Chapter 5
Dante came upstairs with Thomas beside him.
Nobody knew why until he asked one question.
“Where is my mother?”
The reception hall went still.
Marcus laughed first.
“Jesus.”
He looked at Vivienne.
“You really cracked him.”
Dante ignored him.
Thomas walked to the bar.
Poured another whiskey.
His hand was steadier now.
“She’s dead.”
Dante watched him.
“You just told me to ask her.”
Thomas took a drink.
“Figure of speech.”
“No.”
Dante’s voice lowered.
“You don’t use those by accident.”
Thomas’s eyes hardened.
Vivienne crossed her arms.
“This is pathetic.”
She looked toward the capos.
“He finds one old recording room and suddenly Mommy is alive.”
Her laugh was cruel.
“Maybe Ava gets the dramatics from him.”
Dante turned.
The room seemed to shrink.
Vivienne held his gaze.
Still arrogant.
Still not afraid enough.
Then a small voice came from the doorway.
“Mommy?”
Everyone turned.
Ava stood beside the estate doctor.
Dante crossed the room immediately.
“Ava.”
She pointed toward Vivienne.
“No.”
Her eyes moved past everyone.
Toward Thomas.
“His phone.”
Thomas’s face changed.
Ava tapped her smartwatch.
Another captured audio.
Thomas’s voice.
“She can’t come back until Dante is ready.”
A woman answered.
Older.
Low.
“Dante will never be ready if you keep feeding him lies.”
Dante stopped breathing.
He knew that voice.
Not perfectly.
Memory had worn it down.
But somewhere beneath sixteen years of silence—
his mother.
Isabella Bellandi.
Thomas set his glass down.
Too carefully.
Dante looked at him.
“Alive.”
Thomas’s jaw tightened.
Ava stared at the adults.
Then quietly took Dante’s hand.
He looked down.
She whispered:
“She called me little star.”
His face changed.
Isabella had called Dante that as a child.
A phrase nobody outside immediate family knew.
Dante’s eyes returned to Thomas.
“Where is she?”
Thomas’s arrogance finally shifted into something harder.
Not fear.
Defiance.
“She left.”
“You told me she died.”
“She was dead to the family.”
Vivienne rolled her eyes.
“Please.”
Everyone looked at her.
She stepped forward.
“Can we stop pretending this is some tragic love story?”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
Vivienne continued.
“Your mother ran.”
“Why?”
“Because she was weak.”
Thomas snapped:
“Vivienne.”
She turned.
“What?”
His warning came too late.
She smiled.
“She refused your father’s last order.”
Dante went still.
“What order?”
Vivienne looked at Thomas.
Then Dante.
Her contempt returned.
“To choose which son would inherit.”
Silence.
Dante frowned.
“I’m an only child.”
Nobody answered.
Thomas looked away.
Marcus stopped smiling.
Dante felt the room shift beneath him.
“Say it.”
Thomas’s breathing changed.
Dante stepped closer.
“Say it.”
Thomas finally looked him in the eye.
“You had a brother.”
Dante’s hand went still at his side.
“Had?”
Thomas’s eyes narrowed.
“He didn't die.”
A pause.
“He was taken.”
Dante stared.
“By who?”
Thomas looked toward the hallway leading deeper into the estate.
May you like
Then toward Vivienne.
“Ask the woman who invited him back.”
