Chapter 8 - THE DEAD MAN WHO CAME HOME
I had spent my whole life believing my father was dead.
Then I learned the man who raised me wasn't my biological father.
Then I learned my biological father had died in a warehouse fire.
And now he was standing above a broken elevator, reaching down to save me.
I didn't know whether to scream or laugh.
Instead, I stared.
“That's impossible.”
Adrian DeLuca looked at me with tears in his eyes.
“I know.”
Vincenzo helped Gio lift me toward the hatch.
A rescue team pulled me onto the service floor.
My mother caught me.
Adrian stood a few feet away.
He didn't try to touch me.
He simply waited.
I looked at the burn scar along his jaw.
The deep lines around his eyes.
The grief in his expression.
“Why did everyone say you were dead?”
He swallowed.
“Because if the men who tried to kill me knew I survived, they would have come for you.”
I shook my head.
“That's what everyone keeps saying.”
“Violet—”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“Everyone keeps telling me they disappeared to protect me. But I was a little girl. I needed someone.”
Adrian's face crumpled.
“I know.”
“You should have come back.”
“I tried.”
“Then why didn't you?”
He looked toward Vincenzo.
“Because Lucino Mercante kept me prisoner for eleven years.”
Silence.
Vincenzo went white.
“My father?”
Adrian nodded.
“He told everyone I died in the fire. Then he kept me in a private facility in upstate New York.”
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because I knew who ordered the murders.”
My mother gripped my arm.
“Adrian escaped seven years ago. We've been trying to find enough evidence to expose them ever since.”
I looked between them.
“You found each other?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And neither of you came for me?”
Adrian's voice broke.
“We watched you from a distance.”
I felt physically sick.
“You watched me?”
“School graduations. Your first art exhibition. Your twenty-first birthday.”
I stared at him.
“You were there?”
He nodded.
“I stood across the street.”
The tears came before I could stop them.
“You let me think nobody wanted me.”
My mother began crying.
Adrian lowered his head.
“There is no excuse for that.”
For the first time, someone had said the words I needed to hear.
Not a justification.
Not another promise.
An acknowledgment.
I wiped my face.
“Then tell me everything.”
We gathered in a safe house on the outskirts of Chicago.
Gio secured the doors.
Vincenzo sat opposite Adrian.
The two men studied each other in silence.
Finally, Adrian spoke.
“Lucino wasn't working alone.”
“Luca?” Vincenzo asked.
“Yes.”
“Elijah?”
“Yes.”
“And Monica?”
Adrian hesitated.
“She was recruited later.”
I thought of the woman in the red dress.
“What did she do?”
“She helped Luca gain access to Mercante Holdings' financial records. Then she used her relationship with Vincenzo to cover transfers.”
Vincenzo's jaw tightened.
“She was my fiancée.”
Adrian nodded.
“She was also Elijah's lover.”
Vincenzo stared at the table.
I watched him absorb the betrayal.
For the first time, I understood that I wasn't the only person whose life had been manipulated.
“Why did they need me?” I asked.
Adrian looked at me.
“Your shares.”
“Forty percent.”
“Combined with the voting rights in Lucino's second will, those shares would give Luca effective control over both companies.”
“And if I refused to marry Vincenzo?”
“Then they planned to kill you and challenge the trust.”
I felt cold.
“Derek.”
Adrian nodded.
“He was supposed to deliver you to Vincenzo. Then Luca would make sure the marriage happened.”
“Did Vincenzo know?”
“No.”
I looked at Vincenzo.
He met my eyes.
“I knew my uncle was desperate for control. I didn't know he had built the entire trap around you.”
Adrian continued.
“When Vincenzo delayed the marriage, they sent the sniper.”
I thought of the bullet.
The blood.
Vincenzo collapsing in my arms.
“They tried to kill me.”
“Yes.”
“And he took the bullet.”
Adrian nodded.
“That's when their plan began falling apart.”
Vincenzo leaned forward.
“Where's the original ledger?”
Adrian looked at my mother.
She reached into her bag.
And removed a small brass key.
“Your mother hid it eighteen years ago,” he said.
I stared at the key.
“Where?”
Adrian smiled sadly.
“In the only place nobody would think to look.”
He turned toward me.
“Your paintings.”
My heart stopped.
“Derek sold them.”
“Yes.”
“Who bought them?”
Adrian looked at me.
“We did.”
I stared at my parents.
“You bought my paintings?”
My mother nodded.
“We couldn't contact you safely. But we could keep them.”
I thought of the portrait at the gallery.
The map on the back.
The envelope.
“You've been leaving clues.”
“We were trying to bring you to us without alerting Luca.”
“Then where's the ledger?”
Adrian reached into his coat.
He took out a photograph of a painting.
My painting.
A little girl standing beside a blue house.
I remembered making it when I was seventeen.
It had hung above my bed for years.
“There's a compartment inside the frame,” Adrian said.
“Where is it now?”
My mother looked at Vincenzo.
“At the Mercante mansion.”
Vincenzo frowned.
“How?”
“Your father bought it at a charity auction twelve years ago.”
The room went silent.
Then Gio's phone rang.
He listened.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
Vincenzo stood.
“What?”
May you like
Gio swallowed.
“The mansion's on fire.”
