Chapter 53 Romano's New Information

Chapter 53 Romano's New Information
Aria's POV

She went alone.

Dante had offered to come, not pushed it, just offered in the way he did things now where the offer was genuine and the acceptance was entirely up to her. She'd said no and he'd said okay and that had been the whole conversation, which was one of the things she was quietly grateful for.

Romano's office was in a federal building twenty minutes from the hospital. Aria had been here once before, for the interrogation room at four in the morning, and the building looked different in daylight. More ordinary. Just a building with a security desk and a lift and corridors with the slightly tired look of places that ran on government budgets.

Romano was waiting in her actual office this time, not an interrogation room, which felt like a different kind of meeting. A desk with files on it and two chairs across from it and a window that looked out at the building next door. Coffee on the desk that Romano had clearly been drinking for a while.

"Dr. Salvini." She gestured to the chair. "Thank you for coming."

"You said it was important."

"It is." Romano sat down. Looked at her directly the way she always did, no preamble, no easing into things. "Your father hired three additional lawyers yesterday. High-level criminal defense, the kind that works by making cases complicated rather than winning arguments."

"I know," Aria said. "I saw the press coverage."

"Then you know he went to the media with a narrative that frames this investigation as politically motivated." Romano picked up her coffee cup and put it down without drinking from it. "That narrative is going to cause problems. Judges are human. Juries are human. A story that's been running for months by the time this gets to court does damage that evidence alone doesn't fully repair."

"You're telling me he's buying time."

"He's buying time and making the time he's buying useful." Romano's voice was neutral but there was something underneath it that might have been frustration if she let it surface. "His lawyers are very good. They'll find procedural issues. They'll challenge evidence sourcing. They'll request delays and extensions and reviews." She paused. "We're looking at months before charges are formally filed. Possibly a year before trial."

Aria sat with that. A year. Bruno ran his life, moving through Rome, giving interviews, playing the wounded businessman, for up to a year while the case built around him.

"You said you had new information," she said.

Romano opened the folder on her desk and slid a document across.

Financial records. Pages of them. Account numbers and transaction dates and figures moving from column to column in the cold language of money doing what Bruno needed it to do.

"Last forty-eight hours," Romano said. "His financial team has been active. Multiple accounts, movement of assets, some domestic and some offshore. Not large amounts individually. In aggregate, significant."

Aria looked at the numbers. Her father's financial life laid out in rows. She'd known he was wealthy. Had grown up in that wealth without examining where it came from. Seeing it like this, broken down to transactions and timestamps, made it feel like something that belonged to a stranger.

"He's preparing for something," she said.

"That's our read. The question is what." Romano pointed at a specific section. "These transfers here suggest consolidation. Moving things into positions that are harder to freeze if we get a court order. It's not running, running looks different, but it's getting ready to have options."

"He's building himself an exit strategy."

"While publicly claiming he has nothing to hide." Romano's mouth did something brief that wasn't quite a smile. "He's very good at this. I want to be honest with you about that. He's been operating at this level for a long time and he knows how to protect himself."

"And the investigation."

"Is solid but not fast." Romano looked at her steadily. "Which brings me to why I wanted to meet." She folded her hands on the desk. "The offer still stands. Your testimony about what you've observed, conversations you've heard, anything that sits outside what we can access through financial records and surveillance. It would accelerate everything significantly."

Aria looked at the financial documents. At her father's money moving itself around a board like pieces in a game she hadn't known she was watching.

"What kind of testimony," she said.

"Start with what you know. Conversations at the estate, things that seemed odd in retrospect, any interaction with Gavino or other associates. Your perspective as someone inside the family who has been paying attention." Romano paused. "You have been paying attention."

"I have," Aria said. "Mostly in hindsight."

"Hindsight is useful. Courts understand hindsight."

Aria looked at the window. At the unremarkable view of the building opposite.

She thought about what it meant to sit in a room and formally testify against her father. Not just knowing things. Not just carrying suspicions. Sitting in a room and saying them out loud on record in a way that contributed directly to his prosecution.

Bruno who had held her hand at her mother's funeral.

Bruno who had ordered her mother's death.

Both are true. Simultaneously. Still.

"I need more time," she said.

Romano nodded once. "You have it."

"How much time before it stops being useful."

"Honestly? A few weeks makes a meaningful difference. A few months and the window narrows." Romano looked at her without pressure in her expression but with clarity. "I'm not trying to push you into something you're not ready for. But Dr. Salvini, don't take too much time. The longer he has to consolidate his position, the harder this gets for everyone."

Aria picked up the financial document and looked at it one more time. Put it back on the desk.

"I'll be in touch," she said.

"I know you will."

She stood. Romano stood, which was the kind of courtesy that meant the meeting mattered to her, not just procedurally.

"One more thing," Romano said. "The man in Costa's hospital room. Two of Moretti's people in the corridor." She said it without accusation, just noting it. "The Marchetti situation isn't fully resolved. Be careful."

"I'm aware," Aria said.

"I thought you might be." Romano held the door. "Thank you for coming in."

Aria went out through the corridor and into the lift and through the lobby where the security guard nodded at her the same way he'd nodded at her coming in.

Outside the building the morning had moved into the warmer part of the day, the kind of late morning that reminded you summer hadn't completely given up on Rome yet.

She stopped on the steps.

Bruno was standing at the bottom of them.

Not on the steps. On the pavement, to one side, with the particular stillness of someone who had been waiting and was prepared to keep waiting as long as necessary. He was in a suit, because Bruno was always in a suit, and he looked exactly like himself, which was still something that surprised her, that he could look exactly like the father she'd known for twenty-five years and be what he was at the same time.

He'd known she was here. Had known she was meeting Romano.

Which meant someone was watching her. Or someone was watching Romano's building. Or both.

She came down the steps and stopped in front of him.

"How did you know I was here," she said.

"I have people who keep me informed." He said it simply. Not apologizing for it. "I'm not having you follow, if that's what you're thinking. I'm watching the building."

"There's a distinction."

"An important one." He looked at her face the way he always had, like he was checking for something. "You look tired."

"I'm fine."

"I know you are. You always are." Something moved through his expression. "We need to talk. Just us. Without Moretti in the picture."

"Dante isn't in every picture."

"He's in more of them than you think." Bruno's voice stayed even. Reasonable. The voice he used when he was being careful. "I'm not here to argue about him. I'm not here to try to change your mind about the investigation or Romano or any of it." He paused. "I just need an hour with my daughter. Before this gets to a place where an hour isn't possible anymore."

Aria looked at him standing on the pavement outside a federal building that contained documents about his financial crimes and the careful testimony of a detective who had been building a case against him for eighteen months.

He looked like her father.

He was her father.

And whatever else was also true, that part wasn't going to stop being true.

"One hour," she said. "Not at the estate. Somewhere public."

Something in his face shifted. Relief, maybe. "There's a place nearby. I know the owner."

"Of course you do," she said.

He almost smiled. "Shall we."

She fell into step beside him and thought about what Romano had said about not taking too much time.

She thought one hour didn't count as too much time.

She thought she was probably wrong about that.

She went anyway.