Chapter 14
Maria was not alone.
Owen had stayed.
So had two guards Enzo trusted.
One of them was dead.
The other lay unconscious near the service hallway.
Owen was wounded.
Leo was gone.
For seven seconds Enzo became Carmine.
The transformation was immediate.
Violence.
Blame.
Destroy everything until a child returned.
Then Maria stepped from the nursery.
Blood on one sleeve.
Not hers.
“Leo is safe.”
Enzo stopped.
“Where?”
“Safe room.”
He breathed again.
Maria had moved him when the first gate alarm failed.
The estate contained an old reinforced room built decades earlier.
Leo thought it was a secret movie room.
Maria made it a game.
That choice spared him the panic outside.
“Who came?”
“Owen?”
Enzo looked toward the wounded man.
He shook his head.
“Three.”
“Samuel’s?”
“Probably.”
“Names?”
“Two escaped.”
“And third?”
Maria looked toward the library.
“Inside.”
They had captured one.
Not tortured.
Not beaten beyond the fight required to stop him.
Enzo had learned enough to understand frightened men often said whatever pain requested.
He wanted useful truth.
Before questioning, he went to Leo.
The boy ran into his arms.
“Daddy!”
Enzo lifted him.
Held him.
Leo whispered:
“Maria said bad game.”
Enzo looked at her.
She almost smiled.
“I improvised.”
“You did well.”
Leo touched Enzo’s face.
“Are we done?”
Enzo thought of Luca.
Samuel.
Helena.
Rebecca.
“No.”
Then corrected himself.
“You are.”
Leo nodded as though that made perfect sense.
Maria took him upstairs.
Enzo followed her into the hallway.
“Samuel said your father worked for Damian.”
Maria stopped.
“I know.”
“Rebecca knew.”
“Yes.”
“You knew she was investigating.”
Maria’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Enzo waited.
No accusation.
Maria understood.
“My father told me before he died.”
“How much?”
“That he drove Mr. Luca after North Orchard.”
Luca stood behind Enzo.
Maria looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“Did he hurt me?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me he didn’t.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Maria nodded.
“No.”
Luca accepted the correction.
“What did Rebecca ask you?”
“About my father.”
“Samuel?”
“Later.”
Maria had helped Rebecca meet Thomas before his death.
Thomas told Rebecca about Damian’s secret wife Elaine.
About Samuel.
About the false Grant identity.
Rebecca confronted Samuel.
Then returned home furious.
“Did she think he would hurt her?” Enzo asked.
“No.”
“Why?”
“She said Samuel looked frightened.”
Enzo frowned.
“Of Rebecca?”
“No.”
“Of who?”
“Damian.”
Samuel had told Rebecca his father was dying.
That Damian wanted one final transition.
The Steward role.
Samuel did not fully want it.
But he had no identity outside it.
Rebecca offered help.
“Then why continue?”
Maria looked toward Leo’s room.
“Because Damian told him the Caradonnas killed Elaine.”
Samuel’s mother.
Rebecca’s half-sister.
“Did they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rebecca?”
“She thought Damian was lying.”
“Why?”
“Because Elaine disappeared before Rebecca was old enough to know her.”
Another missing person.
No corpse in memory.
No certainty.
Rebecca suspected Elaine might have left Damian voluntarily.
If true, Samuel’s entire life of hatred was built on a story his father designed.
Just like Luca’s exile.
Like Helena’s resentment.
Like Enzo’s belief his brother betrayed him.
Every generation inheriting enemies before inheriting truth.
“What happened the morning Rebecca died?” Enzo asked.
Maria’s face changed.
“She came here.”
“What?”
“Very early.”
Enzo stared.
“I was asleep?”
“You were away.”
He remembered.
A meeting two hours north.
Rebecca had left later that morning.
At least that was what Enzo believed.
“She gave me the cassette for Leo’s music box.”
“And bracelet.”
“Yes.”
“She said if anything happened—”
Maria stopped.
Enzo waited.
“She told me not to let you start a war.”
Luca looked at his brother.
The old Enzo would have hated that.
The current one only looked tired.
“What else?”
“She said she was meeting Elaine.”
Silence.
Enzo frowned.
“Elaine was alive?”
“Rebecca believed so.”
“Where?”
“An old lakeside house.”
“Did she go?”
“Yes.”
“Was that where she was driving when she crashed?”
“I think so.”
Enzo’s mind shifted.
Rebecca had not been randomly traveling.
She had been going to meet Samuel’s supposedly dead mother.
“What house?”
Maria knew.
Her father had driven Damian there years earlier.
A property beyond Lake Mercer.
Enzo looked toward Luca.
Luca already understood.
They found the captured attacker downstairs.
Young.
Terrified.
He admitted Samuel did not send them.
That surprised everyone.
“Who?”
The man hesitated.
Enzo remained still.
No threats.
The young man finally answered:
“Damian.”
Luca laughed bitterly.
“The dying old man.”
“He’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
The attacker looked at Enzo.
“Lake Mercer.”
Everything converged.
Rebecca’s final destination.
Elaine.
Damian.
Samuel’s inherited hatred.
Enzo looked toward Maria.
“What did Rebecca say before she left?”
Maria’s answer changed the shape of the entire story.
“She said if Elaine told the truth, Samuel would have to decide whether he wanted revenge…”
May you like
A pause.
“…or whether he wanted a father.”
