afraid of you.”
“Unlike you?”
“Exactly.”
That stopped me.
Enzo looked toward the window.
“I kept you because I trusted you.”
“And the photograph?”
“I should have destroyed it.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“Why?”
His eyes returned to mine.
I knew before he answered.
Maybe I had known much earlier.
“Because somewhere along the way,” he said quietly, “it stopped being evidence.”
My heart beat once.
Hard.
“Enzo…”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re my employee.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
He went silent.
I sat again.
“What were you going to tell me before you passed out?”
“That.”
“Nothing else?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
“What else?”
“Matteo didn’t choose that hotel only because of the tunnel.”
“Why did he choose it?”
“My mother died there.”
I stared at him.
“Room 307?”
He nodded.
“Seventeen years ago.”
The scratched number.
Seventeen.
Luca.
The betrayal.
Everything connected.
“What happened?”
“My mother discovered Matteo’s theft before anyone else.”
My skin prickled.
“She was an accountant.”
Like me.
“She confronted him,” Enzo continued. “Matteo told my father she left us. Months later, Luca discovered the truth.”
“What truth?”
“She never left.”
I already knew what that meant.
Enzo looked away.
“Matteo killed her.”
The room became silent.
“And your father?”
“Learned too late.”
“That’s why Luca disappeared.”
“My father hid him. If Matteo believed Luca was dead, Luca could continue collecting evidence.”
I thought about Vittorio.
About the secrets.
The fear.
The entire family built around silence.
“You all protect each other by lying.”
Enzo looked at me.
“Yes.”
“That isn’t protection.”
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
I reached for his hand.
This time I didn’t pretend it was accidental.
He looked down at our fingers.
Then back at me.
“I don’t want your world, Enzo.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want guns. Secrets. Men following me.”
“I know.”
“And I will never become someone who looks away because your last name scares people.”
“I would hate you if you did.”
I smiled despite myself.
His thumb moved across my knuckles.
“Then what happens now?”
“Matteo is still missing.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
Before either of us could say more, the hospital-room door opened.
Vittorio entered.
He looked exhausted.
He also looked furious.
Not at Enzo.
At me.
“You need to leave,” he said.
Enzo’s hand tightened around mine.
“No.”
Vittorio ignored him.
“Sofia, Matteo wasn’t working alone.”
My stomach dropped.
“Who?”
Vittorio placed a folder on the bed.
Inside was an employee photograph.
Someone I knew.
Someone who had access to Enzo’s schedule every day.
My assistant.
Elena.
Vittorio looked directly at me.
“She just disappeared from the hospital.”
My phone buzzed.
May you like
A message from Elena.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN ROOM 307.
