Chapter 3 - The Dead Man's InvitationCasius moved before the first shot.
He seized Nadia by the waist and dragged her behind a stone pillar as bullets tore through the staircase railing. His body covered hers, his arm braced against the marble while the remaining guards opened fire.
The man in the smoke did not retreat.
He fired twice, dropped behind an overturned table, and called out with the calm irritation of someone inconvenienced by a late appointment.
“Casius! I came to talk.”
“You brought a gun into my house.”
“You brought an army into a conversation.”
Another volley ripped through the hall.
Casius pulled Nadia toward the servants' corridor.
“Can you run?”
“Not in this dress.”
“Then hold on.”
He lifted her into his arms and carried her through the doorway just as another bullet struck the pillar they had been hiding behind.
Nadia clutched his coat.
The gown's skirt dragged against the floor, its delicate silk brushing the bloodstained marble. Behind them, men shouted orders, and the estate's alarm finally came alive with a deafening wail.
They reached a narrow room filled with cleaning supplies.
Casius set her down.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
He looked at her sharply.
“You don't get to follow me into a gunfight because you're curious.”
“Your father is dying, a man who's supposed to be dead is shooting up the house, and someone just called me Elena. I think curiosity is the least of our problems.”
A muscle shifted in Casius's jaw.
“You don't understand who you're dealing with.”
“Then explain it.”
“That man may be Matteo Rizzo. He may be an impostor. Either way, he knows things he should not know.”
“And if he's telling the truth?”
“Then my entire family has spent forty years believing a lie.”
Nadia held his gaze.
“Welcome to the club.”
For a moment, something almost human crossed his face. Not amusement, exactly. Recognition.
Then he checked his weapon and opened the door.
“You stay behind me. If I tell you to run, you run.”
Nadia nodded.
He stepped into the corridor, and she followed.
The servants' passage opened behind the main dining room. Tables had been overturned, crystal glasses lay scattered across the carpet, and two guards were helping an injured colleague toward the kitchen.
At the far end of the room, Matteo Rizzo stood with his hands raised.
His weapon lay on the floor.
The guards surrounding him looked furious, but none approached.
Matteo's eyes found Nadia immediately.
“Victoria's granddaughter,” he said. “I wondered whether I'd recognize you.”
“You're supposed to be dead.”
“People say that about me a lot.”
Casius pointed his gun at the man's chest.
“Start explaining.”
Matteo glanced at the weapon.
“Still your father's son. Always ready to solve a problem by threatening to shoot it.”
“And you still mistake arrogance for charm.”
A faint smile appeared on Matteo's face.
“I see the two families have preserved their best qualities.”
“Why did you come here?”
“To stop a wedding.”
“Gemma's wedding?”
“Your wedding. The alliance your father has been arranging with the Rizzos. There will be no wedding if you know what I came to tell you.”
Casius stepped closer.
“Who shot my father?”
Matteo's smile disappeared.
“A man who works for Gemma's father. The same man who killed Anna Vale.”
Nadia felt as if someone had struck her.
“No.”
Matteo looked at her.
“I wish I were lying.”
“You said my mother was Elena.”
“Your grandmother named you Elena at birth. Your mother called you Nadia when she realized the people hunting you had discovered your existence. She believed a new name could buy you a new life.”
Nadia shook her head.
“My mother never said anything about this family.”
“Because she loved you more than she loved the truth.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It will.”
Matteo reached slowly into his jacket. Several guards raised their guns.
“Easy,” he said. “If I wanted to kill someone, I would have arrived before the old man was shot.”
He removed a black envelope and placed it on the dining table.
“This is why I came.”
Casius did not lower his weapon.
“Open it.”
Matteo shook his head.
“Not while half your household is listening.”
“They're my men.”
“That's precisely the problem.”
He looked toward the wounded guards, then at the servants huddled near the kitchen entrance.
“One of them has already sold your security codes. Another gave Gemma's father the schedule for tonight's fitting. And someone in this house has been sending photographs to the Rizzos for months.”
Casius's eyes narrowed.
“Names.”
“I have one name. The man who arranged the attack on your father.”
“Who?”
“Your uncle.”
The room went silent.
Casius did not move.
“My uncle died in a car accident when I was nine.”
“No. Your family said he died in a car accident.”
Matteo pushed the envelope toward him.
“Inside is a photograph taken last week. Your uncle, alive and well, meeting with Gemma Rizzo's father in a private club in Manhattan.”
Casius looked at the envelope but did not touch it.
