Chapter 14
The next morning Javier asked permission to see Leo.
Not Dante’s.
Leo’s.
Dante sat with his son in the garden.
Mia nearby.
“Uncle Javier wants to talk to you.”
Leo’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“To say something.”
“Do I have to?”
“No.”
Leo thought.
“Will you stay?”
“Yes.”
Mia immediately said:
“I stay too.”
Dante almost smiled.
Leo nodded.
Javier entered alone.
No suit.
No family ring.
He stopped several feet away.
Leo looked at him.
Javier crouched.
Not too close.
“I hurt you.”
Leo said nothing.
“I was angry about things that happened before you were born.”
Dante watched.
Javier continued.
“And I acted like that made what I did okay.”
Leo looked toward Dante.
Then Javier.
“It didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why squish me?”
Javier’s face broke slightly.
“Because I wanted your dad angry.”
Leo frowned.
“That’s dumb.”
Dante looked away to hide the smallest smile.
Javier almost laughed.
“Yes.”
“It was.”
Leo thought.
“Are you gonna do it again?”
“No.”
Dante did not interrupt.
Leo continued.
“Promise?”
Javier hesitated.
Good.
Not easy promises.
“I promise I will never put my hands on you like that again.”
Leo looked at Dante.
Dante did not nod for him.
His choice.
Leo said:
“Okay.”
Not forgiveness.
Not invitation.
Just okay.
Javier stood.
“Can I go?”
Leo shrugged.
Javier left.
Clara waited at the far path.
He approached.
“Did he forgive you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Javier looked at her.
She continued:
“If he had, you might confuse relief with repair.”
He nodded.
“What about us?”
Clara looked toward the house.
“I don’t know.”
Javier absorbed it.
No punishment.
No promise.
Uncertainty.
He had spent his life hating uncertainty.
Now it was the honest place.
Inside the estate, Michael remained under guard.
Dante had not decided his fate.
Neither had Robert.
Robert refused to provide hidden names.
Dante refused to force them.
Mateo sat with Sebastian beneath the old oak tree.
Twenty-seven missing years between them.
Dante approached.
Mateo looked up.
“You going to ask where I lived?”
“No.”
Mateo frowned.
“Why?”
“If you want me to know, tell me.”
Sebastian smiled.
Mateo stared at his brother.
Then laughed quietly.
“You really did change.”
“I had children.”
“That’ll do it.”
Dante sat.
Mateo told him pieces.
Not all.
He and Sebastian spent years apart after exile.
Too dangerous together.
They reunited later.
Built a life in fragments.
No public Romano name.
No leadership.
For twelve years, they had lived mostly quietly.
“Why not return after Salvatore died?”
Mateo looked at Sebastian.
Then Dante.
“Because you became boss.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“You thought I’d kill you.”
“No.”
“I thought you’d ask me to become who I was.”
That hurt more.
Dante understood.
The family did not only threaten lives.
It threatened identities.
Returning might have forced Mateo back into heir, brother, rival, symbol.
He wanted to remain himself.
“What now?” Dante asked.
Mateo looked toward Javier.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s allowed.”
Mateo smiled.
Sebastian asked:
“And Michael?”
Dante looked toward the house.
“He tried to dismantle the blood system.”
“Yes.”
“Wrong methods.”
“Yes.”
“Wrong reason too.”
Dante nodded.
Michael did not want freedom.
He wanted his father’s unrecognized son to become indispensable.
Still inheritance.
Just through grievance.
Robert approached.
White king in his pocket.
“There’s one thing you should know.”
Dante looked at him.
“What?”
“Michael didn’t arrange the barbecue confrontation.”
Javier, farther away, turned.
“What?”
Robert looked toward the children.
“I opened the garden house.”
“Yes.”
“I gave Leo the knight.”
Dante’s expression darkened.
“You used my son.”
“Yes.”
Robert did not hide.
“I wanted the piece found in public.”
“Why?”
“Because I needed Michael to react.”
Dante stood.
“You chose an eight-year-old.”
“I believed he would simply pick it up.”
“You did not know what Javier would do.”
“No.”
“Then you gambled with him.”
Robert lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
Dante stepped closer.
“You do not get to call it a good cause.”
“No.”
“What happens now?”
Robert looked at him.
“I leave.”
Dante stared.
“You expect permission?”
“No.”
“I’m telling you what I choose.”
Interesting.
Dante could stop him.
Order guards.
Force names.
Instead:
“Go.”
Robert looked surprised.
“But if you ever use Leo or Mia again to move an adult, you will discover how much change I have not made.”
Robert believed him.
He nodded.
Then left.
Dante watched.
Mateo said:
“Father would call that weakness.”
Dante looked at him.
“Father called fear discipline.”
Mateo smiled sadly.
“Yes.”
Then Maria came from the house.
“Dante.”
He turned.
“Someone left this for you.”
A small white box.
Inside lay a black chess queen.
Dante frowned.
Salvatore never used queens.
Never.
Underneath was a message scratched into the wood:
THE WOMAN WAS ALWAYS THE HEIR.
Teresa saw it.
Her face changed.
Dante noticed.
“What?”
She whispered:
“Your mother.”
Dante stared.
“What about her?”
Teresa looked toward the old family house.
“Salvatore wasn’t the one who invented the chess system.”
Silence.
“It was Eleanor Romano.”
Dante’s mother.
Dead twenty-three years.
The quiet woman family history remembered mostly for dinners, dresses, and raising sons.
May you like
Teresa looked at the queen.
“And if that piece is real, someone knows the part of the family story Salvatore spent his whole life trying to erase.”
