Chapter 12
Matteo ran.
Not dramatically.
Not like a coward.
Like a man who had prepared exits before everyone else entered.
The stage lights died.
Two side doors opened.
Vincent heard movement.
Dominic chased left.
Gabriel right.
Vincent went toward Andrew.
Peter reached his son first.
He cut the restraints.
Andrew threw both arms around him.
Peter closed his eyes.
For one second, Vincent watched a father choose his child without permission from any boss.
Good.
Then gunfire cracked somewhere backstage.
Vincent moved.
He found Dominic on the floor.
Alive.
Blood at his shoulder.
Gabriel stood near a service door.
“Matteo went through.”
Vincent looked at Dominic.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
“Then get up.”
No tenderness.
No hatred.
Practical.
Dominic rose.
They followed the passage beneath the theater.
Narrow brick corridor.
Old posters peeling from walls.
At the end, a metal door opened into an underground dressing room.
Matteo waited there.
One pistol.
One old chair.
A small wooden box.
He looked at Vincent.
“I knew you’d come.”
Vincent almost smiled.
“You keep being wrong tonight.”
Matteo’s eyes shifted to Gabriel.
“Your sister made you weak.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“No.”
“She made me ashamed.”
Different.
Matteo looked at Dominic.
“And you.”
Dominic held his wounded shoulder.
“You taught me to mistake being chosen for being valued.”
The old man’s face tightened.
Then Vincent.
“My mother stole Nico from you.”
“Yes.”
“My wife exposed you.”
“Yes.”
“My son frightened you.”
Matteo laughed.
“A toddler?”
“Yes.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“Because Leo is growing up without needing you.”
Silence.
That was the deepest wound.
Matteo’s philosophy required fear to survive.
A child loved openly threatened the entire story.
Vincent continued.
“You wanted him crouching.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted me furious.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted Dominic ambitious.”
“Yes.”
“Peter afraid.”
“Yes.”
“Gabriel ashamed.”
Matteo smiled.
“See how easy people are?”
Vincent looked at him.
“No.”
He gestured toward the room behind.
“They all stopped.”
Matteo’s smile faded.
“Temporarily.”
“Maybe.”
Vincent accepted that.
No fantasy.
People could betray again.
Fear could return.
“But tonight was enough.”
Matteo raised the pistol.
Gabriel moved.
Vincent held up a hand.
Matteo pointed the weapon toward the wooden box.
“You still haven’t asked what Sofia found last.”
Vincent stared.
“What?”
Matteo smiled.
“There he is.”
Curiosity.
The last leash.
Vincent understood but asked anyway.
“What?”
Matteo kicked the box toward him.
Vincent did not bend.
Dominic picked it up.
Opened.
Inside lay a small child’s shoe.
Old.
White leather.
A red M stitched inside.
Vincent stared.
He recognized it from photographs.
Nico’s.
And beside it—
A photograph.
Sofia holding Leo.
Taken inside the estate only three weeks before her death.
Behind them, reflected in a mirror, stood another man.
Vincent looked closer.
Not Matteo.
Not Dominic.
Not Peter.
Not Gabriel.
An older Moretti capo.
Samuel Moretti.
Vincent’s father’s closest friend.
Dead ten years.
Supposedly.
Vincent looked up.
Matteo watched.
“Who is he?”
“You know.”
“Samuel is dead.”
Matteo laughed.
“You people bury very easily.”
Dominic stared at the photograph.
“What does Samuel have to do with Sofia?”
Matteo’s eyes hardened.
“He was the one who reopened the Silence Room.”
Vincent felt cold.
Before Sofia.
Before Dominic.
“Why?”
“Because your father never ordered it sealed permanently.”
Vincent stared.
“My father reopened it?”
“No.”
Matteo smiled.
“Samuel did after he died.”
“Why?”
“To preserve Richard Moretti’s last instruction.”
Vincent’s father, Richard Moretti.
Dead nine years.
“What instruction?”
Matteo looked at Leo’s old family photograph.
“To make sure no Moretti son ever became softer than the family could survive.”
Vincent almost laughed.
“My father wanted this.”
“Partly.”
“Then why did you hate him?”
“Because he wanted control.”
“And you wanted ownership.”
Matteo’s face changed.
Vincent saw it.
True.
Before anyone moved, a bell rang somewhere above them.
Three times.
Not Matteo’s signal.
Different.
Matteo looked toward the ceiling.
For the first time, he seemed afraid.
Gabriel noticed.
“What?”
Matteo whispered:
“He’s here.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Samuel.”
May you like
Matteo said nothing.
Then the lights went out again.
