Chapter 7
Child protective services opened a broader home-safety review.
Several Rossetti relatives were insulted on Vittorio’s behalf.
Vittorio was not.
He answered questions.
Who prepared Luca’s food?
Who could authorize medicine?
Who supervised him during family functions?
Who could discipline him?
The answers embarrassed him.
Too many people.
Not formally.
Practically.
Bernadette could tell a nanny to leave a room.
A senior capo’s wife could tell kitchen staff Luca had already eaten.
A house manager could assume an instruction from an older relative carried Vittorio’s approval.
Nobody had written any of this down because the household operated on relationships.
Relationships were exactly what Bernadette had used.
The caseworker said:
“You have strong physical security and weak caregiving boundaries.”
Vittorio almost objected.
Then realized the accuracy was painful because it was simple.
A stranger could barely enter his property.
His aunt could alter his son’s routines without anyone asking him.
That evening, Angelo brought a disturbing security detail.
The camera Bernadette looked toward after the patio confrontation had been installed only six months earlier.
Before that, the same garden corner had been outside the primary camera angle.
“Who complained when we installed it?” Vittorio asked.
Angelo checked old emails.
Bernadette.
She had called the new camera intrusive.
Not once.
Four times.
She argued that family luncheons should not be recorded like “prison visitation.”
Vittorio had ignored the complaint.
Now it mattered.
Claire warned him again.
“It’s suggestive. Not proof of prior poisoning.”
“I know.”
But it was another reason Bernadette’s fear of the blinking camera had felt different from ordinary guilt.
Then police reviewed months of footage.
The first five gatherings showed Bernadette giving Luca drinks.
Nothing visibly illegal.
But on two occasions she positioned herself with her back to the camera while handling his cup.
Coincidence?
Maybe.
On a third, Luca refused the drink.
Bernadette took him inside.
He returned twenty minutes later holding a different cup.
That night, household notes said he slept through dinner.
The pattern was deepening.
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Still, the central question remained unanswered.
What exactly had Bernadette been doing, and why?
