Chapter 8 - THE FATHER WHO NEVER CAME HOME
Ivy couldn't move.
The man standing before her had just told her that her father was alive, that the death she had believed for three years might have been a lie, and that her mother's suffering had been tied to a family she barely understood.
“Where is he?” she asked.
Thomas glanced at Carmine.
“Before I answer, you need to understand why he disappeared.”
Carmine's voice was cold.
“You have three minutes.”
Thomas accepted the warning.
“Matteo wanted to leave the organization. He had a wife and a newborn daughter. He believed he could take them away from the business and start over.”
Ivy's fingers tightened around the letter.
“My mother wasn't his wife.”
“No. Your mother was someone he loved before he married anyone. When he learned she was pregnant, he tried to help her. But the family was already arranging his marriage to a woman who could strengthen their political connections.”
“Why didn't he tell her?”
“Because he was a coward,” Thomas said quietly. “And because the family threatened to destroy both women if he challenged them.”
Carmine's expression hardened.
“Who made those threats?”
“Your father.”
The words seemed to echo through the empty building.
Carmine's father, Lorenzo Bellandi, had died years earlier. He had been a ruthless man whose influence extended beyond the criminal world. Carmine had spent his life trying to become powerful enough that nobody could ever control him again.
He had never admitted how much of his father remained inside him.
“Lorenzo knew about Ivy?” Carmine asked.
“Not at first. Elena found out after the wedding. She went to Ivy's mother and helped her disappear from the family's records. When Lorenzo discovered what she had done, he threatened to expose Matteo's affair and take the baby.”
“So my wife died because she helped conceal Ivy?” Carmine asked.
Thomas lowered his head.
“I believe the accident was arranged to silence her.”
Ivy's stomach turned.
“And my mother?”
“Your mother spent years trying to protect you. She refused to reveal where Matteo was hiding. When she became ill, the family offered to pay for her treatment in exchange for the location of the documents Elena had kept.”
“She refused?”
“Yes.”
Ivy looked at the letter in her hands.
The sacrifices her mother had made suddenly seemed endless.
Carmine paced toward the harbor doors.
“Why didn't you come forward?”
“I tried. Rocco found me before I could reach you. He told me the organization had already chosen a new leader and that anyone who challenged the succession would be killed.”
“Victor Hale.”
Thomas nodded.
“Hale has been moving money through the organization for years. He helped stage Matteo's death and falsify the records. He believed that if Matteo was gone, he could control the family through Carmine.”
Carmine turned sharply.
“Why me?”
“Because you're the only person powerful enough to stop him. But Hale knew you'd never believe a story about your brother without proof.”
Thomas reached into his coat and removed a small memory card.
“Everything is here. The payments, the medical records, the instructions for the accident. And the original document proving Ivy's parentage.”
Ivy stared at the card.
“Then why hasn't Hale destroyed it?”
“Because he doesn't have the original. He has been searching for it since Elena died.”
Carmine took the card.
Before he could examine it, gunfire erupted outside.
One of the guards fell behind a stack of crates.
Thomas shoved Ivy toward the floor.
“Get down!”
Carmine fired toward the doorway as two armed men entered the building.
The fight lasted less than a minute, but it seemed to stretch forever. When the shooting stopped, one attacker lay motionless near the entrance. The other had escaped through a rear exit.
Carmine's shoulder was bleeding.
Ivy crawled toward him.
“You're hurt.”
“It's a scratch.”
Blood soaked the sleeve of his shirt.
“Stop saying that!”
He looked at her, surprised by the force in her voice.
She pressed a clean cloth against the wound, her hands trembling.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Carmine said, “I owe you an apology.”
She looked up.
“For what?”
“For believing my house was safe simply because I controlled it. For assuming that protecting you meant making decisions for you. And for thinking my brother's secrets belonged to me more than they belonged to you.”
Ivy swallowed hard.
“An apology doesn't bring my mother back.”
“No.”
“Or give me back the years I spent thinking she died because she couldn't afford to live.”
“No.”
“Then what does it change?”
Carmine held her gaze.
“Nothing that has already happened. But it can change what I do next.”
She looked away, fighting tears.
She had spent her entire life expecting powerful men to make promises they could break without consequence.
Carmine wasn't asking her to forgive him.
That mattered.
Thomas returned from the rear entrance.
“The road is clear, but we can't stay here. Hale knows we have the card now.”
Carmine stood, ignoring the pain in his shoulder.
“We'll take the evidence somewhere secure.”
“Where?” Ivy asked.
He looked at her.
“Somewhere neither my family nor my enemies can reach you.”
Her phone rang.
It was an unknown number.
She answered.
A man's voice came through, low and strained.
“Ivy?”
Her breath stopped.
“Who is this?”
“My name is Matteo Bellandi. I'm your father.”
A long silence followed.
Then he said the words she had dreamed of hearing as a little girl.
“I know I have no right to ask anything of you. But if you want the truth about your mother, meet me alone tonight.”
Carmine reached for the phone.
Ivy stepped away from him.
“No,” she whispered.
She listened as Matteo gave her an address.
Then the call ended.
Carmine stared at her.
“You cannot go alone.”
Ivy looked at the blood on his sleeve, the fear in Thomas's face, and the letter her mother had left behind.
“I spent my whole life being protected from a truth nobody would explain.”
May you like
She slipped the phone into her pocket.
“Tonight, I'm going to hear it from the man who owes me the most.”
