Chapter 12
Marcus denied it immediately.
Too loudly.
Dante brought everyone back into the reception hall.
Isabella stood near the fireplace.
Lorenzo opposite her.
Vivienne beside Marcus.
Thomas and Samuel separated from everyone.
The family looked less like a hierarchy now.
More like wreckage.
Dante looked at Marcus.
“You found Lorenzo.”
“No.”
Vivienne interrupted.
“Don't be stupid.”
Marcus turned.
Her face had changed.
She stared at him.
“You told me where he was.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
She continued.
“You said you got the name from Thomas.”
Thomas laughed.
“No.”
Vivienne looked toward him.
Thomas shook his head.
“I never spoke to your brother.”
Power shifted again.
Vivienne’s eyes returned to Marcus.
“When?”
He looked away.
That was enough.
Her voice became sharper.
“You used me.”
Marcus finally snapped.
“We used each other.”
Vivienne flinched.
He continued.
“You wanted Dante.”
Her face hardened.
“I wanted access.”
“To the estate.”
“To the council.”
“To Ava.”
Dante’s eyes chilled.
Vivienne looked toward him.
Marcus laughed.
“Stop pretending.”
He looked around.
“She never loved you.”
Vivienne’s jaw tightened.
Marcus kept going.
“She loved being the woman everyone moved aside for.”
The insult cut because it was true.
Vivienne stepped toward him.
“You begged me to do this.”
Marcus smiled.
“And you did.”
Silence.
Dante asked:
“Why find Lorenzo?”
Marcus looked at him.
His confidence returned.
Finally.
A truth he had been saving.
“Because you were never going to give me more.”
Dante frowned.
Marcus spread his arms.
“Ten years.”
“I moved your money.”
“I handled your men.”
“I cleaned your messes.”
His eyes hardened.
“And every time a chair opened, you put another Bellandi in it.”
There.
Resentment.
Status.
Power.
Not ideology.
Marcus wanted elevation.
Dante never gave it.
So Marcus found a rival heir.
Someone who would need him.
Lorenzo stared.
“You came to me because you wanted rank.”
Marcus laughed.
“Did you think it was brotherly compassion?”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
Marcus continued.
“You were angry.”
“Useful.”
“Easy.”
The insult landed.
Lorenzo stepped forward.
Dante raised one hand.
He stopped.
That surprised everyone.
Marcus looked at Dante.
“Still protecting him?”
“No.”
Dante’s voice was quiet.
“Stopping you from directing another man’s anger.”
Marcus’s smile vanished.
Dante had learned.
That was the true shift.
Then Isabella asked:
“How did you know where Lorenzo was?”
Marcus’s face tightened.
No answer.
Isabella looked toward Thomas.
Thomas shook his head.
Samuel too.
Then Nico entered holding Marcus’s old phone backup.
He had recovered one contact saved only as:
MOTHER.
Dante looked at Isabella.
She frowned.
“Not me.”
Marcus’s face went still.
Dante looked toward him.
“Whose mother?”
Marcus said nothing.
Vivienne’s eyes widened.
She knew.
Dante saw it.
“Say it.”
Vivienne whispered:
“My mother.”
The room changed again.
Vivienne and Marcus’s mother had supposedly died when they were teenagers.
May you like
Apparently, she too was alive.
And she was the person who led Marcus to Lorenzo.
