Chapter 3 - THE BROTHER WHO KNEW
Roman was waiting inside Bellini House.
The lights were off except for the fireplace.
He stood in the same library where his mother once served Christmas brandy after midnight Mass, looking like a man who had spent ten years rehearsing words that suddenly weren’t enough.
When I walked in, his face changed.
“You came.”
I held up the bracelet.
“Explain this.”
Whatever he expected, that wasn’t it.
He took one look at the carved box and went completely still.
“Where did you get that?”
“In our daughter’s backpack.”
His eyes sharpened.
“What?”
“Someone put it there today.”
Roman crossed the room.
“Where is Paulina?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“I am not telling you.”
Pain flashed across his face.
It lasted half a second.
Then the mafia boss returned.
“Was she followed?”
“She’s been watched outside school.”
Roman swore in Italian.
“You knew?”
“No.”
I studied him carefully.
He looked genuinely furious.
Not performative.
Not calculating.
Furious.
“Then why does this box have your brother’s initials?”
Roman took it from me.
His thumb traced the carving.
“L.B.”
“You recognize it.”
“Yes.”
“Luca?”
Roman nodded.
“This was his.”
My anger sharpened.
“He knew about Paulina.”
Roman’s head snapped up.
“No.”
“There’s a note inside.”
He read it.
His face became unreadable.
“This isn’t Luca’s handwriting.”
“How do you know?”
“He wrote like a doctor during an earthquake.”
Despite everything, I remembered.
Luca’s birthday cards were nearly impossible to decipher.
The note in the box was elegant.
Deliberate.
Roman looked at the bracelet.
“My mother ordered these charms.”
“You know it?”
“She had one made for every Bellini child.”
“There were no children when you left.”
His jaw tightened.
“She had them prepared anyway.”
“For grandchildren?”
“Yes.”
That hurt for reasons I didn’t want to examine.
His mother, Isabella, had spent years asking when we would give her a grandchild.
She died eight months before Roman walked out.
“She never knew I was pregnant.”
“No.”
The word sounded like grief.
I looked away.
“What happened to Luca?”
Roman didn’t answer immediately.
“He disappeared seven years ago.”
I stared at him.
“You mean dead?”
“I mean disappeared.”
“No body?”
“No.”
I almost laughed from sheer disbelief.
“This family has apparently spent a decade keeping entire human beings secret.”
Roman accepted the blow.
“He was investigating the people who forced me to leave you.”
“Who were they?”
“That’s why I asked you here.”
Finally.
He crossed to the fireplace and removed an old framed photograph from the mantel.
Roman.
Luca.
Their mother.
And a fourth man.
Tall.
Handsome.
Silver-haired even then.
I recognized him.
“Father Matteo?”
Roman nodded.
Father Matteo Ricci had officiated our wedding.
He had also buried Isabella.
“He wasn’t just our family priest.”
“What was he?”
“My father’s adviser.”
I stared at him.
“A priest working for the mafia?”
“Welcome to my childhood.”
That sounded bitter enough to be true.
Roman handed me the photograph.
“After my father died, Matteo controlled several accounts, family trusts, and relationships with judges, officers, businessmen.”
“And?”
“I discovered he was selling information about us.”
“To whom?”
“Everyone willing to pay.”
My skin prickled.
“Did Luca know?”
“Eventually.”
Roman moved toward the window.
“Ten years ago, I learned someone had contracted two men to take you.”
My throat tightened.
“You said your enemies.”
“I believed that.”
“You don’t anymore?”
“No.”
There it was.
The first crack.
“What changed?”
“Luca.”
Roman removed something from his pocket.
A gold pocket watch.
Old.
Scratched.
The Bellini crest covered the back.
“My father’s.”
He opened it.
Inside was a tiny photograph of Roman and Luca as boys.
Behind it was a folded strip of paper.
“Luca mailed this to me seven years ago.”
He handed it over.
Three words.
Wrong enemy, brother.
My pulse kicked.
“Nothing else?”
“One address.”
“Where?”
Roman looked around the room.
“Here.”
Bellini House.
I stared.
“Luca sent you back here?”
“I searched everything.”
“And found nothing?”
“Nothing that made sense.”
I looked at the bracelet again.
The wolf charm felt heavier than the others.
I pressed it.
It moved.
Roman noticed.
“Wait.”
The charm opened.
Inside was a tiny rolled photograph.
We flattened it beneath the lamp.
Paulina.
Age five, maybe six.
Standing outside a playground.
My stomach dropped.
Someone had been watching her for years.
On the back was a date.
Four years ago.
Roman sat down hard.
He looked almost sick.
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
For the first time, I believed him completely.
That was almost worse.
“Who took it?”
Roman turned the photograph toward the light.
There was a reflection in a playground window.
A man holding the camera.
The image was blurry.
But the coat was familiar.
Brown wool.
Luca owned one exactly like it.
I remembered teasing him about it.
“It makes you look like an undertaker,” I’d once said.
He answered, “At least undertakers always have work.”
Roman whispered, “Luca.”
“You said he disappeared seven years ago.”
“He did.”
“This photo was taken four years ago.”
Roman’s eyes met mine.
Which meant Luca had not disappeared.
He had hidden.
And he had kept watching my daughter.
The floorboard behind us creaked.
Roman spun.
His hand disappeared beneath his jacket.
I froze.
A shadow moved near the library door.
Then a voice spoke from the hallway.
“Put the gun away, brother.”
Roman stopped breathing.
A man stepped into the firelight.
Older.
Thinner.
A scar across one eyebrow.
But unmistakable.
Luca Bellini.
Alive.
He looked at me first.
Then the bracelet.
Finally, at Roman.
“You weren’t supposed to find Elena yet.”
Roman’s gun came up.
“Who is Elena?”
Luca’s eyes moved toward me.
“Ask your wife.”
My stomach turned.
“I don’t know any Elena.”
Luca studied my face.
Then something like horror crossed his.
“You really don’t know.”
“Know what?”
He looked at Roman.
“She never told her.”
“Told her what?”
Luca swallowed.
“Our mother didn’t die eight months before you left.”
The room went silent.
I stared at him.
“I attended her funeral.”
“Yes.”
“I saw her coffin.”
“I know.”
Roman’s voice turned deadly.
“Luca.”
Luca held his brother’s gaze.
“Isabella Bellini was alive the night you abandoned your wife.”
May you like
Then he looked at me.
“And she was the one who ordered Roman to do it.”
