Chapter 7
Enzo wanted to hit Mason.
He did not.
That mattered.
Ten years earlier he probably would have.
Instead he asked:
“How long have you known Luca was alive?”
Mason stood in the library with no weapon.
He had placed it voluntarily on the table.
“Five years.”
Helena laughed bitterly.
“Apparently everyone gets a turn.”
Enzo ignored her.
“You worked for me eleven.”
“Yes.”
“So six years believing he was dead.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I received a call.”
“From Luca.”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“For me to stay.”
“Inside my house.”
“Yes.”
Enzo’s hand tightened.
“To spy.”
“To watch.”
“That is a spy.”
Mason accepted it.
“He believed Damian still had people near you.”
“Names?”
“He didn’t know.”
“So he used you.”
“Yes.”
“And you agreed.”
“My brother vanished with him.”
Enzo stared.
Grant Hale had been Luca’s friend before the disappearance.
The boy in the photograph.
Later a young driver.
When Luca was taken from North Orchard, Grant apparently followed.
Both disappeared.
Mason spent fourteen years thinking Grant was dead.
Then Luca contacted him and said Grant survived the original removal but had vanished again several years later.
Luca did not know whether Damian killed him.
“Why didn’t Luca come home?”
Mason shook his head.
“He said home was compromised.”
“By who?”
“He never told me.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
Mason did not defend it.
Enzo appreciated that more than excuses.
“What about Maria’s calls?”
“That wasn’t me.”
“Grant.”
“The man using Grant’s name.”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
Mason’s face darkened.
“I don’t know.”
“Luca?”
“Maybe.”
Enzo laughed.
“Five years spying for him and you still don’t know who stands beside me.”
“No.”
“Then you weren’t very useful.”
Mason absorbed that too.
Helena sat near the fireplace.
For hours, nobody had discussed what she did to Leo.
Enzo had not forgotten.
Neither had she.
“What happens to me?” she asked.
Enzo turned.
“You don’t ask that like you’re sorry.”
“I’m both.”
“Both what?”
“Sorry and afraid.”
“Good.”
She looked at him.
He continued.
“You are not returning to the main estate.”
Helena’s face tightened.
“My home is here.”
“No.”
“My family—”
“You took food from my son.”
She stopped.
Enzo’s voice stayed calm.
“You can regret it for fifty years.”
A pause.
“That does not put you back near him.”
Helena looked down.
“Where do I go?”
“The south guest property.”
“Guarded.”
“Yes.”
“So prison.”
“No.”
Enzo looked at her.
“You can leave the city if you want.”
That surprised her.
“What?”
“You are not my prisoner.”
“Then why guards?”
“Because Luca told me to keep you alive.”
“And you listen to him now?”
“No.”
Enzo’s expression darkened.
“I want to know who wants you dead.”
Helena almost smiled.
There was the mafia logic she understood.
Enzo continued:
“You will never be alone with Leo again.”
The smile disappeared.
“Ever?”
“That is his decision when he is old enough.”
Helena looked wounded.
Enzo felt nothing about that.
Consequences did not need cruelty added to them.
They simply needed to remain.
That evening, before leaving for the boxing club, Enzo visited Leo.
The boy was building a tower on the rug.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Is Aunt Helena mad?”
Enzo sat beside him.
“She made bad choices.”
“Because I scratched car?”
“No.”
He made sure the answer was immediate.
“No, buddy.”
Leo looked at him.
“You didn’t make her do anything.”
That was enough.
No adult explanation.
No burden.
Leo placed another block.
“Can Maria make toast?”
Enzo smiled.
“Yes.”
He stood.
Maria waited by the door.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Not obeying.”
She looked confused.
Enzo laughed quietly.
“Keep doing it when it matters.”
At ten that night, Enzo entered the old Caradonna boxing club alone.
He had left Mason outside.
No hidden men in the ring.
No dramatic lights.
Only one overhead bulb.
A man stood beneath it.
Fifty-one.
Gray through the hair.
Scar running from his right temple toward his ear.
Enzo knew him instantly.
Luca smiled.
“You got old.”
Enzo stopped ten feet away.
“You missed it.”
The smile disappeared.
Nineteen years stood between them.
Then Enzo punched him.
Once.
Luca staggered.
Wiped blood from his mouth.
“Fair.”
Enzo hit him again.
Luca stayed upright.
“You done?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Luca hit him back.
The brothers fought for perhaps thirty seconds.
Not elegantly.
Not like trained assassins.
Like two men furious that the other still existed.
Then both stopped.
Breathing hard.
Luca leaned against the ropes.
Enzo looked at him.
“You let me bury you.”
Luca’s answer came quietly.
“You stopped looking.”
There it was.
The photograph.
HE NEVER LOOKED FOR YOU.
Enzo stared.
“I looked for seven months.”
“I waited eight.”
Silence.
One month.
That was the cruelty.
Enzo had stopped one month before Luca escaped his first prison.
Luca looked away.
“Father knew exactly when your hope would break.”
Enzo’s anger shifted toward a dead man.
Again.
“Where were you?”
“Damian’s house in the mountains.”
“For eight months?”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“I escaped.”
“Why not come home?”
Luca looked at him.
“Because Grant died bringing me the warning.”
Mason’s brother.
Enzo stopped.
“What warning?”
Luca’s voice hardened.
“Damian wasn’t the one I needed to fear.”
“He said the order to keep me gone came from inside the Caradonna house.”
“Who?”
May you like
Luca looked at his brother.
“Your wife.”
