Chapter 6 - THE KING WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD
Carlo Vieira returned to Chicago without hiding.
That was what terrified everyone.
By noon, photographs appeared online showing him entering a private club downtown.
A dead man walking beneath September sunlight.
Elio received calls from captains who had served his father.
Some pledged loyalty.
Others did not answer.
By evening, three Vieira businesses had switched allegiance.
Carlo did not need an army.
He already had one.
Janevra watched Elio absorb each betrayal without visible reaction.
Only she noticed his left hand tightening whenever another name was crossed from the loyalty list.
“You don’t have to pretend with me.”
He looked up.
“Pretend what?”
“That this doesn’t hurt.”
“I expected some of them.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Elio studied her.
Then removed his jacket.
“My father taught most of those men everything they know.”
“And you?”
“He taught me never to trust anyone.”
Janevra moved closer.
“Seems lonely.”
“It was efficient.”
“Was?”
His eyes met hers.
The word had escaped him.
Janevra smiled faintly.
“Yes,” Elio said.
“Was.”
Carlo called at midnight.
Elio put the call on speaker.
“Hello, son.”
Janevra had never heard his voice.
It was warm.
That somehow made it worse.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Elio said.
“People believe whatever grief tells them to believe.”
“You murdered Isabella Moretti.”
Silence.
Then Carlo chuckled.
“Your wife has been busy.”
Janevra felt Elio tense.
“Leave her out of this.”
“That would be difficult. She is rather central.”
“What do you want?”
“My family back.”
“You abandoned it.”
“I built it.”
“You stole from it.”
“I invested in the future.”
Elio’s face became stone.
“Come say that to me.”
“Soon.”
Carlo paused.
“Janevra, are you listening?”
Elio reached for the phone.
Janevra stopped him.
“Yes.”
“Your mother was very brave.”
Janevra’s stomach twisted.
“You don’t get to speak about her.”
“She thought she could expose me.”
“You killed her.”
“I offered her a choice.”
Janevra’s fingernails dug into her palm.
“What choice?”
“Silence.”
The answer told her everything.
Carlo continued.
“She refused.”
Janevra closed her eyes.
Elio touched her hand.
A small gesture.
But Carlo heard the silence.
“Oh,” he said.
Amusement entered his voice.
“That is interesting.”
“What?”
“The marriage wasn’t supposed to become real.”
Elio’s hand tightened around Janevra’s.
“It isn’t your concern.”
“Everything about you is my concern.”
“No longer.”
Carlo laughed.
“You sound like your mother.”
Elio went pale.
Then the call ended.
Janevra turned toward him.
“What did he mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Elio.”
He walked toward the window.
“My mother didn’t die naturally.”
Janevra stopped.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“How?”
“She tried to leave him.”
The parallels were unbearable.
Two women.
Two powerful husbands.
Two deaths buried beneath family silence.
Elio stared over Chicago.
“I was nineteen. She packed two suitcases. She told me we were going to New York.”
“What happened?”
“My father found out.”
His voice remained controlled.
“Three days later, her car went through a guardrail.”
Janevra approached slowly.
“I’m sorry.”
“I spent eleven years becoming him because I thought that was the only way to survive him.”
“No.”
Elio turned.
“You didn’t.”
“You don’t know everything I’ve done.”
“No. But I know what you did when my father was sitting on a bomb.”
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves you had a choice.”
Janevra stepped closer.
“And you chose differently.”
Elio stared at her.
For a moment, the hard exterior cracked.
He looked exhausted.
Janevra put her arms around him.
Elio did not move.
Then slowly, cautiously, he held her.
That was the first time her husband embraced her.
Not for cameras.
Not because somebody expected it.
Because he needed someone.
Janevra rested her cheek against his chest.
His heart beat hard beneath her ear.
“Janevra.”
“Yes?”
“If this gets worse, I want you out of Chicago.”
She pulled back.
“No.”
“I can arrange protection overseas.”
“No.”
“Listen—”
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Deciding my life for me.”
Elio stopped.
“If you want me to leave,” Janevra said, “tell me you don’t trust me. Tell me I’m a liability. Tell me you don’t want me beside you.”
He could say none of them.
“Exactly.”
A knock interrupted them.
Bruno entered.
“We found Carlo’s financial center.”
Elio released Janevra.
“Where?”
Bruno placed photographs on the table.
An old hotel on Lake Michigan.
Closed for renovations.
Carlo had been moving money through it for six years.
Janevra examined the architectural drawings.
Then she saw the hotel name.
Bellini House.
Her mother’s maiden name.
“This isn’t coincidence.”
“No,” Elio said.
Janevra looked at the blueprints.
“There’s something there.”
They entered the hotel the following night through an underground parking structure.
The building appeared abandoned.
It was not.
Security cameras covered every corridor.
Janevra and Elio reached the administrative floor while Bruno disabled the alarms.
They found a locked office.
Inside were hundreds of documents.
Enough to expose Carlo.
Then Janevra saw the photograph.
Her mother.
Alive.
The timestamp was impossible.
It had been taken three years after Isabella supposedly died.
Janevra’s knees weakened.
“Elio.”
He followed her gaze.
“No.”
Janevra picked up the photograph.
Her mother stood outside a building in Switzerland.
Three years after her funeral.
On the back was an address.
Janevra could barely breathe.
“My mother…”
A voice came from the doorway.
“She survived the first attempt.”
Daario stood there holding a gun.
Janevra turned.
May you like
He smiled.
“Unfortunately, she didn’t survive the second.”