“Why would my uncle want my father dead?”
“Because your father has kept the wrong secret for too long. Because your uncle believes he is the rightful head of the Leone organization. And because the document hidden beneath St. Bartholomew's Church gives him a claim he cannot afford to lose.”
Nadia remembered Salvatore's words.
The original agreement.
The murder.
The vault beneath the church.
“What does the agreement say?” she asked.
Matteo looked at her with something resembling grief.
“It says your grandmother and Gemma's grandfather agreed to end their war by surrendering their firstborn child to a lie.”
Nadia's skin went cold.
“What does that mean?”
“Victoria's daughter was declared dead. Matteo Rizzo's son was declared dead. Their child was erased from both family records. In exchange, the two families divided their territories and agreed never to reveal the truth.”
Casius stared at him.
“But you are Matteo Rizzo.”
“Yes.”
“Then whose death was faked?”
Matteo looked directly at Nadia.
“Mine.”
Nadia's mind reeled.
“You let everyone believe you were dead?”
“I had no choice. The night Elena was born, someone entered the hospital and tried to kill her. Victoria found out the attack had been ordered by her own brother. She smuggled her daughter out, changed her name, and arranged for me to disappear.”
“Your own family tried to kill you?”
“My father believed that a child connecting the two families would destroy everything he had built. My brother believed it would give him everything he wanted.”
“Your brother is Gemma's father,” Casius said.
Matteo nodded.
“Vittorio Rizzo inherited the organization after our father died. He also inherited the belief that anyone who threatened his power had to disappear.”
Casius finally lowered his gun by a fraction.
“You want us to believe you survived thirty-six years in hiding because you were waiting for Nadia to wear a dress?”
“No. I survived because I knew that dress was the only thing Victoria had left that could prove the truth without relying on the word of a dead woman.”
Matteo took a breath.
“Your grandmother left three pieces of evidence. The first is inside the gown. The second is beneath the church. The third is in the possession of a woman who has been living under an assumed name for forty years.”
“Who?” Nadia asked.
“Gemma's mother.”
A sharp voice interrupted them.
“You're lying.”
Everyone turned.
Gemma stood in the doorway, flanked by two armed men. Her cream-colored suit was stained with dust, and one diamond earring was missing.
But it was not her anger that drew Nadia's attention.
It was the pistol in Gemma's hand.
She pointed it directly at Matteo.
“You should have stayed dead.”
Matteo stared at her for a long moment.
Then his expression crumpled into something Nadia had never expected to see on a man's face during a gunfight.
Pain.
“Isabella,” he whispered.
Gemma's hand trembled.
“Don't call me that.”
Nadia looked between them.
“Isabella?”
Gemma's eyes filled with tears, but her voice turned vicious.
“My mother gave me that name before your grandmother stole her life. My father gave me another name so I could survive. And now you walk into this house wearing a dead woman's dress and expect me to surrender everything?”
“No one has asked you to surrender anything,” Nadia said.
Gemma laughed bitterly.
“You don't even know what you are.”
“Then tell me.”
“I am the daughter of the man who inherited the empire. You are the daughter of a woman who should never have been born.”
She lifted the pistol.
Casius stepped in front of Nadia.
Gemma's finger tightened around the trigger.
Then the old landline on the dining table rang.
Every head turned toward it.
No one had used that telephone in years. It had been disconnected from the public network and connected only to one private line, the line reserved for Victoria Leone's personal vault.
Casius stared at it.
The ringing continued.
Matteo closed his eyes.
“She knows,” he whispered.
“Who knows?” Nadia demanded.
The telephone rang a fourth time.
Casius picked up the receiver.
A woman's voice spoke through the ancient line.
“Casius, listen carefully. My name is Anna Vale.”
Nadia went rigid.
The voice continued.
“I know you believe I died seventeen years ago. I know you have questions about the gown, about Elena, about the men who are trying to kill you.”
Nadia reached for the receiver, but Casius held it out of reach.
The voice grew urgent.
“You must not let Nadia open the vault beneath St. Bartholomew's. The original agreement is a trap. If she opens it, every surviving member of both families will learn what really happened on November seventeenth, 1986.”
A pause followed.
Then Anna whispered the words that shattered everything Nadia had believed.
“Because I wasn't the only child born that night.”
Casius stared at the receiver.
Matteo's face turned ashen.
May you like
And Gemma, still pointing her gun, began to laugh.
“Finally,” she said. “Now the real family can meet.”
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