Chapter 13 - The SignatureThe signature was perfect.
Too perfect.
Vittorio stared at it.
“I didn't sign this.”
Detective Hale said:
“That is what the forensic examiner will determine.”
Emma took the document.
She looked at it for several seconds.
Then she whispered:
“This isn't a forgery.”
Vittorio looked at her.
“What?”
“It was copied from a real document.”
“Meaning?”
“Your actual signature was scanned.”
“By whom?”
Emma looked toward Luca.
Luca immediately shook his head.
“I never had access.”
Ferraro did.
Bianca did.
Marcus did.
And suddenly Vittorio remembered something.
Six months before Elena's death, Ferraro had asked Vittorio to sign a stack of company papers.
He had been sick that week.
He had signed everything without reading.
One of those pages could have been replaced later.
The detective frowned.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“The document was prepared two days after Elena's death.”
Vittorio stared.
“So somebody used my old signature.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make it look like you authorized an emergency medical transfer.”
Vittorio's heart sank.
“What transfer?”
The detective showed him the record.
Elena had supposedly been moved to another hospital.
She was declared dead thirty-seven minutes later.
But no second hospital had a record of receiving her.
The transfer was fake.
The forty minutes had been erased.
That was the gap.
The time when someone had entered Elena's room.
Vittorio looked at Sofia.
“You were there.”
She nodded.
“I was.”
“Did she ever leave the room?”
“No.”
“Then the transfer was invented.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly Sofia remembered something.
“The doctor who signed the transfer…”
“What?”
“He wasn't the attending doctor.”
Vittorio frowned.
“Who was he?”
She gave the name.
Vittorio recognized it.
Ferraro's private physician.
Not Ferraro himself.
His older brother.
Vittorio felt the entire conspiracy shift again.
Marco had not operated alone.
There were layers.
Money.
Medical records.
Legal records.
Fake identities.
And now his own signature.
Then his phone rang.
Bianca.
He answered.
Her voice was strangely calm.
“Are you having fun?”
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere Lucy used to love.”
Vittorio's heart stopped.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Where is my daughter?”
“She isn't with me.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“Because I know what you found.”
“What?”
“The safe.”
Vittorio said nothing.
Bianca laughed softly.
“You should never have opened it.”
“You are finished.”
“No.”
A pause.
“You still have not understood the most important part.”
“What part?”
“Lucy isn't just the beneficiary of Elena's trust.”
Vittorio frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
“Ask your mother.”
Vittorio went silent.
“My mother is dead.”
“I know.”
Bianca's voice dropped.
“But Elena found something about her.”
The call ended.
Vittorio immediately turned toward Luca.
“What did Elena find about my mother?”
Luca looked away.
“Nothing.”
“Don't lie.”
“She found an adoption record.”
Vittorio stopped.
“What?”
Luca swallowed.
“Your mother wasn't Lucy's grandmother.”
Silence.
Vittorio stared.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does.”
“How?”
Luca looked at him.
“Because Elena discovered Lucy was connected to another family.”
Vittorio's mind raced.
“What family?”
May you like
Luca's answer came like a knife.
“Marco's.”
