Ferrara

“Oh.” She nods. “Yes, it was near the door. This way.” She toddles off and I follow her, we walk out through the gardens and into an adjoining ballroom. She gestures to the wall and the numerous photo boards on display. “Here they are.”

“Thanks.” I put my hands into my suit pockets and begin to look over the boards. “How far back do these photos date to?” I ask.

“Since the library opened.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Eighty years.”

“Wow.” I keep looking at the boards, it’s like walking into a time machine, some photos are in black and white, some are modern. All centered around art donations. I look and look and look. Mario must have been mistaken, there isn’t a photo here. “Bettina,” someone calls.

“Yes,” the sweet little old lady calls.

“Can you help me for a minute?”

“Will you be okay here for a minute, dear?”

“Of course.”

She toddles off and my eyes roam back over the boards, I walk to the next one and the next one. My eyes scan the boards and then I stop dead on the spot.

And there is it, just as Mario said.

A photo of my father with his arm around my mother. Bianca is standing to the side of them, beside her is Lorenzo.

I step back, shocked to silence.

I rub my fingers through my stubble as I stare at it, I would have been twelve months old when this photo was taken.

Bianca was heavily pregnant…what?

My eyes flick out toward the door and I unpin the photo from the board and slip it into the inside pocket of my suit jacket. I put my hands casually back into my pants pockets and walk away from the scene of the crime.

“How did you go, dear?” the lady asks as she returns.

“I can’t find anything, it must have been a mistake. Thanks anyway.”

She smiles sympathetically. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” I nod. “Me too.” I walk out the front and my black Lamborghini unlocks automatically as I approach it. I give a wave to my four security guards as they wait close by and I get into the car and pull out into the traffic. “Call Lorenzo,” I tell my car.

Ring, ring, ring, ring.

“What’s up?” Lorenzo asks.

“Can you meet me at the office?”

“I wasn’t coming back there this afternoon.”

“Change your plans.” I hang up and with my mind running at a million miles per minute, I grip the steering wheel and turn a sharp corner, I want some fucking answers.

Half an hour later I sit at my desk with the photo in my hand, staring hard at the image. I’m trying my best to work out what it could possibly mean.

Lorenzo walks in. “Hey.”

“Close the door.”

He frowns before turning and closing the door, I point to the seat with my pen. “Sit.”

He sits down, and I stare at him for a moment as I try to choose the right words.

There are no right words for this question so I’ll just say it as it is.

“Are you Francesca’s father?

His face falls. “What?”

“You heard me, are you Francesca’s biological father?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Answer the fucking question,” I bark.

I slide the photograph across my desk to him. He frowns and stares at the image, eventually he opens his mouth to say something and I cut him off.

“Lie to me and I’ll fucking kill you.”

15

Giuliano

He twists his lips. “Where did you get this?”

“None of your business.” I glare at him. “Answer. The. Fucking. Question.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“I’m not her father.”

“Who is?”

“Giuliano Ferrara. Your father.”

I clench my jaw and snatch the photograph from him, I hold it up. “Explain this to me.”

He stares at it for a moment and remains silent, finally he answers. “Bianca and I were friends, she had broken up with your father and he had moved in with Angelina, one Sunday she asked me to take her to an art show.” He rolls his lips as he remembers. “You can imagine her horror when we arrived to find that your father and Angelina were at the same function together.”

I listen.

“This photo was snapped by a photographer about two minutes before all hell broke loose.”

“Bullshit. My father has his arm around my mother, he wouldn’t be so inconsiderate to Bianca, he wasn’t a monster.”

He shrugs. “By this time, he and Bianca were well and truly over.”

“She was pregnant with his child,” I snap, outraged.

“That didn’t seem to bother him.”

“At exactly what point did you start dating my father’s wife?” I fume.

Hs smirks, amused by my venom. “I cleaned up his mess and fell in love with the woman he broke, Francesca was around three.” He stands. “Don’t blame me for your father’s shortcomings.” He walks toward the door and then turns back toward me. “The day I stood in that library with a heavily pregnant Bianca and watched her heart break as her husband paraded his lover in public as if she was nothing,” he pauses, “I was ashamed to be his friend.” His eyes hold mine for an extended beat and then he turns and walks out of the office as I stare after him.