Chapter 5 Five

• POV Marco:
• I turn the pages of the album slowly, analyzing each photograph as if it were a piece of evidence. The files on the Ricci family spread out in front of me like a map to a secret that I still can't fully decipher. But it's only a matter of time before I do, I need answers, and Isidro Ricci only leaves me with more and more questions.
• The library remains silent, it is a place that almost no one usually visits in our house. My father never comes here, he prefers his office full of cigar smoke and whiskey. For me, this place is perfect: no one questions the invalid son who kills his time among old books.
• I search my cell phone for a recent photograph of Isidro Ricci at a social event and compare it with an older photograph. He has the same eyes and the same facial structure, but there is something different in the posture and in the shape of the shoulders. It's not the natural change that occurs over time, it's something more subtle.
• I open the medical file my father ordered to be obtained before fully accepting the engagement. It contains the usual: vaccination records, routine doctor visits, no serious illnesses. But what intrigues me is the perfection. It's too neat, too consistent. The medical stamps are identical, the dates perfectly spaced. Are the Ricci's so serious about doctor visits that they don't miss a single one?
• "No one has such a perfect medical record," I say quietly.
• There are no fractures in childhood, no emergencies, nothing to suggest a real life, especially in a world like ours where physical training is brutal and mandatory from childhood. It's as if someone had fabricated an ideal medical record.
• I run my finger over the dates. Even the handwriting of different doctors looks suspiciously similar.
• A movement catches my attention: through the half-open door of the library, I see Isidro pass through the corridor leading to the main hall. He stops in front of a mirror and adjusts his tie. What I see confirms my suspicions: there is a tremor in his shoulders, a softness in his gestures that contradicts his façade of toughness.
• I stand still, watching. His hands are small for a man, with slender fingers working meticulously on the knot of his tie. When he thinks no one is watching, his posture changes subtly.
• Isidro turns his head toward the library and I pretend to check a book. Seconds later, he continues on his way down the hall.
• I go back to the documents, more intrigued than ever. I look for another photograph, this time of Isidro with his father at a funeral. Antonio Ricci, the patriarch, has a hand on his son's shoulder. The hand seems disproportionately large compared to the shoulder, as if Isidro is smaller than he appears.
• "What are you hiding?" I ask the photograph.
• I compare this image with another taken five years ago, he's wearing the same dark clothes, the same haircut and the same serious expression. But the eyes... his green eyes look different. In the older photo there is fear, almost panic. In the recent one I see only resignation.
• I hear the sound of my father's car in front of the house, he has already returned from his meeting. I quickly organize the documents, but I don't put them away. If he comes to the library I want it to look like I'm just hanging out, not obsessively researching.
• The library door opens fully after a few minutes and my sister Sofia enters.
• "Marco, our father is asking for you, I figured you'd be here," he says quietly.
• "What does he want now?"
• "I don't know. He's in his office." Sofia looks at the documents on the table. "What are you doing?"
• "Just browsing... What do you think of your fiancé?"
• Sofia lowers her gaze. "He's... reserved. I'll take a walk with him in the garden this afternoon, I guess I'll get to know him better that way."
• "Do you like him, by any chance?"
• "It doesn't matter if I like him. It's an agreement, not a love story."
• I nod my head. Poor Sofia, she has always been destined to be my father's bargaining chip.
• "Tell him I'll be there in a moment," I say.
• When she leaves, I go back to the documents. Something doesn't add up, and I don't quite understand what it is.
• I remember the way Isidro avoided my question about swimming during dinner, the way his eyes averted when I mentioned his mother, and the stiffness of his posture as he sat next to Sofia. My sister is beautiful, even if they don't know each other any man would be pleased to have a future wife like her. He, on the other hand, seemed more tense and scared than anything else.
• An idea begins to form in my mind, so absurd that I almost dismiss it. But the pieces fit together too well: the size of his hands, the hidden delicacy of his movements, the absence of a verifiable past.
• "It can't be," I mutter.
• But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Isidro Ricci is not who he says he is. It's not just that he's hiding something, it's that he's hiding everything.
• I sort the documents into a pile and take them away to put them in my desk drawer. I need more proof before I can be completely sure, I need to see Isidro Ricci when he thinks no one is watching.
• I turn my chair toward the door, my father can wait. I have a mystery to solve, and I like nothing better than digging up secrets that others want to keep buried.
• Because I suspect that Isidro Ricci might be the biggest liar to ever enter this house. And in a family of professional liars like ours, that's saying a lot.