Chapter 4 - THE BROTHER WITHOUT A PHOTOGRAPH
There were no photographs of Gabriel Romano in Dante’s house.
That was intentional.
Enzo destroyed them.
Dante’s mother hid one.
Dante found it when he was nineteen.
Two boys stood beside a lake.
Gabriel, seventeen.
Dante, twelve.
Gabriel had one arm around his younger brother.
Both were laughing.
Dante remembered the day.
He remembered almost nothing that came after.
“What happened to him?” Clara asked.
The study was darker now.
Leo had been sent back upstairs after making Dante promise not to leave without saying goodbye.
Dante had promised.
He did not make many promises anymore.
Those involving his children mattered.
“Gabriel died when I was thirteen.”
Javier stared.
“How?”
Dante looked toward the old family portrait above the fireplace.
“My father said accident.”
“What kind?”
“A fall.”
“From where?”
“Cliff near the lake.”
“Body?”
“Yes.”
Dante’s answer was immediate.
“I saw him.”
That separated Gabriel from the family’s other ghosts.
He remembered the coffin open.
Gabriel’s face bruised.
His hands folded.
One knuckle broken.
“What does he have to do with Matteo?” Javier asked.
Dante looked at him.
“Gabriel was your father’s best friend.”
Javier sat down.
“You never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because after Gabriel died, my father banned his name.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Javier laughed bitterly.
“You know very little for a man everybody calls Boss.”
Dante accepted it.
Power gave access to many things.
Truth was not guaranteed.
“My mother whispered Gabriel’s name once,” Javier said.
Dante looked up.
“When?”
“I was maybe eight.”
“What did she say?”
Javier searched memory.
“She and my father were fighting.”
“About?”
“I don’t know. I heard Gabriel.”
“What else?”
Javier closed his eyes.
“My father said, ‘I won’t let Enzo do to Javier what he did to Gabriel.’”
Dante felt something settle inside him.
There.
A bridge.
Gabriel’s death.
Matteo’s fear.
Javier.
Dante.
The ring.
St. Agnes.
The old barbecue.
Someone was not simply resurrecting old grudges.
They were tracing one specific wound through generations.
Clara looked toward Javier.
“Your father was protecting you.”
“Maybe.”
Javier’s voice carried less certainty now.
Dante noticed.
Hatred was easiest when every dead man had been simple.
Anthony entered.
“I checked the guest photographs.”
Dante turned.
“Rocco?”
“Nothing clear.”
“Nothing?”
“Three guests remember an older man with a limp. Nobody knows who invited him.”
“Gate?”
“His vehicle came in with the Moretti cars.”
“Morettis know him?”
“No.”
“Camera?”
Anthony’s jaw tightened.
“One camera was down for seven minutes.”
“Which seven?”
“When he entered.”
Dante looked at him.
“You’re telling me a dead man walked into my estate during the only seven minutes a camera failed.”
“Yes.”
Javier smiled without humor.
“Maybe he really is a ghost.”
Dante’s eyes hardened.
“No.”
Ghosts did not cut initials into rings.
People did.
Anthony continued:
“We found another thing.”
He placed a photograph on the desk.
The old barbecue pit after workers lifted one stone.
Beneath it was a shallow metal compartment.
Empty.
Except for ash.
Dante stared.
“How old?”
“Compartment could be decades.”
“What was inside?”
“Ring was near it. Maybe other things before.”
Anthony handed him a second image.
Scratched inside the metal lid:
FEAR MAKES HEIRS OBEDIENT.
Dante looked at the words.
Javier did too.
Dante knew the handwriting.
Not Rocco’s.
Not Matteo’s.
Enzo Romano.
His father.
Javier saw his reaction.
“You recognize it.”
“Yes.”
“What does it mean?”
Dante looked toward the door.
He remembered being thirteen.
Gabriel dead.
Enzo standing over him after Dante refused to attend a family dinner.
His father had slapped him once.
Then said:
“A Romano who fears me will never betray me.”
At fourteen, Dante began training with older men.
At fifteen, he was forced to watch punishment.
At sixteen, Enzo handed him a gun and told him fear was the only leash that never broke.
Dante spent decades repeating a softer version of the same lesson.
Until Leo.
Until Mia.
Until Sofia died and Dante realized his children looked at his men differently than they looked at him.
He had tried to change.
Not enough.
Javier broke the silence.
“My father hated your father.”
“Yes.”
“Did Matteo try to overthrow Enzo?”
Dante looked at him.
“I think he tried to stop him.”
Javier stared.
That answer was worse.
If Matteo had not been ambitious—
If he had been resisting something—
Then Dante’s own place in the old conflict became more complicated.
“What did you do?” Javier asked.
Dante did not answer immediately.
“Dante.”
He looked at his cousin.
“I chose my father.”
Silence.
Javier’s face changed.
Dante continued:
“At St. Agnes, Matteo told me Enzo was destroying the family.”
“And?”
“I called him a traitor.”
Javier stood.
“You helped Enzo.”
“Yes.”
“Against my father.”
“Yes.”
Clara whispered, “Javier.”
He ignored her.
“My mother said Matteo came home burned and said your name.”
Dante held his gaze.
“Then he had reason.”
Javier crossed the room.
Anthony shifted.
Dante raised one hand.
Let him.
Javier stopped inches away.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew enough.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, Dante did not hide behind age or rank.
“I knew enough to ask questions.”
His voice lowered.
“I chose not to.”
Javier’s eyes filled with something more dangerous than rage.
Grief.
Dante continued:
“I thought loyalty meant believing my father.”
Javier looked at him.
“And then you spent thirty years demanding everybody believe you.”
May you like
Dante had no defense.
Because that was true.
