The woman who paid for the murder of her husband - the heir to the Gucci fashion empire - is now getting a 20-million-euro inheritance. A court in Milan ruled that her mother's will was forged, and with that opened the door for Patrizia Reggiani, known as "Lady Gucci", to the wealth allegedly taken from her.

The story began after the death of her mother, Silvana Barbieri, in 2019. The will, surprisingly, cut Reggiani out of the heirs and redirected most of the estate to a foundation controlled by the lawyer who had handled the deceased's affairs. Suspicions grew, and the turning point came with new testimony - a recording made by a household worker - that strengthened the theory that the document didn't reflect the mother's real wishes. When a will leaves everything to the lawyer who drafted it, even slow-moving justice eventually starts asking questions.

For those who've forgotten who Reggiani is: she married Maurizio Gucci in 1972 and became part of Italy's upper class. When the marriage fell apart in the nineties, something far darker followed. In 1995 Maurizio was shot dead outside his office in Milan, and two years later Reggiani was arrested and charged with arranging the murder. Sentenced to 29 years, she served about 18 and walked free in 2016. The story was brought back into the world's media by Ridley Scott's film "House of Gucci", with Lady Gaga in the lead role.

Now, at 77, the woman whose name became a byword for a reckoning within a family with money is a winner again - on paper, at least. She can't freely dispose of the entire fortune because of court supervision, but the message is clear: in stories about big inheritances, whoever thinks they won last is rarely right. Family wars over money have no final winner, only the last one left alive to count.