Chapter 7 - THE BULLET MEANT FOR MATTEODante hit the concrete with Matteo beneath him.
Glass shattered.
Elena screamed.
Renzo fired toward the catwalk.
Vincenzo dragged Isabella behind a steel pillar while Marco’s guards returned fire.
Another bullet struck inches from Dante’s shoulder.
“Stay down!” he shouted.
Matteo was crying.
Dante covered the boy’s ears.
“I’ve got you.”
“Mommy!”
“She’s safe.”
Dante looked up.
Elena was crawling toward them.
“Stay back!”
She ignored him.
Of course she did.
Dante almost laughed.
Even after six years, Elena Rossi still obeyed nobody when someone she loved was in danger.
Renzo shouted from behind an overturned table.
“Shooter moving east!”
Marco fired twice.
A man fell from the catwalk.
Then silence.
Smoke and dust drifted through the terminal.
Dante kept Matteo beneath him.
“Renzo?”
“Clear.”
“Check.”
Two soldiers moved upstairs.
Vincenzo emerged.
“Mother?”
“I’m fine.”
Vittorio sat against a pillar clutching his chest.
Dante saw him.
“Father.”
Renzo reached him first.
“Ambulance.”
Vittorio waved weakly.
“No hospitals.”
“Stop saying that,” Dante snapped.
The old man almost smiled.
“You sound like your mother.”
Dante looked at Isabella.
Vittorio clarified.
“Your real mother.”
Something tightened inside Dante.
Elena reached Matteo.
She pulled him into her arms.
Dante reluctantly released him.
Marco walked toward the fallen shooter.
He turned the body over.
His face changed.
“What?”
Renzo asked.
Marco reached into the man’s jacket.
Pulled out a silver pin.
Vincenzo cursed.
The emblem belonged to the Marchetti security division.
Dante stared.
“One of ours.”
Renzo shook his head.
“Not mine.”
Everyone looked at Vincenzo.
His face hardened.
“Not mine either.”
Dante turned to Marco.
“You have a traitor.”
Marco smiled grimly.
“We all do.”
Vittorio was taken to a private clinic despite his protests.
Matteo refused to leave Dante’s side during the drive back.
He sat between Dante and Elena, holding each of their hands.
Nobody mentioned it.
At the estate, security tripled.
Isabella was placed under guard.
Not because anyone believed she would run.
Because Dante no longer trusted whom she might call.
Vincenzo found him in the library after midnight.
Dante sat near the fireplace while Matteo slept upstairs in his old childhood room.
Elena was with him.
“You’re putting Mother under house arrest?” Vincenzo asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t have authority.”
Dante looked up.
“I have men following my orders.”
“That isn’t authority.”
“In our family, it usually is.”
Vincenzo poured himself a drink.
Dante watched.
“You didn’t know about Carlo.”
“No.”
“I believe you.”
Vincenzo stopped.
“That easy?”
“No.”
Dante leaned back.
“But you looked like someone had ripped your spine out when she confessed.”
Vincenzo laughed bitterly.
“She killed a man to protect secrets about me.”
“And destroyed me doing it.”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised Dante.
Vincenzo drank.
“I hated you.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes I still do.”
“Also aware.”
“You were Father’s golden son. The biological heir. The child of his great dead love.”
Dante looked at the fire.
“You had Isabella.”
“I had a mother who built my entire life around keeping me useful.”
The words mirrored Dante’s own accusation.
They looked at each other.
Brothers after all.
Vincenzo continued.
“She told me Father would throw me out if I failed. Every mistake was proof I was less than you.”
Dante’s anger shifted.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Vincenzo laughed.
“You were twelve.”
“I would have listened.”
“You would have punched someone.”
“That too.”
Silence settled.
Then Vincenzo pulled a flash drive from his pocket.
“I found this in Mother’s safe.”
Dante took it.
“What is it?”
“Financial records.”
“From the accounts Carlo discovered?”
“Worse.”
They opened the files on Dante’s laptop.
Hundreds of transactions.
Shell companies.
Campaign donations.
Judicial consulting retainers.
Police charities.
Construction bids.
Media acquisitions.
The numbers stretched into hundreds of millions.
Dante scrolled.
“Who controls these companies?”
Vincenzo pointed.
“That’s what I couldn’t figure out.”
Each company ultimately connected to one trust.
A trust named LUCIA HOLDINGS.
Dante froze.
Lucia.
His mother’s name.
“What the hell?”
Vincenzo nodded.
“Someone has been using your inheritance for years.”
Dante stared.
“The trust isn’t supposed to activate until I’m thirty-five.”
“Apparently somebody found a back door.”
They traced authorization records.
One signature appeared repeatedly.
ISABELLA MARCHETTI, TRUSTEE.
Dante’s chest burned.
“She stole from me.”
Vincenzo leaned closer.
“Keep reading.”
A second authorized trustee appeared.
MARCO BELLANDI.
Dante frowned.
“Bellandi?”
Vincenzo looked at him.
“Marco isn’t just our father’s brother.”
Dante understood.
“He married into my mother’s family?”
“No.”
Vincenzo shook his head.
“He was born into it.”
Dante stared.
“What?”
“Mother changed his records.”
They dug deeper.
Marco Marchetti had once been Marco Bellandi.
Half brother to Dante’s mother, Lucia.
Which made Marco both Vittorio’s brother by adoption and Lucia’s half brother by blood.
Dante stood.
“This family needs diagrams.”
Vincenzo laughed despite himself.
Then Dante stopped.
A payment dated three days earlier appeared.
Five million dollars.
Recipient unknown.
Purpose code: SUCCESSION EVENT.
Dante’s expression changed.
“The shooter.”
Vincenzo nodded.
“Maybe.”
Another file opened.
A guest list.
Tonight’s original succession ceremony.
Beside certain names were colored marks.
Green.
Red.
Black.
Dante stared.
“What do they mean?”
Vincenzo scrolled to a legend.
GREEN — RETAIN.
RED — REMOVE.
BLACK — TERMINATE.
Dante’s name was black.
So was Vittorio’s.
So was Vincenzo’s.
Elena’s.
And Matteo’s.
Vincenzo whispered, “Mother didn’t make this.”
Dante agreed.
Isabella might destroy lives in the name of protection.
But she would never mark Vincenzo for death.
He looked at the final entry.
MARCO MARCHETTI — BLACK.
Someone wanted every claimant erased.
A sound came from the hallway.
Dante drew his gun.
The library door opened.
Elena entered.
“What are you doing?”
Dante lowered the weapon.
“Nothing you’re going to like.”
She saw the screen.
“Who made that list?”
“We don’t know.”
Elena read the names.
Her face paled at Matteo’s.
Then she pointed lower.
“There.”
One name had no color.
RENZO BELLINI.
Dante and Vincenzo looked at each other.
Footsteps approached.
Renzo entered.
He stopped when he saw their faces.
“What?”
Dante closed the laptop.
“Sit down.”
Renzo’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
Dante placed his gun on the table.
“Because someone made a murder list.”
May you like
Vincenzo locked the door.
“And you’re the only Marchetti lieutenant they forgot to kill.”
