Three months earlier, she had entered my home with trembling hands and a forged name. Now she stood in the ruins of my hall, arguing with the most feared man in Chicago.
Matteo had loved her for a reason.
The surgeon emerged twenty minutes later.
“The bullet missed the heart,” he said. “But your brother has lost too much blood. He needs surgery immediately.”
“Do it.”
“There’s another problem.”
He held up a blood bag.
“His blood type is rare. We have only one compatible unit.”
“My blood?”
The surgeon shook his head.
“Elena’s records say she is compatible.”
Elena froze.
I looked at her.
“How?”
She said nothing.
The surgeon glanced between us. “Is there something I should know?”
Elena’s face turned pale.
“Take whatever he needs.”
While the surgeon prepared her, I connected Matteo’s drive to an isolated computer.
Most files were encrypted.
One opened automatically.
A video appeared.
My mother sat in a plain room, older but unmistakably alive.
“Adrian,” she began, “if you are seeing this, then Matteo found the courage I lost.”
My knees nearly failed beneath me.
Her voice had lived only in memory for two decades. Now it filled the room.
“Your father did not die twelve years ago,” she continued. “And I did not die twenty years ago. Salvatore staged both deaths because our family had become useful to powerful men. Politicians. Judges. International financiers. The Romano empire was not merely criminal. It was a hidden bank for people who could never allow their names to appear.”
She looked directly into the camera.
“I tried to take you and Matteo away. Salvatore discovered my plan. He told the world I died, then imprisoned me in Europe.”
Rage moved through me like ice.
