All Chapters of They Wanted a Confession. I Seized Their Ship: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

“Does anyone else live here?”“No.”“Is there anything I need to be careful about?”Rosa thought for a moment.“Don’t forget the medication the doctor prescribed. If the wounds bother you, call the clinic.”I waited for her to continue.Instead, she set the spare key on the table.“You can lock the door from the inside.”I looked at the key, and my throat tightened.At the estate, I had never been allowed to lock my door.My father said families shouldn’t have secrets.Livia could turn my drawers inside out and silence my objections with those same words.I bent to remove my shoes. A heel tapped softly against the floor.Before leaving, Rosa asked whether I wanted someone to stay.I shook my head.She didn’t insist.“Keep your phone on. If someone calls and you don’t want to answer, don’t.”After the door closed, I stood in the entryway for a long time.Then I turned the lock twice.I didn’t sleep in the bedroom that night.I sat on the sofa wrapped in a blanket, every light left on. W

Someone stood with their phone raised and moved closer.Then came my father’s voice.“I should have burned every last thing that woman left behind.”My hand tightened involuntarily around the blanket.Even having heard it before, I still thought of my mother’s face.In his mouth, she didn’t even have a name.That woman.Like a problem he hadn’t disposed of thoroughly enough.On the screen, Viola turned a page.“You still haven’t found where she hid the ledgers before she died. Did you think getting rid of her driver meant no one could investigate the car?”The room fell silent.My father lunged toward another set of equipment.Someone stopped him. More people stood.His recorded voice continued.“You signed a statement about that accident too.”A distinct gasp came from the crowd.Someone asked, “Is he talking about his first wife?”No one answered.I picked up my water and touched the rim, only then realizing it had gone cold.Near the end of the recording, hotel staff finally shut do

That evening, the lawyer asked me to come to his office.Two printouts lay on his desk.One was the confession my father had distributed.The other was a meeting acknowledgment I had signed for a port services company three years earlier.He pushed the two signatures toward me, side by side.“At first glance, the positioning and strokes align very closely. We’ve arranged further examination.”I looked at the familiar name.They hadn’t even bothered waiting for me to pick up the pen.Whenever they needed it, my name could appear on any page they prepared.“I want to set the record straight,” I said.“You can. But stick to the facts.”That night, the lawyer issued a statement on my behalf.I had never signed the confession. All materials received had been preserved, and action would be taken over the unauthorized use of my signature and the false accusations.There were no insults. No account of family grievances.Only a photograph of the original, damaged by seawater.Its signature line

I looked at the screen and suddenly felt cold.In the past, hearing him speak that way would make me afraid I had endangered other people.Then I would go back.Apologize.Rescue everyone from his anger.This time, I called the lawyer instead.“I want the pressure being put on other people documented too.”He agreed.Just before we ended the call, he stopped me.“Elia, one more thing.”“We found the consulting company’s registration records.”He paused.“The contact’s surname is Ferro.”Ferro.I wrote the name on a sheet of paper and stared at it for a long time.At my mother’s funeral, he had worn a dark gray suit and helped my father receive several visitors.I had been too young to remember much beyond the sharp smell of smoke clinging to him.Later, whenever my father met him in the study, I was never allowed to stay.“He works for the company,” my father always said.Now his name appeared in a payment record from the day after my mother died.“What does this prove?” I asked the la

Six people sat in the conference room.Some were gray-haired. Others were around my age. There were none of the cigars so common at my father’s estate, and no one suddenly stopped talking when I entered.The manager chairing the meeting stood to introduce himself.“When your mother was here, I oversaw dock maintenance.”He didn’t call me a smaller version of her or ask me to live up to her.He simply placed a folder in front of me.“You can start by familiarizing yourself. You don’t need to make any decisions today.”I opened the first page.Accounts. Leases. Equipment depreciation.Every entry had supporting documents.Instinctively, I asked, “Can I review the originals?”He looked momentarily surprised.“Of course.”At the Morante company, that same question would make my father frown.Who are you accusing?Halfway through the meeting, I questioned an unplanned expense.The operations representative pulled up the records. While explaining them, he discovered one item had indeed been