Chapter 14: The Third Brother

Villa Isabella, Sabine Mountains

3:47 a.m.

The basement smelled of dampness and buried secrets.

Elena descended the stone stairs with a borrowed flashlight, each step a risk, each shadow a potential threat. Dante had wanted to accompany her, but someone had to keep an eye on the upper floor, and she needed to do this alone.

The back door was ajar.

She pushed it open slowly.

Inside, a room she hadn't expected to find: walls covered in photographs, documents, maps. A clandestine operations center, hidden beneath the family home. And in the center, a table with three chairs.

On the table, three black roses in a vase.

Elena approached, examining the walls. The photographs showed the same men again and again: Salvatore, Dante, Matteo the elder, Luca. But also others: capos, politicians, judges. And women. Many women.

Sofia was there. And Francesca. And other faces Elena didn't recognize, but whose fate she could imagine.

In the center of the mural, an enlarged photograph: three children, standing in front of the villa. The oldest was about ten, the middle one seven, the youngest five. All three with the same gray eyes.

The three Morettis.

But Dante had only mentioned two brothers.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Elena turned around, her heart in her throat.

Luca was in the doorway, leaning against the frame, with that serene, psychopathic smile of his. In his hand, a fresh black rose.

"The family's story," he continued, stepping inside slowly. "Told in pictures. From beginning to end."

"Who's the third one?" Elena asked, pointing to the photograph.

Luca leaned closer to look at it, as if he'd never seen it before.

"That one," he said, touching the small boy's face, "is Marco." The youngest. The forgotten one."

"Marco?"

"Marco Moretti." Luca turned to her. "He was born when Matteo, the eldest, had already been set aside. When I was already going mad, or starting to. When Dante was just a baby in Isabella's arms. Marco grew up at the center of it all, and no one saw him."

Elena processed the information. "Where is he now?"

Luca smiled. That blood-curdling smile.

"Close. Very close. In fact, you've seen him."

The world stopped.

"What?"

"The man with the scar." "The one who calls himself Matteo the eldest." Luca chuckled softly. "That's not Matteo. Matteo died twenty years ago, in a reformatory, from an overdose. My father told me that one night, drunk, before he locked me up for good."

"Then who is it?"

"Marco." Luca pointed to the photograph of the little boy. "He grew up hating Salvatore for pushing his brothers away. He hates Dante for having the life he deserved. He hates Matteo for dying and leaving him alone. And he used me, my madness, my pain, my loyalty to build his revenge."

Elena took a step back. "And Alessia?"

"A tool. Like you. Like Dante. Like everyone." Luca sat down in one of the chairs, the rose twirling between his fingers. "Marco is the gardener. Marco is the one who's been planting roses all over Italy. Marco is the one who's going to destroy the Morettis from within."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Luca looked at her for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was almost human.

"Because I'm tired. Because I've been locked up, manipulated, used for thirty years. Because Marco promised me freedom and gave me another prison." He sighed. "And because you're the first person who's looked at me like I'm not a monster."

Elena didn't know what to say.

Upstairs, a scream pierced the night.

They ran upstairs.

The library was in chaos. Dante was struggling with two of Marco's men, while little Matteo watched from a corner with an expression that didn't match his age. Alessia stood in the doorway, motionless, as if waiting for something.

And Marco, the fake Matteo, was sitting in Salvatore's armchair, drinking brandy.

"Lower your weapons!" he ordered when he saw Elena and Luca. "The show isn't over."

The men released Dante. He straightened up, his clothes disheveled, his gaze murderous.

"What the hell is this?"

Marco grinned. "A revelation, little brother. Because it turns out I'm not your older brother. I'm the younger one. The one no one saw. The one everyone forgot."

Dante blinked. "What?"

Luca spoke: "His name is Marco. He's your younger brother. Matteo died years ago."

The silence was absolute.

Dante looked at Marco, the man with the scar, the one he had accepted as his own flesh and blood, the one who had stolen his nephew, and for the first time in months, Elena saw him lost.

"It can't be."

"It can." Marco stood up, the brandy forgotten. "Mother had four children, Dante. Four. You, me, Luca, and Matteo. Matteo was taken away at birth. I was hidden away in a boarding school. Luca was locked up as a lunatic. And you were raised like a prince." He took a step toward him. "Fair, isn't it?"

Dante shook his head. "I wasn't to blame."

"Wasn't I?" Marco laughed. "You had her love. Her attention. Her name. While I was learning to stab people in reform schools, you were learning Latin. While Luca was rotting in an asylum, you were inheriting the empire. You weren't to blame? You were to blame for existing."

Little Matteo approached Marco. The boy placed his hand in his uncle's, his real uncle's, and said,

"I exist too, Uncle Marco. And I don't want to be like them."

Marco looked at the boy with a tenderness that chilled him to the bone.

"You won't be. I promise you."

Dante took a step forward. "Let him go. He's my"

"Your?" Marco interrupted. "You kidnapped him, hid him, changed his name. You tore him from his land, from his history, from his family. And now you say he's yours?" He shook his head. "No, little brother. Matteo is mine. Just like I was nobody's for thirty years."

Elena intervened: "What do you want, Marco? What do you really want?"

Marco looked at her. And for a moment, his mask slipped.

"I want them to suffer. All of them. The bosses who ignored my existence. The politicians who bought my silence. Salvatore, who's already dead. And Dante, who lived my life." He pointed at Luca. "My crazy brother, my only ally. And this little girl stroked Alessia's hair, who lost her sister just like I lost my mother."

Alessia looked at him adoringly.

Elena understood. It wasn't a power dynamic. It was a family of monsters, bound by pain.

The most dangerous family of all.

Dawn

Dante and Elena were locked in the upstairs room. No weapons, no phones, no hope.

"I have to kill him," Dante said. "It's the only way out."

"Kill your brother?"

"He's not my brother. He's a stranger with my blood." Dante looked at her. "And he's going to kill us all if we don't do it first."

Elena thought of Luca, of his weariness, of his confession. She thought of Alessia, lost in her own revenge. She thought of the child, so small, so empty.

"There's another way," she said.

"Which one?"

"I don't know yet." She took his hand. "But Luca is on our side. I saw it in his eyes. He's tired of Marco, of the madness, of everything. We can use him."

Dante hesitated. "Do you trust him?"

"No. But he doesn't trust Marco either. And sometimes, the enemy of my enemy..."

Dante nodded slowly.

"How do we contact him?"

Elena smiled. "There's no need. He's already here."

She pointed to the door. Through the crack, a shadow.

Luca entered silently.

"We need to talk," he whispered. "Before Marco decides he doesn't need you anymore."

Downstairs, Marco held a black rose above Isabella's portrait.

"Soon, Mother. Soon we'll all be together."

He stuck the rose in the frame, right above the painted heart.

And he smiled.