On Monday, Andrew met an Italian lawyer named Giulia Ferraro.
She had been recommended by a trade attorney he knew in Milan.
Her office was above a pharmacy in a neighboring town.
It had pale walls and a desk covered in carefully labeled folders.
I waited outside at first.
Andrew invited me in after the introductions.
Giulia read the documents slowly.
She asked whether Andrew had signed the proposed guarantee.
“No.”
“Transferred any funds?”
“No.”
“Given anybody permission to sign in your name?”
“Never.”
She made notes.
“The papers you have shown me appear to be drafts,” she said.
“A draft does not automatically make you responsible for somebody else's borrowing.”
Andrew leaned back.
“Can they get a loan using my name anyway?”
“Someone can submit false information,” she replied.
“But submission and a valid, enforceable obligation are not the same thing.”
She recommended checking whether any applications had actually been submitted.
She also suggested that he notify the relevant lender, in writing, that he had not authorized any guarantee.
Andrew took out his notebook.
He had always written down difficult instructions.
Thomas used to say it was the reason the boy never forgot where he had put his keys.
Giulia explained that the wedding was another matter.
The civil ceremony had created a legal marriage if all formal requirements had been satisfied.
A public humiliation did not erase it.
Andrew would need proper advice about separation, divorce, and any cross-border consequences.
She referred him to a family-law colleague.
He did not ask her to start a divorce that afternoon.
He only wanted to understand his position.
After the meeting we sat on a bench beside the pharmacy.
A delivery driver maneuvered a van through a street barely wider than the vehicle.
Andrew watched him inch forward.
“Dad would've tried to direct that man,” he said.
“He would have made it worse.”
We laughed.
Then Andrew's face grew serious again.
“I kept thinking there's some form they can wave and take everything.”
“Now you know to ask what the form actually does.”
He nodded.
The distinction mattered.
I had taught government classes for almost two decades.
Students often assumed that a piece of official-looking paper was the same as an official decision.
It was not.
A person could write almost anything on a sheet of paper.
Authority came from law, consent, signatures, and procedures that could be examined.
That afternoon, Andrew sent a message to his accountant in the United States.
He asked for a review of his personal savings account access.
He confirmed that Lucia had no authorization to move money from those accounts.
He also changed passwords on accounts they had previously discussed using together.
He did not make false claims about stolen money.
No money had been stolen from him.
The danger was a proposed transaction and a deception.
His accountant replied that no unusual outgoing transfers appeared on the records they reviewed.
Andrew exhaled when he heard that.
It did not repair the marriage.
It did give him one less emergency to fear.
That evening Lucia called.
Andrew answered in front of the bakery.
I stayed upstairs.
They spoke for almost an hour.
When he came back, he looked exhausted.
“She says she never intended for me to sign without understanding.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I don't know.”
“She admitted knowing the cards were false,” he said.
“But she says she thought Marco would change them before the reception.”
I listened.
“Did she say why she didn't warn you?”
“She said she was afraid her father would be angry.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I'm beginning to think fear has been making decisions for that family for a long time.”
That could explain a great deal.
It did not excuse any of it.
Giulia also explained the importance of preserving ordinary business records.
Andrew had worried that a draft containing his name might somehow make him responsible for the hotel's liabilities.
She showed him the difference between a proposal, a signed agreement, and an obligation accepted by a lender.
She did not promise that a person could never misuse somebody's identity.
She explained how the misuse would be challenged if evidence appeared.
“Your strongest protection now is accuracy,” she said.
“Do not send angry accusations to a hundred people.”
“Tell the relevant parties what you have authorized and what you have not.”
Andrew wrote that down.
He asked whether we should report the false wedding speech to police.
Giulia said civil, reputational, or other legal remedies depended on the details and applicable law.
A deliberately dishonest translation was not automatically the same as a criminal loan scheme.
A lawyer would need to assess the evidence and legal standards before making any allegation.
I appreciated her care.
I had not traveled across an ocean to see people arrested because they insulted me.
I wanted my son protected from obligations he had not agreed to take on.
The rest would require judgment.
After the meeting Andrew asked whether we should have hired a lawyer before the wedding.
“Most people don't hire a lawyer to verify a toast,” I said.
He gave a tired laugh.
“No, I suppose not.”
We visited a small grocery store.
He bought pasta, tomatoes, and cheese.
I selected oranges.
At the checkout, an older man was struggling to count coins.
The cashier waited patiently.
Nobody made him feel foolish.
I noticed Andrew watching.
When we walked outside, he said, “Vittorio treats every financial problem like an emergency everybody else has to solve.”
“Some emergencies are real.”
“His debt is real.”
“Yes.”
“But he decided that made deception acceptable.”
“Exactly.”
That evening we cooked in the apartment kitchen.
The saucepan was too small.
The knives were blunt.
Andrew spilled tomato sauce across the stove.
He apologized to the landlord even though the landlord was nowhere nearby.
I handed him a cloth.
“Your father had the same habit.”
“Spilling sauce?”
“Apologizing before cleaning it.”
He laughed.
Over dinner he told me about the first loan he had taken for his business.
It was for equipment he could barely afford.
Thomas had helped him understand the repayment schedule.
He had not cosigned it.
At the time Andrew had been disappointed.
He thought his father did not believe in him.
Later he understood that Thomas wanted him to choose a loan he could repay independently.
“That used to annoy me,” Andrew admitted.
“Your father could be annoying.”
“He was right, though.”
“Sometimes.”
We ate quietly.
I thought about how different that conversation was from the one we had overheard on Tuesday.
We discussed money as a set of responsibilities.
Nobody turned it into a test of affection.
Before bed, I reread the letter Thomas wrote Andrew when he opened his first warehouse.
I had brought a photograph of it on my phone for the wedding toast.
Thomas congratulated him, then added that contracts should never be signed merely because somebody was offended by a request for time.
I showed Andrew the sentence.
He read it and laughed sadly.
“Dad is still giving me advice.”
“I suspect he'll never stop.”
For a long time we sat together while the small apartment grew quiet.
Giulia asked Andrew to describe his previous business agreements with Vittorio.
Andrew explained that he had offered to introduce the hotel to an equipment supplier.
He had not agreed to purchase anything himself.
She asked him to locate the original email.
He found it in his sent folder.
The wording was clear.
He would provide contact information only.
Giulia smiled slightly.
“That is helpful,” she said.
Andrew looked relieved.
He admitted that he often used careful written language at work but had been informal with Lucia's family.
He assumed they would understand his intent because they were relatives.
Giulia reminded him that clarity protects good relationships, too.
It need not imply distrust.
On the walk home, Andrew said he planned to write down significant financial commitments even with people he liked.
I told him that sounded sensible.
He asked whether I would be offended if he asked me to document a large gift.
“No,” I said.
“I would be relieved you understood it.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Lucia Finally Told Andrew What Her Father Had Asked Her to Hide Before the Engagement
The Wedding Toast I Practiced for a Year Became the Trap They Never Expected Me to Understand
Part 6 of 16
