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Aria straightens her hair and sits up straight. She looks at the officers as she waits for their response.
“I suppose we haven’t looked at it that way,” one of the officers says. “That might make things trickier, yes.”
“Good, then we understand each other,” she says cheerfully. “You can make the arrangements for his release. If you need, I have the contact details for his secretary. I am sure she’d be more than willing to help you with the admin.”
I wish I could laugh. The entire situation seems so funny to me. The police officers stare at their blank clipboard as they run out of ways to change Aria’s mind. Every now and then they look to me as if to ask me for help, but I simply hold my finger up to my lips. I promised I wouldn’t speak, and I will keep that promise.
“Excuse us one moment while we make some phone calls,” the officer says.
As soon as they leave, I burst out laughing. “You are a firecracker,” I say.
Aria blushes. “I know it seems strange, but I just don’t think sending him to prison is the right thing to do.”
“Well, that makes you more the man than your father is,” I tease.
A few moments later, the police officers return and they look even paler than before.
“Right, Aria,” the officer says. “That’s all fine, no charges pressed then. But it seems we cannot have your father released.”
Aria glares at them. “Why not? Has my family not been generous to your precinct?”
“It’s not that,” the officer says. “That recording where your father admits to paying off the federal judges has already landed in everybody’s inbox. We can’t release him. The state has decided to press charges.”
“Yes, he’s being charged with bribery,” the other officer says.
“Ah,” I add. “Yes, I am sure that the citizens of our country have many questions about that.”
The officers looked at me.
“What?” I say. “I said I’d keep quiet until you left the room. You just left earlier, and now you’re back. I kept my promise.”
The officer rolled his eyes. “Yeah, alright. Whatever.”
“Your family has been very generous to us,” the officer explains. “But the thing is … the media have gotten hold of the recording, you see. It’s all over the news already. As far as I know, the police are already putting together a task force to go after the judges in question.”
“There must be something we can do?” Aria asks.
The officer shakes his head. “It’s one thing to go up against an individual. It’s one thing to change the mind of the state. But it is impossible to change the mind of the media. Once they’ve gotten hold of something, I’m afraid it’s too late.”
“We simply cannot protect him from this,” the other officer added. “I’m sure our precinct will receive an inquiry soon as well.”
The story has become precisely as big as it was intended to be. And that makes me partly happy. I like to know that he has been exposed. But I also know that it has likely done nothing to change his ego. That kind of publicity to someone like Gabriele is as good as winning an award.
He will go down in history by the time his case has come to an end.
“Thank you anyway,” Aria says softly to the police officers.
They take their belongings and leave us again.
“You were on the inside, how easy is it to win them over?” she asks me with concern in her eyes.
“Half my men are from the inside,” I say, answering her message as clearly as possible.
She closes her eyes and presses her head back into the pillow. “I know that we wanted him put away, but now I’m afraid of what that might mean,” she says.
I take her hand and squeeze it lightly. “It will be okay,” I say. “We deal with that when the time comes.”
A tray of food is pushed into the room and Aria’s eyes light up. She eats eagerly until the plate is entirely empty. Then, she tells me about how Mattia had saved her from her father’s house, and how bored she had been on the island by herself.
