Chapter 5 - ST. AGNES
They went to St. Agnes after midnight.
Dante.
Javier.
Anthony.
Clara stayed at the estate.
Not because Javier ordered her.
Because she chose to remain near Leo and Mia after what happened.
That distinction mattered now.
The school stood between abandoned warehouses and a river black enough to hide anything.
Windows boarded.
Brick cracked.
A stone saint above the entrance had lost its face years ago.
Anthony forced the side door.
Inside, dust lay thick across tiled floors.
Javier looked around.
“My father came here?”
“Yes.”
“With Enzo?”
“Yes.”
“And Gabriel?”
“Before he died.”
Javier turned.
“You were here too.”
“Once.”
They descended toward the basement.
Dante remembered being twenty-eight.
Matteo arguing behind a closed door.
Enzo’s voice.
Rocco’s.
Another man.
Someone crying.
Dante had stood upstairs because his father told him real decisions were for men who had earned them.
He had been angry.
Now he wondered if being excluded had saved him from knowing too much.
The basement door remained.
Heavy oak.
Three locks long rusted.
Anthony broke one.
Javier kicked the lower panel.
The wood opened.
Inside stood a long table.
Eight chairs.
Nothing else.
On the wall behind it:
Three words.
BLOOD OBEYS FEAR.
Javier stared.
“Your father?”
Dante shook his head.
“Not his handwriting.”
Anthony moved around the room.
“One chair’s different.”
The seat at the far end was bolted to the floor.
Beneath it, they found a metal box.
Inside were seven black stones.
Each engraved with a Romano name.
ENZO.
MATTEO.
ROCCO.
GABRIEL.
DANTE.
TERESA.
JAVIER.
Dante stared.
Seven names.
Three generations.
A line.
Javier picked up Teresa’s stone.
“My mother.”
Anthony found an eighth slot.
Empty.
Someone belonged there.
Or would.
Dante looked at the stones.
“Whoever made this expected us.”
Javier turned his over.
Words were carved on the back.
THE SON PAYS FOR THE FATHER.
Dante took his own.
THE FATHER PAYS THROUGH THE SON.
He went still.
Leo.
Javier saw it.
“No.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“Exactly.”
Whatever happened between the adults had been dragged toward his children deliberately.
Javier looked at his stone again.
“If Rocco wanted revenge on us, why involve my mother?”
“Maybe Rocco didn’t make these.”
“Who else?”
Anthony lifted Gabriel’s stone.
Its backside held another message.
THE FIRST SON WAS NOT THE FIRST BETRAYAL.
Dante felt the room cool.
“What does that mean?” Javier asked.
“I don’t know.”
Anthony checked Matteo’s.
The words:
HE LEFT ALIVE.
Javier’s breath caught.
Teresa:
SHE HID HIM.
Rocco:
HE OPENED THE DOOR.
Enzo:
HE ORDERED THE FIRE.
Silence.
Dante stared at his father’s stone.
Javier stared too.
There it was.
Not proof.
Not yet.
But a story.
Enzo ordered the fire.
Rocco opened the door.
Matteo escaped.
Teresa hid him.
Then what?
Anthony turned over the seventh stone.
No message.
Only a date.
04-03-00.
Six months after the warehouse.
Javier frowned.
“What happened then?”
Dante knew.
The Romano family held a funeral for Matteo on April third.
No body.
Symbolic burial.
Enzo ordered everyone to attend.
Teresa stood beside Javier dressed in black.
Dante remembered her staring at the empty coffin.
No tears.
Only hatred.
“Your father was officially buried that day.”
Javier looked at him.
“If he was alive…”
“He could have been watching.”
A sound came from above.
Footsteps.
Anthony raised his weapon.
Dante gestured.
Silence.
A shadow crossed beneath the basement door.
Then three knocks.
Slow.
Javier whispered, “Rocco.”
Dante opened the door.
No one.
On the floor sat an old photograph.
Freshly placed.
Dante picked it up.
Matteo Romano.
Alive.
Burn scars along one side of his face.
Standing beside Teresa.
Date handwritten:
APRIL 3, 2000.
The day of his own funeral.
Javier’s hands began trembling.
“My father was alive.”
Dante looked at the background.
Not St. Agnes.
A farmhouse.
He recognized it.
His family owned that property.
Or had.
It belonged to Enzo’s younger sister.
Aunt Rosa.
Dante stared at the photograph.
Rosa had died five years earlier.
Quietly.
In her bed.
Javier noticed his face.
“Where is that?”
Dante’s answer came slowly.
“My aunt’s house.”
Javier’s eyes filled with rage.
“So your family hid him.”
“Our family.”
“No.”
Javier looked at him.
“My mother hid him.”
Then he pointed at Dante.
“Your side hunted him.”
The distinction cut.
Dante understood why Javier needed it.
But the photograph contained something else.
Behind Matteo and Teresa, visible through a farmhouse window, stood a boy.
Maybe fifteen.
Thin.
Dark hair.
Watching.
Javier stared.
“Who is that?”
Dante knew.
May you like
His stomach tightened.
“That’s me.”
