Chapter 7 - The Dead Man Comes Home
Adrian woke to Sophia coloring his bandage.
He stared down.
Pink hearts covered the white gauze around his side.
“Sophia.”
She froze.
“Yes?”
“Are those hearts?”
“No.”
He looked again.
“What are they?”
“Medical circles.”
He nodded solemnly.
“Obviously.”
Elena stood at the hospital window trying not to laugh.
Titan lay outside the room because hospital administration had drawn the line at allowing a one-hundred-thirty-pound Cane Corso beside an intensive-care bed.
Titan disagreed loudly every twenty minutes.
Adrian looked at Elena.
“You came.”
“My daughter refused to leave.”
“I asked about you.”
Her smile faded.
“I came.”
Their eyes held.
Something had changed.
Neither was ready to name it.
Dante entered and ruined the moment.
“We have a problem.”
Adrian sighed.
“I’ve been shot. Define problem.”
“Your father is alive.”
That qualified.
Salvatore Moretti had supposedly died in Sicily twenty years earlier.
There had been a funeral.
A coffin.
A grave.
According to the ledger, however, Salvatore had spent two decades controlling offshore accounts and using Vincent as his American representative.
Isabella discovered it.
Lucia helped document it.
Both died.
Adrian stared at the evidence.
“My father ordered my wife killed.”
Dante said nothing.
Adrian’s face became stone.
Elena moved closer.
“Don’t.”
His eyes lifted.
“Don’t what?”
“Become whatever you’re thinking about becoming.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“Yes, I do.”
She had seen men consumed by revenge before.
Her own father had spent the years after Lucia disappeared drinking himself into an early grave.
“Your wife deserves justice. My sister deserves justice.”
Adrian’s voice turned cold.
“They’ll get it.”
“Justice isn’t the same thing as vengeance.”
“In my world, sometimes it is.”
“Then maybe your world is the problem.”
Dante suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.
Adrian stared at her.
Nobody spoke to him this way.
Nobody except Elena.
She stepped closer.
“Sophia thinks you’re a good man.”
“I’m not.”
“She doesn’t care.”
“That doesn’t make her right.”
“No. But maybe it gives you something to live up to.”
Adrian looked toward Sophia.
She had fallen asleep in a chair with her bear tucked under her chin.
His expression softened.
Three days later, Salvatore contacted him.
He wanted a meeting.
Adrian agreed.
Elena discovered the plan and confronted him in the mansion library.
“You’re walking into a trap.”
“Probably.”
“That doesn’t concern you?”
“Frequently.”
She wanted to scream.
Instead she grabbed his tie and kissed him.
Adrian froze.
So did Elena.
She had not planned it.
That became obvious when she immediately stepped backward.
“I’m sorry.”
Adrian touched his mouth.
“I’m not.”
“Elena.”
He moved closer.
“You should be.”
“Why?”
“Because my life is complicated.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Because people around me get hurt.”
“So change the people around you.”
“You make that sound easy.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“I make it sound necessary.”
Adrian touched her cheek.
His hand was surprisingly gentle.
Then Sophia’s voice came from the doorway.
“Are you getting married?”
They jumped apart.
Sophia looked disappointed.
“I was just asking.”
Titan stood beside her.
Adrian cleared his throat.
“No.”
“Okay.”
Sophia turned away.
Then looked back.
“Titan thinks you should.”
She disappeared.
Elena covered her face.
Adrian laughed.
That night he met Salvatore at an abandoned church.
But Adrian did not go seeking vengeance.
He wore a recording device.
Federal investigators were waiting nearby.
Salvatore confessed more than expected.
He admitted ordering Isabella frightened into silence.
Vincent had turned that order into murder.
He admitted authorizing Lucia’s death.
And then he revealed his final weapon.
“Elena Castillo’s husband worked for me.”
Adrian went still.
Elena had told him Sophia’s father, Marco Castillo, died before Sophia was born.
Salvatore smiled.
“He isn’t dead.”
Adrian’s blood chilled.
“Where is he?”
May you like
Salvatore leaned closer.
“Ask Elena why she lied.”
