Chapter 9
Gabriel had tried to tell me once.
Five years ago.
I remembered the night immediately.
He arrived drunk at my house.
Dominic intercepted him before he reached my office.
The next morning Dominic told me Gabriel had stolen from a family account and fled.
I believed him.
Again.
Gabriel looked at me.
“I wasn’t drunk.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Drugged.”
Dominic laughed.
“Here we go.”
Gabriel ignored him.
“I drank one glass at a family dinner. Woke up in a storage room. By the time I got out, Dominic had already told everyone I was unstable.”
Same method.
Create a condition.
Then narrate it.
Gabriel tried to approach me three more times.
Each time Dominic’s men stopped him.
Finally Rosa found him.
She helped him disappear.
Not from me.
From Dominic.
I looked at my cousin.
“How many people have you made vanish from my life?”
He smiled faintly.
“You kept letting me.”
That sentence hurt because it was true enough to be useful.
I stood.
“No.”
He frowned.
“I trusted you.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
I looked around the room.
“Trust becomes complicity only after I learn the truth and still choose the lie.”
Dominic’s smile faded.
Gabriel looked at me differently.
Maybe for the first time.
Isabella too.
I continued.
“I didn’t know then.”
Then I looked at Isabella.
“But I know now.”
That mattered.
Because this story could not end with me blaming Dominic for every lost year.
He lied.
He manipulated.
He isolated.
But from this moment forward, every choice belonged to me.
Gabriel reached into his coat and placed an old key on the table.
Rosa had given it to him.
“Your father’s wine room.”
I frowned.
That room had been sealed since his death.
“Why?”
“Enzo used it after the funeral.”
Dominic went still.
Gabriel looked at his brother.
“Tell him.”
Dominic said nothing.
Gabriel continued.
“Our father kept copies.”
“Copies of what?”
“Every favor. Every bribe. Every staged betrayal Dominic used to make himself necessary.”
Dominic stood.
My guards moved.
He looked at Gabriel with pure hatred.
“You pathetic little rat.”
Gabriel did not flinch.
“You taught me what happens to people who tell Marco the truth.”
Then he looked at me.
“I decided I’d rather be afraid and honest.”
May you like
That sentence landed harder than any accusation.
Because everyone around me had spent years choosing the opposite.
