Chapter 8
Brenna listened to Enzo on speaker.
She had no memory of him.
He disappeared two years before she was born.
Yet he knew her birthday.
The hospital.
Her mother’s name.
The nickname Rocco used only when Brenna was an infant.
Little Bee.
“Why me?” she asked.
Enzo answered:
“Because your grandfather chose you before you existed.”
Rocco’s face darkened.
“My father.”
“Yes.”
Domenico Moretti.
Dead twenty-three years.
Patriarch.
Cold.
Strategic.
The man who taught Rocco that families survived by never showing the whole hand.
Enzo continued.
“Father knew Aldo was manipulating us.”
Rocco frowned.
“Then why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because he didn’t know how deep it went.”
“He trusted Aldo.”
“He pretended to.”
Rocco laughed bitterly.
“Our family should have sold tickets to all the pretending.”
Enzo ignored it.
“Father created the three foxes as a trap.”
Sybil’s token.
Marcus Vale’s token.
Enzo’s token.
Each opened a different compartment.
Together they led somewhere.
“What does Brenna have to do with it?” Rocco asked.
“Father did not trust either of us.”
“That sounds like him.”
“He believed Aldo would eventually make one brother kill the other.”
Rocco went still.
Enzo continued.
“So he placed the final choice outside our generation.”
“With Brenna.”
“Yes.”
“She wasn’t born.”
“Your wife was pregnant.”
Rocco stared.
Brenna looked at him.
“You knew Mom was pregnant with me?”
“Yes.”
“Grandfather?”
“Yes.”
Enzo continued.
“Father created a fourth mechanism.”
Rocco frowned.
“You said three foxes.”
“Three open the path.”
“And the fourth?”
“Not a fox.”
“What?”
Enzo’s voice softened.
“A music box.”
Brenna froze.
Rocco turned.
She knew.
Her mother, Elena Moretti, had given Brenna a small wooden music box when she was five.
Black lacquer.
Tiny silver bee on top.
Brenna still had it.
Rocco stared.
“Where is it?”
“At the Ashford house.”
Silence.
The house Aldo had been watching.
The house Sybil had searched.
The house Gavin moved Celeste into.
Rocco cursed.
Enzo continued.
“Get it before Aldo.”
“Why?”
“Because the music box contains Father’s voice.”
Rocco closed his eyes.
Another dead man recording secrets.
“What does he say?”
“I never heard it.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Father told me before I disappeared.”
“What else?”
Enzo hesitated.
Rocco heard it.
“Say it.”
“The recording names the person Aldo was working for.”
Everyone went silent.
Brenna looked at her father.
“Aldo wasn’t the top.”
Enzo laughed without humor.
“No.”
Rocco’s voice hardened.
“Who?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t still be hiding.”
The line died.
Rocco moved immediately.
“Anthony.”
The bodyguard appeared.
“Get Brenna’s music box.”
Brenna stood.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
She stared.
Rocco caught himself.
Old instinct.
Control.
He exhaled.
“Do you want to?”
“Yes.”
“Then come.”
Gavin overheard from the hallway.
“What music box?”
Brenna looked at him.
“Something you never found.”
His face tightened.
“I searched that house for years.”
“Yes.”
“And you never once asked what mattered to me enough to keep.”
That landed.
The black music box sat in a locked cabinet inside Brenna’s dressing room.
Untouched.
Gavin had searched walls.
Floors.
Old furniture.
He had overlooked a childhood object because he believed power hid in places men built for power.
Brenna opened the cabinet.
Empty.
She stopped.
“No.”
Gavin entered behind her.
“I never touched it.”
Rocco looked around.
No broken lock.
No damage.
Someone with access.
Brenna whispered:
“Sybil?”
Gavin shook his head.
“She doesn’t have the key.”
“Housekeeper?”
“No.”
Rocco stared at him.
“Celeste.”
Gavin turned.
“She wouldn’t.”
Rocco almost smiled.
“You said that about yourself.”
They returned to the Moretti estate.
Celeste and Elliot were gone.
No struggle.
No forced exit.
A note sat beside Tobin’s breakfast plate.
Brenna picked it up.
Not a formal letter.
Six handwritten words:
I’m sorry. He has my son.
Rocco’s eyes hardened.
Gavin went pale.
“Aldo.”
Brenna turned to him.
“You care.”
“Of course I care.”
“About Celeste?”
“Yes.”
It hurt.
Still.
But truth hurt cleaner.
Gavin continued.
“And Elliot.”
Brenna nodded.
Good.
At least he would not lie again.
Tobin walked into the room rubbing his eyes.
“Where’s Elliot?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then Tobin pointed at the note.
“He went with the old man.”
Rocco crouched.
“What old man?”
“The one from Daddy’s picture.”
Gavin stared.
“What picture?”
Tobin looked at him.
“The one Grandma hides.”
Sybil entered behind them.
Her face changed.
Rocco stood.
“What picture?”
Sybil whispered:
“No.”
Gavin turned.
“Mom.”
She began backing away.
“Show me.”
Sybil closed her eyes.
Then removed an old photograph from inside her handbag.
A man standing beside a lake.
Older.
Gray-haired.
Alive.
Nolan Ashford.
The photograph was dated eight months earlier.
Gavin stared at his father.
Then at his mother.
“You said you spoke once.”
Sybil cried.
“I lied.”
“How many times?”
She could not answer.
Gavin’s voice broke.
“How many times?”
“Every year.”
The room became silent.
May you like
And Tobin whispered:
“That’s the old man who took Elliot.”
