Chapter 12: The Family Reunion

Villa Isabella, Sabine Mountains

Dawn

The silence in the library was so thick Elena could hear her own blood.

Dante held his gun raised, but his hand trembled the first time Elena had ever seen it. Across from them, the two men smiled with the same smile, the same gray eyes, the same murderous blood coursing through their veins.

"Put the gun down, little brother." The older brother, Matteo, the long-lost one, stepped forward, hands in his pockets, nonchalant. "We didn't come here to kill you. If that's what we wanted, you'd be dead already."

Dante didn't lower his weapon. "Where have you been for thirty years?"

"Wherever your father put me." Matteo's smile twisted. "First in a reformatory, then on the streets, then in prison, then nowhere. While you grew up in palaces, I learned to survive among rats."

"It wasn't my fault."

"Wasn't it?" Matteo took another step closer. "You had my name. My place. My inheritance. Everything that should have been mine was in the hands of Isabella's pretty boy while I rotted away."

Luca, Salvatore's crazy son, watched the scene with unsettling calm. His eyes darted from Dante to Elena without blinking, like a cat watching birds.

Alessia was still in the doorway, holding Matteo's hand. The little boy looked at his uncle Dante with an expression Elena couldn't decipher: fear, or perhaps guilt.

"Let him go," Dante said, nodding his chin at the boy. "He has nothing to do with this.""Of course it's related." Matteo the older one turned to the boy. "Come here, nephew."

Little Matteo let go of Alessia's hand and walked toward his uncle, the other uncle, the stranger. He stood beside him without fear, as if he'd always done so.

Dante aged ten years in a second.

"Matteo?" His voice was a broken whisper. "What are you doing?"

The boy looked at him. When he spoke, his voice was clear, calm, terrible:

"My name is Matteo, like my uncle. The real one. The one who didn't run away."

The gun trembled in Dante's hand.

Elena intervened for the first time: "He's a child. He's been manipulated. He doesn't know what he's saying."

"Are you sure?" Luca finally spoke, his voice soft as rotten silk. "Children know more than we think. They know who truly loves them and who's using them."

Dante took a step forward. "I never used Matteo. I saved him. I got him out of here when Salvatore threatened to—"

"When Salvatore threatened to what?" Matteo, the older brother, laughed. "When your uncle, your boss, your favorite assassin decided my nephew was also a nuisance? And what did you do? Run. Take him to Canada like he was a package, not a child with a family."

"I am his family."

"You?" Matteo's laughter was cut short. "You killed your grandfather. You destroyed your heritage. You condemned him to live in hiding, under a false name, far from his homeland. You call yourself family?"

Dante opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Elena saw the crack in his armor. For the first time, Dante Moretti didn't know what to say.

Alessia took advantage of the silence.

"We're not the bad guys, Elena." Her voice was different, harsher, more grown-up. The naive girl from Naples had been a character, like Elena in the Vesper. "We're the ones left after your selective justice killed Salvatore and left everything else untouched."

"Salvatore killed your sister," Elena said.

"And Dante killed Salvatore. Did that bring her back to life? Did that give us anything back?" Alessia shook her head. "No. It only took away our chance to do it ourselves."

Elena understood. "You want revenge. And we took it away from you."

"We wanted justice. You wanted headlines." Alessia pointed at Dante. "He wanted to clear his conscience. And you wanted to close the case. No one thought about us. About the sisters, the mothers, the daughters left with the pain."

The silence that followed was heavier than any accusation.

Matteo the Elder sat down in the leather armchair, the same one where Dante had killed Salvatore. Elena knew this and crossed her legs.

"So now we have a problem," he said. "We want justice. You want to survive. And there's a child involved who deserves to grow up without this shit."

Dante lowered the gun slowly. Not because he trusted him, but because holding it was pointless.

"What do you propose?"

"A deal." Matteo looked at him intently. "Help us dismantle what's left of Salvatore's empire. The businesses, the contacts, the bought politicians. Everything. With your knowledge and Elena's, we can do it in a few months."

"And then?"

"Then, you disappear. Forever. Far from Matteo, far from Italy, far from us." His voice hardened. "The child stays with me. He's my blood, my name, my heritage. I'll raise him properly."

"How were you raised? In reform schools and prisons?" Dante shook his head. "No."

"Better than with a fugitive killer." Matteo stood up. "This is my final offer, brother. Help us and live. Deny it and you die. And the child stays with me anyway."

Dante looked at Elena. His gray eyes pleaded for something she couldn't give him.

"Don't trust them," she said. "They'll use you and kill you."

"I know." Dante nodded slowly. "But if I don't accept, Matteo will grow up with them. And he'll become this." He gestured to Luca, Matteo, Alessia. "Another monster."

Elena had no answer.

Dante turned to his brother.

"I accept."

Matteo smiled. "I knew you'd understand."

Luca approached the boy and placed a hand on his shoulder. Little Matteo smiled with the same smile as his uncle, as Salvatore, as all of them.

Elena felt a chill.

He wasn't a hostage.

He was one of them.

Three hours later

Elena and Dante were alone in an upstairs room. No weapons, no phones, no escape. Guarded by Matteo's men.

Dante sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I dragged you into this, and there's no way out."

Elena sat beside him. "There still is."

"How?"

"I don't know yet." He took her hand, a gesture that surprised even her. "But together we've survived worse."

Dante looked at her. For a moment, he wasn't the underboss, the assassin, or the fugitive. He was just a frightened man.

"What if we can't?"

Elena squeezed his hand.

"Then we die together."

Downstairs in the library, Matteo, the elder, stared at an old photograph. His mother, Isabella, holding one child and another in Dante's womb.

"Soon," he whispered. "Soon everything will be mine."

Luca appeared in the doorway.

"The capos have responded. They want a meeting. They want to know who's in charge now."

Matteo smiled.

"Tell them the heir has returned. And that he's bringing gifts."

Upstairs, little Matteo played with a black rose.

He was slowly plucking its petals, one by one.

Just like his new uncle had taught him.

Just like he'd been taught to do everything.