“I know.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“I stood at your grave every year.”
“I was there once.”
I stared at him.
“From a distance,” he said. “You looked older.”
“You should have come to me.”
“I tried.”
“Not hard enough.”
“I had proof that someone close to you arranged the explosion. I thought it was Vincent.”
My jaw tightened.
“Was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You disappeared for five years and still don’t know?”
“I learned the money passed through Vincent’s accounts, but the signatures were forged. Someone wanted me to blame him.”
“Who?”
Matteo reached inside his coat and pulled out a small waterproof drive.
“This has everything.”
I took it.
“Names?”
“One name appears more than any other.”
“Whose?”
Before he could answer, footsteps sounded behind us.
Slow.
Unhurried.
A man stepped into the emergency light.
He held a gun loosely at his side.
My body went cold.
He was older than I remembered, his hair silver at the temples, but the posture was unmistakable.
The man had been declared dead twelve years earlier.
The man whose funeral had brought half of Chicago to its knees.
Our father.
Salvatore Romano.
Matteo stared at him.
I could not breathe.
Salvatore smiled.
“My sons,” he said softly. “Together again.”
Every instinct told me to raise my weapon.
But shock held me still for one fatal second.
Our father had ruled through cruelty disguised as discipline. He taught us that affection was weakness, mercy was an invitation, and family meant obedience.
When he died of a heart attack, I inherited the empire.
At least, I thought he had died.
“You were dead,” I said.
Salvatore’s smile deepened.
“So was Matteo.”
The truth unfolded with horrifying clarity.
The secret accounts.
The police pressure.
The rivals.
The forged signatures.
The false deaths.
Our father had been moving pieces from the shadows while his sons destroyed themselves.
“You did this,” Matteo said.
Salvatore looked almost offended.
“I built this family. I merely tested whether Adrian deserved to lead it.”
“You tried to kill him.”
“I tried to strengthen him.”
“You hunted Elena and Lily.”
