Chapter 10: What Vincent Said at the End
Rachel gave them one day.
Isabella was moved to a private medical facility under law-enforcement protection — not solely Lorenzo's security, because the investigation had established that Vincent's reach extended into the estate's own systems.
The doctor's report was careful and complete.
Weight loss.
A healing rib fracture.
A concussion history consistent with a significant blow.
Malnutrition.
An infected cut on her left forearm that had gone untreated for too long.
She had survived on shelter food, foraged supplies, and whatever Bruno could find.
She had escaped a farmhouse through a bathroom window with a cracked rib.
She had moved through the city for weeks, sleeping in abandoned buildings and church shelters, paying cash for food when she had it, going without when she didn't.
Lorenzo sat beside her hospital bed on the second evening and did not say any of the things he had rehearsed in the car on the way over.
"You recorded a voice memo," he said instead.
"Before the crash.
On your phone."
Isabella looked at the ceiling.
"I didn't know if I'd make it to the meeting with Claire."
"It was on your tablet.
The investigators found it."
She turned her head toward him.
"Did you listen to it?"
"Yes."
"All of it?"
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment.
"I didn't tell you about Vincent because I knew what it would do to you.
Twenty-two years.
I needed proof first."
"I know."
"I was going to bring you the files and say: here.
Look at this.
And let you decide what to do with it."
"Instead you nearly d*ed."
"Instead I nearly d*ed." She said it without self-pity.
A fact.
"That decision was mine.
I'm not asking you to forgive it."
"There's nothing to forgive."
"Lorenzo—"
"You were protecting me.
The way you always do." His voice caught once.
He controlled it.
"I just wish you'd let me protect you back."
She reached over and took his hand.
They sat like that for a while.
Then she said: "Claire Donnelly."
"Yes."
"She d*ed because she tried to help me."
"She d*ed because Vincent made choices.
And Anthony Bell made choices.
And other people made choices." He looked at their joined hands.
"You didn't cause it."
"I know.
But I still—"
"I know."
He paid for Claire's funeral privately.
Her sister, Megan, accepted only because she wanted Claire buried beside their mother.
Lorenzo attended from a distance.
No press.
No announcement.
That mattered.
The financial evidence came together over the following week.
Shell companies.
Payment records.
Burner-phone location data.
The farmhouse rental.
Security logs altered using Vincent's executive credentials.
And $180,000 routed to Dr.
Rusk through an offshore consulting arrangement, in exchange for supplying modified dental records that made a burned body look like Isabella DeLuca.
Rachel called Lorenzo on a Thursday morning.
"We're moving today."
"Where?"
"Airport hotel.
He's booked on a flight to Zurich tonight."
Lorenzo sat with that for a moment.
Twenty-two years, and Vincent had apparently decided that the moment Anthony Bell went quiet, the walls were closing.
He was right.
"Do you want to be there?" Rachel asked.
"No."
A pause.
"That surprises me."
"I've thought about it.
If I'm there, it becomes about me.
About what he did to my family." Lorenzo looked out the window of the hospital room, where Isabella was sleeping.
"It should be about what he did to Claire Donnelly.
Let it be about her."
Rachel was quiet for a moment.
"All right."
The arrest happened at 2:14 p.m.
Vincent was in the hotel lobby with two carry-on bags when the officers approached.
Rachel was there.
She told Lorenzo later that he had looked at the officers for a long moment, then at the door, then back.
Then he said: "I want my lawyer."
That was all.
No dramatic speech.
No threat.
No attempt to bargain in the lobby.
But as they walked him out, he looked back once at Rachel.
"Tell Lorenzo—" he started.
"You can tell him yourself," Rachel said.
"Through your attorney.
At the appropriate time."
He didn't finish the sentence.
The door closed behind him.
Lorenzo heard all of this secondhand, in the hospital corridor, with a cup of cold coffee in his hand.
He poured it into the nearest bin.
Went back into Isabella's room.
She was awake.
"Well?" she said.
"It's done."
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then nodded once.
May you like
"Good," she said.
That was enough.
