Chapter 18 - ALLESSANDRO'S CONFESSION
Nobody breathed.
David looked at Alessandro.
“Tell me he's lying.”
Alessandro said nothing.
“Tell me.”
Still nothing.
I stepped backward.
“You killed my father?”
Alessandro closed his eyes.
“Not directly.”
David laughed bitterly.
“That isn't an answer.”
Alessandro looked at me.
“Your father was going to expose everyone.”
“And you stopped him.”
“Yes.”
My heart shattered.
“Why?”
“Because if he exposed the network at that moment, Catherine would have been killed.”
“You don't get to decide that!”
“I know.”
David stepped closer.
“You helped my father disappear.”
“No.”
“You helped my mother.”
“Yes.”
“You helped me.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew Nathaniel.”
“Yes.”
David's voice became cold.
“You knew everything.”
Alessandro nodded.
“I knew enough to keep you alive.”
Marcus raised his weapon.
“You ordered the operation twenty years ago.”
Alessandro looked at him.
“Yes.”
I couldn't believe it.
“Then why save David?”
“Because I regretted what I had done.”
David stared at him.
“And the hospital?”
Alessandro looked at Logan's photograph.
“When your son touched my chest, I remembered the boy I had failed.”
David frowned.
“What boy?”
Alessandro didn't answer.
Then I realized.
His brother.
The child who had died during one of the organization's operations.
Alessandro had carried that guilt for decades.
But guilt didn't erase murder.
Marcus moved to arrest him.
Then the warehouse exploded.
The blast threw us across the room.
Fire spread through the walls.
David grabbed me.
“Move!”
Marcus shouted.
“Get outside!”
Alessandro stayed behind.
David turned.
“Come on!”
Alessandro shook his head.
“I caused this.”
“Then help us fix it!”
A beam collapsed.
Alessandro pushed Marcus out of the way.
The ceiling crashed down.
I screamed.
“Alessandro!”
David dragged me outside.
Minutes later, firefighters arrived.
There was no sign of Alessandro.
Marcus looked at the burning building.
“He's dead.”
David stared at the flames.
“I don't believe it.”
Neither did I.
Then my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
YOU STILL HAVEN'T FOUND THE MASTER.
Attached was a photograph.
Alessandro.
Alive.
Standing beside Eleanor.
And between them was a little girl.
I recognized her.
She was in the oldest photograph of the Winters family.
David's sister.
The child everyone said had died at birth.
David whispered:
“I never had a sister.”
Eleanor's message appeared beneath the photograph.
May you like
YOU DID.
AND SHE KNOWS EVERYTHING.
