Chapter 3
The police arrived before sunset.
Not my men.
Real officers.
Helena stared at them like I had invited strangers into a church.
“You cannot do this,” she whispered.
“I already did.”
Detective Mara Voss took my statement in the library.
She was not afraid of me.
I respected that.
She asked clear questions.
Times.
Dates.
Who had access to Leo.
Where I had been.
Whether there were cameras in the garage.
I looked at my security chief, Enzo.
“There are.”
Enzo’s face tightened.
Helena noticed.
So did I.
“Show her,” I said.
Enzo swallowed.
“Boss, the garage system was down this morning.”
I stood slowly.
“Down?”
He lowered his eyes.
“Maintenance order.”
“From who?”
No one answered.
Helena smiled faintly.
There it was.
The little victory.
The hidden card.
Then Alessia stepped forward from the doorway.
“Not all cameras were down.”
Helena turned sharply.
“What?”
Alessia looked at me.
“After Sofia died, I put a small camera in Leo’s toy shelf. I didn’t trust Helena’s sweetness.”
Helena lunged toward her.
Two officers stopped her.
Alessia handed Detective Voss a memory card.
“I checked it when Carmine brought him upstairs.”
Helena screamed, “That is illegal!”
Alessia did not blink.
“So is starving a child.”
Detective Voss inserted the card into a laptop.
The first video showed Helena dragging Leo into the garage at dawn.
His pajama pants were too short.
He was crying.
Helena said, “Your father thinks you are a prince. I will teach you what unwanted children earn.”
Unwanted.
I gripped the back of a chair until wood cracked.
The next clip showed her locking the pantry.
The next showed Leo sleeping curled behind stacked tires with a thin towel over him.
Detective Voss paused the video.
Her voice was cold.
“Mrs. Bellucci, you are under arrest.”
Helena screamed my name.
Not for forgiveness.
For rescue.
“Carmine, tell them who I am.”
I looked at Leo asleep on the couch under Alessia’s blanket.
Then I looked at the woman I had allowed into his life because grief had made me tired.
“You are the woman who hurt my son.”
The officers handcuffed her.
As they led her out, she twisted back.
“You think Sofia was better? Ask your sister what Sofia hid before she died.”
Alessia went white.
I turned slowly.
“What does that mean?”
May you like
Helena smiled through tears.
And for the first time all day, my sister looked afraid of me.
