Chapter 4 - THE DEAD MAN'S WARNINGFor seven years, I'd imagined every version of my brother's return.
I imagined him walking into my office.
Calling me from a blocked number.
Standing outside my house in the rain.
I never imagined him pointing a gun at my heart.
“Nico.”
His mouth twitched.
“That's what everyone called me.”
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I watched you bury an empty coffin.”
My hands curled into fists.
“Why?”
He didn't answer.
His gaze shifted toward Marco.
“Still loyal?”
Marco raised his weapon.
“Nicholas.”
“Put it down.”
Marco didn't move.
Nicholas smiled.
“You're still the same.”
Then he looked at Grace.
“And you're the nurse.”
Grace stiffened.
“You know me?”
“I know everyone who helped keep me alive.”
Peter ran from behind a shelf and wrapped his arms around Nicholas.
I watched them.
The boy wasn't afraid.
He belonged with him.
“Peter,” I whispered.
Nicholas rested a hand on the child's head.
“He knows who I am.”
“He called me Uncle.”
“He was told to.”
“By you?”
“No.”
That single word changed everything.
“Then who?”
Nicholas looked at me.
“You.”
I almost laughed.
“I've never met him.”
Nicholas shook his head.
“Not in this life.”
Grace frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Nicholas ignored her.
“You need to listen carefully, Dominic. The people who attacked the warehouse weren't trying to kill you.”
“They detonated explosives.”
“They wanted you unconscious.”
“They shot my men.”
“To make it look like an assassination.”
“Then what were they looking for?”
Nicholas glanced at Peter.
“Him.”
My eyes went to the boy.
“Why?”
“Because Peter is the living proof of a crime committed by our father.”
I waited.
Nicholas finally lowered the gun.
“Our father had another son.”
I looked at Peter.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Peter?”
Nicholas nodded.
“Our father had him with another woman.”
“Who?”
“A woman named Elena Russo.”
I knew the name.
She had worked as a nurse for the Moretti family.
She disappeared twenty-one years ago.
“She was killed,” I said.
“So everyone believed.”
“Wasn't she?”
Nicholas shook his head.
“She escaped.”
“And Peter?”
“Our father hid him.”
“Why hide his own son?”
“Because Elena had discovered the Bellini connection.”
My heart tightened.
“What connection?”
Nicholas looked toward the archive.
“Your father wasn't protecting Peter.”
“He was protecting the Bellinis.”
Silence.
Marco's expression changed.
Nicholas continued.
“Seven years ago, I found financial records proving Lucia Bellini had been laundering money through the Moretti empire.”
I stared at him.
“You were killed because you found them?”
“She ordered my death.”
“And she failed.”
“She thought she succeeded.”
I looked at Peter.
“Then why is he still alive?”
“Because Elena ran before Lucia could find her.”
“And where is Elena now?”
Nicholas's face became unreadable.
“She is dead.”
“From what?”
“She was poisoned three months ago.”
Grace gasped.
“By whom?”
Nicholas looked at me.
“That is why they came for Peter.”
“Peter knows who killed her?”
“Peter knows where she hid the evidence.”
The boy looked up.
“What evidence?”
Nicholas crouched beside him.
“The box.”
Peter nodded.
“What box?”
The child reached beneath his shirt.
A small brass key hung around his neck.
I stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
Peter looked at me.
“My mother gave it to me before she died.”
“What does it open?”
He hesitated.
Then whispered:
“Daddy's room.”
I felt the blood leave my face.
“Whose room?”
Peter looked at Nicholas.
Nicholas closed his eyes.
Then he said:
“Our father's.”
My father had been dead for twenty years.
His private study had been sealed since his funeral.
No one had entered it.
At least not publicly.
I turned to Nicholas.
“You're saying the evidence is inside Dad's old room?”
“Yes.”
“And Lucia Bellini wants it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why hasn't she taken it?”
Nicholas stared at me.
“Because your father's study isn't at the Moretti estate.”
“Where is it?”
Nicholas looked directly into my eyes.
“In Vanessa Bellini's house.”
The room went silent.
Grace whispered:
“Dominic…”
I looked at my brother.
“Why would my father hide a room inside the Bellini mansion?”
Nicholas's answer was almost a whisper.
“Because he wasn't hiding something from them.”
“He was hiding something with them.”
A loud explosion shook the basement.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Peter screamed.
Marco grabbed him.
Nicholas turned toward the stairs.
“They found us.”
Gunfire erupted above.
Nicholas looked at me.
“Now you understand why I couldn't come home.”
He shoved a key into my hand.
“Go to Vanessa.”
“Why?”
“Because she knows where the room is.”
“You trust her?”
Nicholas shook his head.
“No.”
He looked toward the locked exit.
“But I know exactly what she is.”
The gunfire stopped.
A woman's voice echoed through the hospital.
“Dominic!”
Vanessa.
She was standing somewhere above us.
May you like
And she screamed one sentence that made Nicholas's expression change completely.
“Your brother isn't the only one who survived that fire.”
Related Stories
