Chapter 9
My mother had been dead for twenty-six years.
At least that was what I believed.
Isabella Rossi died when I was seventeen.
Cancer.
A private funeral.
Closed casket.
My father never spoke her name afterward.
There were photographs, of course.
But fewer than there should have been.
As a child, I thought that was because Antonio hated sentiment.
Now I wondered whether absence had been curated.
“Anthony is lying.”
Dominic did not answer.
“Say it.”
“I don’t know.”
“My mother died before Matteo was born.”
“Yes.”
“She couldn’t have ordered anything.”
“No.”
“Then why mention her?”
Dominic looked uncomfortable.
“What?”
I demanded.
“There were rumors.”
“What rumors?”
“About Isabella.”
I stood.
“You knew?”
“I was sixteen when she supposedly died.”
“Supposedly?”
Dominic rubbed his jaw.
“My father attended the funeral.”
“So?”
“He told me years later the casket felt too light.”
I stared at him.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Probably.”
“You’re telling me my mother faked her death because a coffin felt light?”
“I’m telling you Anthony wanted you thinking about her.”
That was different.
Again.
Details mattered.
I had spent my life turning implications into conclusions.
No more.
“Find Anthony.”
Dominic called again.
No answer.
By sunrise, his house was empty.
Car gone.
Phone abandoned.
Laptop wiped.
He had planned his departure.
Lucia discovered a flight reservation under another name.
Destination: New York.
Not escape.
Home.
We returned to the Hudson Valley that afternoon.
I expected the mansion to feel familiar.
It didn’t.
Once you learned a house contained secrets, architecture changed.
Every corridor became a question.
Every locked door became evidence.
Matteo asked to sleep in my room.
He had not done that since he was five.
I said yes without making it significant.
Clara brought an extra blanket.
Before leaving, she paused.
“You should sleep too.”
“I will.”
“That sounded like a lie.”
“It was.”
She almost smiled.
Then Matteo called from the bed.
“Clara?”
“Yes?”
“Stay until I fall asleep?”
She looked at me.
I nodded.
We sat on opposite sides of the room.
No monitors.
No screens.
No security feed.
Matteo fell asleep in eleven minutes.
Clara stood.
I followed her into the hall.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me every time I care about him.”
“I’m not used to people doing things without wanting something.”
Her eyes held mine.
“That sounds lonely.”
“It’s practical.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“It’s lonely.”
For one dangerous second, neither of us moved.
I noticed a loose strand of hair near her cheek.
She noticed me noticing.
Something passed between us.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Something more unsettling.
Trust.
Then Dominic appeared at the end of the hallway.
“Vincent.”
The moment disappeared.
“What?”
“We found Anthony.”
“Where?”
“Your father’s old house.”
The property had been empty nine years.
I kept it because selling felt like admitting Antonio Rossi could belong to strangers.
We arrived at dusk.
Anthony sat in the dining room.
Alone.
A bottle of wine beside him.
He did not look frightened.
That worried me.
“You came.”
I remained standing.
“You ran.”
“I relocated.”
Dominic swore.
Anthony smiled faintly.
“Still dramatic.”
“Tell us about Arco,” I said.
He poured wine.
“You want the short version?”
“The true one.”
“Those aren’t always the same.”
I did not react.
Anthony studied me.
“You’ve changed.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He looked toward Dominic.
“He would normally have hit me by now.”
Dominic shrugged.
“I’m enjoying the suspense.”
Anthony’s smile disappeared.
“Antonio created Arco thirty-one years ago.”
“For what?”
“Private operations.”
“Illegal?”
Anthony laughed.
“Vincent.”
“Specific.”
“Bribes. Surveillance. Political favors. Off-book security.”
“After he died?”
“The trust continued.”
“Who controlled it?”
“I administered it.”
“Who gave instructions?”
Anthony looked at the empty chair at the head of the table.
“Your mother.”
I remained still.
“Isabella died.”
“No.”
One word.
Twenty-six years disappeared.
I gripped the back of a chair.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Why did she leave?”
Anthony drank.
“Because Antonio tried to kill her.”
Dominic stopped moving.
Anthony continued.
“Your mother discovered what he was building. She wanted to take you and leave.”
My chest tightened.
The pattern.
Elena.
Me.
Matteo.
Again and again.
“What happened?”
“Antonio found out.”
“How?”
“Someone betrayed her.”
“Who?”
Anthony looked at Dominic.
“Your father.”
Dominic’s face emptied.
“My father?”
“He told Antonio Isabella planned to leave.”
Dominic shook his head.
“No.”
“Families survive by betraying the right people.”
“Shut up.”
Anthony ignored him.
“Antonio arranged a fake medical decline. Isabella used it to disappear before he could act.”
“And left me?”
“She believed taking you would get you killed.”
I heard the words but could not make them fit inside the memory of being seventeen.
My mother pale in bed.
My father refusing to let me visit during her final week.
The funeral.
The closed casket.
My father telling me she had asked me to be strong.
A lie.
All of it.
“She contacted me after Antonio died,” Anthony said.
“Why you?”
“Because I was the executor.”
“What did she want?”
“To dismantle Arco.”
“Then why was it still operating?”
Anthony looked ashamed.
“Because I didn’t dismantle it.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“You used it.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Information.”
“Money?”
“Yes.”
“Blackmail?”
Anthony did not answer.
I understood.
“You became the thing she was trying to destroy.”
His face tightened.
“I told myself I could control it.”
The sentence sounded familiar.
Every disaster in my family seemed to begin with someone believing control made corruption safe.
“Did you hurt Matteo?”
“No.”
“Did you change Elena’s route?”
“No.”
“Did you pay Costa?”
“Yes.”
Dominic moved.
I stopped him with one hand.
“Why?”
“To monitor you.”
“On whose orders?”
“Isabella’s.”
My mother.
Watching me.
From somewhere.
For years.
“Why?”
“Because she believed you were becoming Antonio.”
The same accusation.
Again.
“She wanted to know whether you could still be reached.”
“Reached?”
“Before someone else decided you couldn’t.”
A cold feeling spread through me.
“Who?”
Anthony looked genuinely afraid for the first time.
“There was another beneficiary.”
“Arco?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I never knew the name.”
“You administered the trust.”
“The identity was sealed.”
“By whom?”
“Antonio.”
“Why?”
Anthony’s voice lowered.
“Because if you became too powerful, that person was supposed to remove you.”
Silence.
Dominic spoke first.
“Kill him?”
Anthony looked at me.
“Replace him.”
I thought of the bombing.
The altered route.
My vehicle.
Someone had not wanted to scare me.
Someone had wanted my position.
“Who inherits if I die?”
Anthony’s expression told me before he answered.
“Matteo.”
My son.
Seven years old at the time of his fall.
Too young to control anything.
Meaning someone else would control everything for him.
“Who becomes trustee?”
I asked.
Anthony closed his eyes.
“Your closest living Rossi relative.”
My uncle.
Gabriel.
May you like
And suddenly, for the first time, we had something more dangerous than suspicion.
We had motive.
