Chapter 6 - What It Costs to Tell the Truth
Nona did not ask Alessia whether the mafia boss was handsome. She asked whether her granddaughter had eaten lunch. When Alessia said she had forgotten, the old woman pushed a plate of yesterday's pasta toward her and sat down to make sure it disappeared.
"I cannot fix an elevator," Nona said, "but I can stop you from fighting the world on an empty stomach."
Alessia told her the truth in pieces: the false badge, the stolen wages, the photograph taken through the depot window, and Enzo's charity. Nona listened with one hand resting on the chipped kitchen table. Their apartment was small enough that the refrigerator hummed over almost every conversation. Alessia had spent years feeling she had to shield her grandmother from that poverty. Now Nona took out their bill envelope and laid it between them.
"You have been paying more than your share," she said. "I have a pension and two hands. If I can sit here and worry, I can also help decide what we do."
They calculated rent, medicines, bus fare and what Alessia had saved. They could cover the month, barely. Rosa had offered temporary work answering calls for a local charity if Bruno could not restore her shifts. Alessia would ask for the hours, not a favor. She slept for three uninterrupted hours that afternoon.
Across the city, Enzo faced a less forgiving table. His lawyer, an outside auditor and two company directors sat in the conference room that overlooked Milan's rooftops. Enzo handed over the fund records and the request to postpone the review. Marco's chair was empty; he had been relieved of his duties while investigators examined the invoices. Matteo's security access had been suspended as well.
"There is another matter," the lawyer said. "Did you authorize unrecorded cash payments through the logistics business?"
Enzo could have blamed his father, the industry's habits or the people who carried envelopes for him. He remembered Alessia's face when she'd asked why he didn't inspect a large transfer. "Yes," he said. "Years ago. Some payments continued after I said the operation was to end. I didn't verify that it ended."
"Those arrangements may draw scrutiny beyond this incident."
"Then put that in the disclosure."
His lawyer removed her glasses. "You're not buying absolution by cooperating."
"I know."
The company's criminal history had made Enzo wealthy and feared. He could not become a decent man by discovering that somebody had stolen from poorer people while using his name. There were choices he'd made himself, including the way he had treated Alessia inside the elevator. For the first time, he understood how easily a man accustomed to power could mistake another person's silence for consent.
That evening he asked Luca to meet him at the tower's empty lobby. Luca arrived without his earpiece. The scar on his cheek looked silver under the lights.
"You were in the security office before you met us at the elevator," Enzo said. "What did you see?"
Luca looked away. "Matteo sent me to check the service corridor. When I got there, he'd already left the maintenance room. He was carrying a yellow bucket. Marco said it was an emergency repair."
"You didn't tell me."
"I filed the report Marco told me to file. I thought the alternative was being fired. Then you told me to grab the cleaner's identity, and I did."
"I didn't tell you to grab her."
"You made it clear that anyone near you was a threat. I acted like the man you hired me to be."
The answer struck harder than an insult. Enzo told Luca he needed to give his own account to investigators, not to a company lawyer first. Luca asked whether his job would survive. Enzo said he couldn't promise that it would, but he would not punish him for a truthful statement. Luca nodded. There was no warm reconciliation; he'd helped frighten an innocent woman, and naming the reason did not erase the act.
At the assistance office, Alessia listened as Nadiya explained what the workers could reasonably request: access to wage records, correction of false entries, payment of owed hours, a fair process before anyone was reassigned. Bruno had agreed to restore the shifts he'd wrongly suspended, but Alessia wasn't ready to return to Vieri Tower. An independent office building offered temporary evening work. It paid less, yet she accepted two shifts and felt an almost ridiculous pride writing them in her notebook.
Enzo called to say he'd given his lawyer consent to share relevant records with investigators. He also told her that Luca had admitted seeing Matteo with a yellow bucket. Alessia let him finish, then asked, "Why are you telling me instead of telling the police?"
"He is telling them tomorrow. I thought you'd want to know there may be a witness."
"I do. But don't call to make me your judge. I don't know whether I trust you."
"You shouldn't have to decide tonight."
She almost hung up, then added, "One more thing. In the elevator, when I said not to touch me, you kept coming closer. Don't pretend this investigation makes that disappear."
There was a long silence. "You're right," Enzo said. "I frightened you because I was frightened and wanted somebody else to feel smaller. I'm sorry. It was wrong. You owe me nothing for saying so."
Alessia said good night without forgiving him. The apology mattered because it had named an action rather than a misunderstood intention. Whether he would behave differently remained to be seen.
The next morning, two investigators requested an interview with Enzo. They had obtained copies of the company's audit material independently. His signature appeared not only on the charity payment but on a renewal of the cleaning contract executed after Giulia's first wage complaint. A separate approval allowed Marco temporary control of the building's emergency security systems for a maintenance review.
"You signed both," the senior investigator said.
"I did. I did not authorize sabotaging an elevator."
"We will determine what your signature authorized and what you understood when you signed it."
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Enzo's solicitor asked for a brief recess. Outside the interview room, his phone showed a message from Alessia: Giulia had found her original complaint, complete with the delivery confirmation to Enzo's office. No intermediary could truthfully say the warning never arrived.
When he returned to the table, Enzo placed his phone facedown. His own negligence had made room for Marco's plan. If he wanted the workers protected, he would have to testify to that, even if it damaged the reputation he'd spent his life building.
