CHAPTER EIGHT

KAI

I woke to white light and deep pain spreading through my body.

My shoulder was wrapped tightly, and the first clear thought that came through the fog of whatever they had given me for the pain was Elias.

Not my aunt.

Not my father.

Not even the wound, though it hurt badly enough to make my eyes water when I tried to move.

Elias.

His name came first.

I lay there in a paper gown, staring at the ceiling, a tube taped to the back of my hand.

“You’re awake.”

Renata sat in a chair beside the bed. Under the harsh hospital lights, she looked exhausted. Older somehow. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap.

“You scared me half to death, you absolute fool.”

“Where’s Elias?”

My voice was dry and rough.

Her expression shifted.

“He left the house before the detectives finished questioning me. I don’t know where he went.”

I tried to sit up.

Pain ripped through my shoulder, sharp enough to make me suck in a breath.

Renata immediately put a hand on my arm and pushed me back down. There was more strength behind it than I expected from a woman who had looked like she was falling apart not long ago.

“You’re not going anywhere,” she said. “You lost enough blood to scare a surgeon who, apparently, has seen just about everything this city can throw at him. So you’re going to stay in that bed and let them finish treating you. Then, and only then, we’ll talk about what happens next.”

“Marco.”

I forced the name out through clenched teeth.

“Where’s Marco?”

Her jaw tightened.

For a second, I thought she wouldn’t answer.

“Gone. Nobody has seen him since he left through the service gate. I’ve had men searching since the ambulance took you away, but they haven’t found anything. No car. No calls on any line we can trace. Nothing.”

She paused.

Her voice sounded strange when she spoke again, almost like she was trying to convince herself as much as me.

“Nineteen years, Kai. I never saw him move like that. Like he already knew how the night was going to end before he even walked into that study.”

“You called him.”

I made myself say it.

I held her gaze, even though some part of me still resisted accusing her. Nineteen years of trusting this woman didn’t disappear because one terrible night had changed everything.

“You called him the second you found us in that study. You said, ‘We have a problem.’ Then you said, ‘It’s time we finished what should have been finished nineteen years ago.’”

I swallowed.

“Those were your words, Renata. Not his. Yours.”

She didn’t look away.

I had to give her that.

Even now.

Even knowing what those nineteen years had cost.

She didn’t lie.

“I called him because I spent nineteen years believing he was the only thing standing between this family and complete ruin,” she said quietly. “I thought I was controlling him. God help me, I really believed that.”

She looked down at her hands.

“The money I moved. The things I buried. The favors I bought over the years. I thought all of it gave me leverage. I thought I had something I could use against him if he ever turned on this family.”

Her eyes lifted to mine.

“I was wrong.”

Her voice dropped.

“I knew exactly how wrong I was when he raised that gun in your father’s study and shot a man without even looking at me first.”

“You still made the call.”

“Yes.”

There was no excuse in her voice.

“I made the call because I still thought I could control what happened next. I’ve believed that for nineteen years. Through everything I did to keep this family together, I told myself I was making the hard choices because somebody had to.”

She let out a tired breath.

“But when I watched him shoot that man in your father’s house without hesitation, I finally understood. I never controlled him. Not once.”

Her fingers tightened around each other.

“I was only useful to him. He kept me close enough to use and far enough away to blame when everything eventually fell apart.”

Her voice broke.

For the second time that night, I watched my aunt lose the composure she had spent years perfecting.

She covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

Neither of us spoke.

The machine beside my bed kept beeping into the silence, steady and emotionless, marking the seconds that almost hadn’t existed for me tonight.

“Tell me what happened nineteen years ago,” I said.

She looked at me.

“All of it. No more managing the truth, Renata. No more deciding what I can and can’t handle.”

My throat tightened.

“I almost died tonight because of secrets you’ve kept since before I was old enough to know what questions to ask. I think I’ve earned the right to hear the truth now.”

She said nothing.

The silence stretched.

For a moment, I wondered if she was going to shut me out again. Retreat behind that wall she’d spent nineteen years building.

Then she finally spoke.

“Adrian found out I was moving money out of the family accounts.”

I didn’t move.

“Small amounts at first. Then more. I told myself I was protecting us. That I was creating something we could fall back on if your father’s temper or his enemies finally caught up with him.”

She gave a bitter little laugh.

“Maybe that was even true at first.”

Her face hardened.

“Adrian found the accounts. He was going to tell your father.”

She looked away.

“I panicked, Kai.”

The words came out quietly.

“I panicked in a way I’ve spent nineteen years pretending I didn’t. Because the woman who panics isn’t the woman who spent two decades holding this family together. I couldn’t allow myself to remember her.”

“And Marco?”

“Marco was a fixer for your father back then. Nothing important. He wasn’t trusted with much.”

She paused.

“I went to him because I needed the money moved somewhere it couldn’t be traced before Adrian could show your father what he’d found.”

Her eyes filled.

“But Marco saw an opportunity.”

She took a breath.

“He was supposed to move the money. Instead, he went to meet Adrian.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

Her voice cracked.

“I don’t know what was said between them. I only know Adrian never came home.”

She stared at the floor.

“Two days later, Marco came to me. He was calm. Almost casual. He told me he’d solved my problem.”

My stomach turned.

“And then he told me I owed him a debt I’d be paying for the rest of my life.”

The machine continued its steady beeping beside me.

I stared at the ceiling as nineteen years of grief shifted into something I barely recognized.

The truth was worse than anything I’d imagined.

“And Salvatore Marchetti,” I said slowly, “took the blame for a murder committed by the man you trusted to clean up your mess.”

“Salvatore saw enough to become a danger to both of us.”

Renata’s eyes went distant.

“Marco made sure he understood what would happen to his wife and his infant son if he ever spoke about what he’d witnessed on that dock.”

She stopped.

Her face crumpled for a second before she forced herself to continue.

“And I let it happen.”

The words were barely audible.

“I told myself it was already done. That speaking up would destroy two families instead of one. I told myself Salvatore’s silence was a mercy I was giving him.”

She shook her head.

“But it wasn’t.”

Her eyes met mine again.

“It was another lie I helped bury.”

Down the hall, a door opened.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor.

Renata’s head snapped toward the door.

“That isn’t hospital staff.”

She stood.

One hand disappeared into her jacket.

“Kai.”

Her voice had changed.

“Stay down.”