Chapter 8
Antonio named five people.
My father.
Bianca.
Himself.
Franco.
Dr. Keller.
Five.
I still needed six.
“The masked man.”
Antonio looked toward Bianca.
She said nothing.
Interesting.
“You know.”
Bianca stared at the floor.
Antonio answered.
“I never saw him clearly.”
“Voice?”
He hesitated.
“Maybe.”
“Who?”
No answer.
Evelyn spoke.
“He called Bianca Bee.”
My sister froze.
Only two people ever called her that.
My father.
And our younger brother Matteo.
Matteo died four years ago.
Before the wedding.
At least that was what I believed.
I stared at Bianca.
“No.”
She started crying.
I had not seen my sister cry since our mother’s funeral.
“No.”
“Raffaele—”
“Matteo is dead.”
Bianca looked at me.
“Not then.”
The room tilted.
Matteo’s supposed death came from a warehouse fire overseas. No body recovered. My father handled everything because I was in the middle of a territorial war.
I had mourned him.
Again.
Another disappearance controlled by my father.
“Where is he?”
Bianca shook her head.
“I don’t know now.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“He was there the night Ethan was born.”
I could barely process it.
“My dead brother watched them take my son.”
Bianca whispered, “He helped us.”
That word.
Us.
Not father.
Not old council.
Us.
Matteo had apparently joined them.
Antonio finally spoke.
“Your father was preparing him.”
“For what?”
“To replace you.”
Silence.
Matteo was not simply alive.
He had been the alternate boss.
The son my father considered easier to control.
The hidden sixth man was not some forgotten servant.
May you like
He was my brother.
And if he survived after my father’s death, he had spent years somewhere carrying the last piece of the same plan.
