Chapter 11
Rocco shut the recorder off.
“No.”
Brenna looked at him.
“You wanted truth.”
“Not from a dead man accusing my wife.”
Enzo stepped closer.
“Play it.”
Rocco turned.
“Careful.”
“There.”
Enzo pointed at him.
“That is why I left.”
Rocco’s face hardened.
Enzo continued.
“You can hear Nolan survived.”
“You can hear Aldo manipulated us.”
“But the second a truth touches Elena, you close the room.”
Rocco stared.
His brother was right.
He hated him for it.
Brenna pressed play.
Domenico continued:
“I suspected Elena because Aldo always knew where Rocco would be.”
“Where Enzo would meet him.”
“Which routes changed.”
“Which arguments happened inside the house.”
Rocco looked toward the fire.
Elena had known everything.
Because Rocco told her everything.
Domenico:
“But suspicion is not proof.”
Rocco slowly looked back.
“I watched her.”
“She discovered I watched her.”
“And instead of running, Elena came to me.”
Brenna whispered:
“Mom.”
The recording continued.
“She told me Aldo had approached her.”
“He threatened Brenna before Brenna was born.”
Rocco went still.
“He told Elena that if she did not feed him harmless information, he would make Rocco believe she had betrayed him.”
Rocco closed his eyes.
Aldo understood him too well.
The threat worked because Elena believed Rocco might believe it.
“She agreed.”
Brenna covered her mouth.
“She gave him information.”
“But not what he believed.”
“Elena began feeding Aldo lies.”
Enzo smiled faintly.
“Good.”
Domenico continued:
“She became our best chance to learn who Aldo served.”
Rocco’s breathing steadied.
Not innocence.
Agency.
Elena had been playing a dangerous game beside him.
Without him.
Because she did not trust his reaction.
That hurt.
Then:
“Two weeks before Enzo disappeared, Elena gave me a name.”
Everyone leaned closer.
Domenico’s voice lowered.
“Silvio Moretti.”
Rocco froze.
Enzo whispered:
“No.”
Gavin looked between them.
“Who?”
Rocco answered.
“My uncle.”
Silvio Moretti.
Domenico’s younger brother.
Rocco and Enzo’s uncle.
Family patriarch of another branch.
Officially dead thirty years.
Before Nolan vanished.
Before the foxes.
Before the war.
Enzo stared.
“He died before any of this.”
Nolan shook his head.
“No body.”
Everyone looked at him.
Nolan almost smiled.
“We really should stop trusting funerals.”
Domenico continued:
“Elena believed Silvio survived his supposed death.”
“He used Aldo as his voice inside the family.”
“Why?”
“Because Silvio believed I stole the Moretti family from him.”
Rocco remembered childhood whispers.
Silvio was charismatic.
Popular.
Domenico was older.
Inherited leadership.
Silvio died in what everyone called an accident.
Maybe not.
Domenico:
“If Silvio lives, he will not come for me.”
“He will come for my sons.”
“Not to kill them.”
“To make them destroy each other.”
Rocco looked at Enzo.
Twenty-six years.
Exactly.
“He succeeded,” Enzo whispered.
“Almost,” Rocco said.
Enzo looked at him.
They had not killed each other.
But they lost twenty-six years.
Domenico’s voice continued.
“And if he cannot break Rocco and Enzo, he will wait for the next generation.”
Brenna stared at the box.
“For me.”
Nolan nodded.
Domenico:
“He will look for whichever child carries enough Moretti blood to matter and enough love outside the family to be divided.”
Brenna looked toward Gavin.
Her husband.
Ashford.
Tobin.
Moretti and Ashford.
The next generation was not Brenna alone.
It was her son.
Rocco’s eyes hardened.
“Tobin.”
Domenico continued.
“If that child lives in the old house, move them.”
“Because beneath the second chamber is the Black Room.”
Nolan frowned.
“Second chamber?”
Enzo looked confused.
Rocco remembered the fireplace passage they could not open.
Domenico continued:
“The Black Room contains the one thing Silvio cannot allow his descendants to hear.”
Descendants.
Everyone froze.
Brenna whispered:
“Silvio had children.”
Enzo looked at Nolan.
Nolan said nothing.
Domenico’s voice crackled.
“One child was hidden inside the Ashford family.”
Gavin slowly turned toward Nolan.
Nolan’s face had gone white.
Gavin whispered:
“Dad?”
Nolan closed his eyes.
Domenico continued:
“And if I am right…”
Static swallowed several words.
May you like
Then:
“…Gavin Ashford carries Moretti blood.”
