Chapter 6 - The Brother in the Shadows
Dante knelt in front of Enzo.
"Tell me exactly what you saw."
Enzo clutched the paper.
"Uncle Adrian came into the garden. He said he had a surprise for us. He told us not to tell you because you'd be angry."
"Did he threaten you?"
Enzo shook his head.
"He gave us candy."
Leo appeared behind his brother.
"He asked if we remembered the night Mommy left."
Mateo's face crumpled.
"He said we had to be brave."
Dante looked as though the floor had disappeared beneath him.
"What else?"
Enzo handed over the paper.
It was a photograph of Elena holding a newborn baby. On the back, someone had written an address and a time.
Friday. 11:30 p.m. Come alone.
Beneath it was a second line.
Bring the woman who found the key.
Arya felt Dante's gaze settle on her.
"No," he said immediately.
"You don't even know what I was going to say."
"You're not going."
"Someone has targeted my daughter. They've left messages about your wife. Your brother has approached your children. I'm already involved."
"You're a civilian."
"I'm a mother."
"And I won't risk another person I care about."
The words escaped before he could stop them.
Arya went still.
Dante looked away.
She wanted to ask what he meant. Instead, she touched the edge of the photograph.
"Your brother knows something about Elena. We need to find out what."
"I'll send my men."
"And if Adrian refuses to speak to them?"
"Then he won't speak."
"That's not a plan. That's your fear pretending to be authority."
Dante's face hardened.
"You don't know what Adrian is capable of."
"Neither do you, apparently. He's been missing for six months, and your sons say he was here last week."
Dante stood abruptly and left the room.
For the next two days, he barely spoke to Arya except to discuss the children's schedules. She refused to let the distance frighten her into silence.
She focused on Mia and the triplets, helping them return to ordinary routines. They baked cookies with Maria, planted flowers in the courtyard, and turned the family room into a makeshift theater.
For the first time, the boys began talking about Elena without insisting that she would return.
They described her laugh, the songs she sang, and the way she used to hide tiny handwritten notes in their lunchboxes.
One evening, Enzo asked Arya whether memories could be wrong.
"Sometimes," she answered. "That's why it's important to talk about them with people who were there."
"What if those people lie?"
"Then you keep asking questions until the answers make sense."
He considered that carefully.
Then he asked, "Do you think Daddy lied about Mommy?"
Arya took his hand.
"I think your father has been told things that may not be true."
That night, she found Dante in the east-wing sitting room, staring at Elena's photograph.
"Adrian sent another message," he said.
"What does he want?"
"He says he can prove Elena survived the bombing."
Arya sat beside him.
"Do you believe him?"
"I want to."
"That's not what I asked."
Dante closed his eyes.
"No. But I need to know."
They agreed to meet Adrian at the address on the photograph, with a discreet security team nearby. Dante insisted that Arya stay behind.
She insisted on going.
In the end, he gave in, but only after arranging for Mia and the triplets to remain inside the most secure section of the estate.
On Friday night, they arrived at an abandoned church near the waterfront.
The doors were unlocked.
Inside, candles burned along the aisle.
A man stood near the altar, his face hidden beneath the brim of a dark hat.
"Dante," he said.
Dante raised his weapon.
"Adrian."
The man removed his hat.
He was older than Dante, with gray at his temples and a deep scar running along his jaw.
"I see you've brought the woman," Adrian said.
"Tell me about Elena."
Adrian's expression shifted.
"She survived the bombing. For three days, she was conscious in a private hospital. Then she disappeared."
"Who took her?"
Adrian looked at Arya.
"Ask her what she found in the east wing."
Before Arya could answer, the church lights snapped on.
Gunfire erupted outside.
Dante pulled Arya behind a stone pillar.
Adrian vanished through a side door.
When the shooting stopped, Dante's men found no attackers.
They found only a phone lying beside the altar.
It was playing a video.
Elena appeared on the screen, pale and frightened, looking directly into the camera.
"If Dante sees this," she whispered, "tell him I'm sorry."
She glanced toward someone outside the frame.
May you like
Then she said the words that destroyed everything Dante believed.
"Adrian didn't arrange the bombing. I did."
