Chapter 5 - thirty minutes)
Giorgio had not come because Alessandra called him.
Patricia had.
At 5:56 p.m., the family office’s chief legal officer informed Giorgio that someone had attempted to obtain control over accounts belonging solely to his daughter.
By 6:04, Giorgio was in his car.
By 6:09, forensic analysts had confirmed that two authorization requests originated from Colin’s home network.
By 6:12, someone tried to access Alessandra’s trust a second time.
By 6:15, Giorgio instructed his legal team to freeze every transaction connected to Colin Moretti until they knew exactly what had happened.
At 6:19, he reached the house.
At 6:20, he watched his daughter collapse.
Thirty minutes later, Colin learned what those instructions meant.
But Alessandra did not.
She was already in the back seat of Giorgio’s car with Theo sleeping against her chest.
Elias drove.
Giorgio sat beside her.
No one spoke for several minutes.
Finally Giorgio asked,
“When did you last eat?”
Alessandra looked out the window.
“I had toast.”
“When?”
“Breakfast.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know.”
He closed his eyes.
Not from anger.
From guilt.
He had spent three weeks telling himself his daughter would call if she needed him.
He had mistaken respecting her marriage for abandoning his instincts.
“Dad.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes opened.
“For what?”
“For this.”
He looked at her.
“This is not something you apologize for.”
“I should have seen it.”
“So should I.”
She shook her head.
“You warned me about Colin.”
“I questioned his business decisions.”
“You didn’t trust him.”
“I wanted to.”
“Because I loved him.”
“Yes.”
She looked down at Theo.
“I think he was waiting for me to be weak.”
The sentence made Giorgio’s jaw tighten.
“What happened?”
Alessandra told him.
Not everything.
There was too much.
But enough.
The passwords.
The signatures.
The cards.
Marcia.
The constant insistence that Alessandra could not remember things.
The cameras disappearing.
The suggestion that she was unsafe with Theo.
Giorgio listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he asked one question.
“Did Colin ever physically hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did Marcia?”
“No.”
“Did either of them prevent you from leaving?”
Alessandra thought about it.
“No.”
Then,
“Not exactly.”
Giorgio looked at her.
“They kept telling me I was too tired to drive. Too emotional to make decisions. Too confused to manage money.”
“That can become another kind of cage.”
She looked at him.
He did not say anything else.
At Giorgio’s house, a nurse was waiting.
So was a doctor.
Alessandra protested.
“I don’t need a hospital.”
“You fainted.”
“I’m just tired.”
The doctor examined her.
Dehydration.
Low blood pressure.
Iron deficiency.
Severe sleep deprivation.
No immediate emergency, but enough physical strain that the doctor’s calm expression gradually became less calm.
“How much sleep are you getting?” he asked.
Alessandra looked embarrassed.
“Maybe two hours.”
“Per night?”
“Sometimes.”
“Consecutively?”
“No.”
The doctor removed his glasses.
“You need help immediately.”
Giorgio stood by the window.
His hands were clenched behind his back.
The doctor continued.
“You should not be doing overnight newborn care alone.”
“I wasn’t supposed to be.”
That sentence changed the room.
After the doctor left, Maria took Theo.
Alessandra resisted instinctively.
“I should feed him.”
“You can,” Maria said gently. “Then I’ll sit with him.”
“What if he cries?”
“Then he cries with me.”
“What if he needs me?”
“I will wake you.”
Alessandra looked toward Giorgio.
He nodded.
“Sleep.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
She slept for seven hours.
When she woke, sunlight filled the room.
For one confused moment, she believed she had slept through the entire day.
She sat up quickly.
“Theo?”
Giorgio was sitting in a chair beside the window.
“He’s downstairs with Maria.”
“How long?”
“Seven hours.”
Panic crossed her face.
“I slept seven hours?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t anyone wake me?”
“Because he had pumped milk and formula available. Maria handled him. He is fine.”
Alessandra pressed her hands against her face.
Then she started crying.
Giorgio moved to the edge of the bed.
“I should have been awake.”
“No.”
“He’s my baby.”
“And you are his mother, not his prisoner.”
She looked at him.
Those words landed somewhere deep.
Giorgio handed her a glass of water.
“There is something else.”
She saw the folder in his hand.
“What?”
“Colin’s company.”
“What about it?”
“It has been operating at a loss for fourteen months.”
Alessandra frowned.
“He told me they were profitable.”
“They are not.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that someone pledged six million dollars of assets to keep it alive.”
Her breathing stopped.
“My assets?”
Giorgio nodded.
“Without authorization.”
She stared at him.
“And that’s not the worst part.”
“What is?”
Giorgio opened the folder.
“Two weeks before Theo was born, Colin met with a family law attorney.”
Alessandra’s face emptied.
“Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Giorgio gave her a printed page.
At the top was the attorney’s name.
Below it, a calendar entry.
Consultation regarding marital assets, parental fitness, and emergency custody.
The appointment had lasted ninety minutes.
Alessandra read the words twice.
Then looked up.
May you like
Giorgio’s voice became very quiet.
“I don’t think this started after you became exhausted.”
