Chapter 4 - The Debt Enzo Never Mentioned
The payment had not come from Enzo.
Adeline discovered that the next morning.
She confronted him in the library.
“You paid for Nell.”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
She placed the hospital confirmation on his desk.
“Then explain that.”
Enzo read the name of the charitable trust.
His expression changed.
The Margaret Marquetti Foundation.
His mother’s foundation.
He called the administrator.
Ten minutes later, they had the answer.
Alfonso had authorized it.
Three weeks earlier.
Before Adeline had ever entered the estate.
Adeline stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Unless—
She remembered the private-care assignment.
The unusually high salary.
The strange requirements.
Alfonso had requested her specifically.
Enzo understood at the same moment.
His grandfather had known who she was before she arrived.
They went upstairs together.
Alfonso did not deny it.
Years earlier, after Nell’s accident, Adeline had spent thirty-six hours helping victims brought into St. Bridget after a winter pileup.
One victim had been a retired Marquetti employee.
Alfonso had quietly funded a program recognizing nurses who worked uncompensated emergency hours.
Adeline’s name had remained in the foundation records.
When Alfonso needed private care, he asked for her.
He had not planned the marriage then.
That decision came later.
“After she told me I wasn’t frightening,” Alfonso said.
Enzo looked almost offended.
“That’s your standard?”
“Better than Bruno’s.”
Adeline folded her arms.
“You manipulated me.”
“Yes.”
“You manipulated him.”
“Yes.”
“You paid for Nell without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I’m eighty-four. I’ve earned it.”
For the first time, Enzo laughed in front of her.
Not a restrained smile.
A real laugh.
Adeline stared.
He looked different.
Younger.
Human.
And that frightened her more than his reputation.
Because attraction to a dangerous man was easy to dismiss.
Attraction to the man underneath was not.
The warmth did not last.
That night, Nell disappeared.
Her wheelchair was found outside the rehabilitation entrance.
Her phone lay beneath it.
Adeline received a photograph fifteen minutes later.
Nell sat in an unfamiliar room.
Terrified.
A message followed.
LEAVE THE MARQUETTI ESTATE.
Enzo saw Adeline’s face.
“What happened?”
She showed him.
Everything inside him changed.
Within sixty seconds, the estate gates closed.
Within five minutes, twenty men were moving.
Enzo stood before Adeline.
“I’ll bring her home.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“She’s my sister.”
“And whoever took her expects you to behave emotionally.”
“I am emotional!”
“That’s why you stay.”
She slapped him.
The room froze.
Enzo slowly turned his face back.
Adeline’s hand trembled.
“Don’t tell me to sit safely in your house while my sister is terrified.”
Enzo looked at her for a long moment.
Then handed her a bulletproof vest.
“Stay behind me.”
They found Nell in an abandoned social club in Brooklyn.
The kidnappers had fled minutes earlier.
Too cleanly.
As if they had wanted Nell found.
Adeline ran to her.
Nell clung to her.
“I’m okay.”
Enzo searched the room.
On the table lay a single object.
A brass compass.
Almost identical to his.
Except the initials engraved underneath were not his.
A.M.
Antonio Marquetti.
Enzo’s father.
His father had been dead fourteen years.
He picked up the compass.
His face drained of color.
Adeline saw.
“What is it?”
Enzo closed his fist around it.
“My father was carrying this the night he died.”
Back at the estate, Alfonso confirmed it.
Antonio’s compass had disappeared after the hospital shooting that killed Enzo’s mother and eventually led to Antonio’s death months later.
Only a handful of people had known.
One of them was Bruno.
Enzo finally understood.
The marriage clause.
The prepared candidates.
The poisoned medicine.
The kidnapping.
None were separate events.
Someone had been preparing to remove him.
Bruno had wanted Enzo married to a woman connected to a controllable family.
If that failed, the council could replace him at thirty-five.
If Alfonso died first, nobody could challenge the interpretation of the charter.
And if Adeline disappeared, Alfonso’s chosen bride disappeared with him.
Enzo went to the locked room.
Bruno was gone.
His house was empty.
His accounts had been drained.
On his desk was a photograph.
Adeline recognized the hospital room in it.
The picture had been taken through the window.
Nell lay asleep after her admission.
Written across the back:
THE NURSE IS HIS WEAKNESS.
Enzo stared at the words.
Adeline stood beside him.
“I’m not your weakness.”
“No.”
He turned the photograph over.
“You’re his target.”
That evening Enzo ordered Adeline and Nell moved into the most secure wing of the estate.
Adeline objected.
Nell did not.
“Does this place have an elevator?”
“Yes.”
“I live here now.”
Adeline glared at her.
Nell shrugged.
“I have priorities.”
Even Enzo smiled.
Hours later, when the estate became quiet, Adeline found him alone on the terrace.
“You never answered something.”
“What?”
“Why did you let Alfonso choose?”
Enzo stared into the darkness.
“Because everyone else in my life wants something from me.”
“And your grandfather doesn’t?”
“He wants me alive after he’s gone.”
Adeline looked at him.
“And married.”
“That too.”
She smiled faintly.
Enzo’s eyes dropped to her mouth.
Neither moved.
For one dangerous second, the distance between them felt smaller.
Then a gunshot shattered the terrace window.
Enzo threw Adeline to the floor.
Glass exploded over them.
Security alarms screamed.
Enzo covered her body with his.
A second shot struck the stone.
And from upstairs came Marisol’s terrified scream.
“Enzo!”
May you like
He looked up.
“Your grandfather!”
