Chapter 7 - The Letter That Knew Too MuchCasius did not deny it.
That was what frightened Nadia most.
He stood beneath the chandelier, his hands resting at his sides, and accepted her accusation without a single attempt to defend himself.
“How long?” she asked.
His gaze remained on hers.
“Since I was fourteen.”
Nadia felt something inside her break.
“Fourteen?”
“My uncle took me to a private estate outside Albany. He said he wanted to teach me what it meant to inherit the family. I was shown a boy in a locked room. I was told the boy was dangerous, that he had been brought there because his existence threatened both families.”
“And you knew he was my brother?”
“No. Not then.”
“But you knew he was alive.”
“Yes.”
She stepped away from him.
“You let me believe I had no family.”
“I was a child.”
“You're not a child anymore.”
Casius accepted the blow without flinching.
“I found out the boy's identity three years ago. By then, my uncle had disappeared, and every record connecting him to the estate had been destroyed. I searched for the boy, but the name I was given led to a grave.”
“You searched?”
“For two years.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I had no proof that you were connected to him. Your mother had disappeared. The records were false. Every lead ended in a dead person or a burned building. I didn't want to expose you to a danger I couldn't explain.”
Nadia stared at him.
“Do you hear yourself? You decided I couldn't handle the truth, so you made the decision for me.”
“Yes.”
The honesty was worse than another lie.
He could have blamed his father, his uncle, the traditions that had shaped him. He could have explained that protecting people was the only language his family had ever taught him.
Instead, he stood there and admitted that he had chosen silence.
Nadia looked at the letter in her hands.
Her mother's handwriting had begun to blur beneath her tears, but the warning remained clear.
Do not trust Casius Leone with the truth about your brother. He has known who the boy is since childhood.
She folded the letter.
“What's his name?”
Casius hesitated.
“Adrian.”
The name stirred something deep in Nadia's memory.
A boy with dark eyes.
A red toy boat.
A child's hand reaching through the bars of a garden gate.
She had dreamed about the scene for years, always waking before she could see the boy's face.
“My mother used to tell me I had an imaginary brother,” she whispered. “She said I invented him after we moved apartments. I remember asking why he never came home.”
Casius's expression softened.
“Perhaps she was trying to preserve a memory without giving you enough information to find him.”
“Perhaps she was trying to make me stop asking questions.”
He had no answer.
Nadia turned toward the door.
“Take me to Daniel.”
Casius followed.
They left the estate through a side entrance, accompanied by two members of the security team. The car moved through the wet streets of New York, its windows darkened, the city outside reduced to streaks of white and amber.
Nadia sat beside Casius without looking at him.
For the first time in three years, she did not know what to do with the silence between them.
She had once believed she understood him.
She knew how he took his coffee, how he read a contract, how he watched a room before entering it. She knew when he was about to dismiss an argument and when a seemingly casual question concealed a threat.
But she had mistaken familiarity for trust.
The man beside her had known the name of her missing brother while she had spent years wondering whether the boy had ever existed.
“Does Adrian know about me?” she asked.
“I don't know.”
“Does he know who he is?”
“I don't know that either.”
“What do you know, Casius?”
He turned toward her.
“I know that my uncle is alive. I know your family has been used to protect a criminal empire. And I know that someone has been arranging events tonight to make sure you discover the truth in the worst possible way.”
“Maybe the truth was always going to hurt.”
“Perhaps. But pain and manipulation are not the same thing.”
Before Nadia could answer, the driver spoke through the intercom.
“We're approaching the address. There are no lights in the building.”
Casius checked his weapon.
“Stop two blocks away.”
The car slowed.
Nadia peered through the window.
The address led to an abandoned textile warehouse near the waterfront. Rust had spread across the metal doors, and weeds grew through cracks in the concrete. A faded sign still advertised a company that had closed decades earlier.
Daniel had chosen an appropriate place to hide a secret.
They approached the building on foot.
Casius signaled the guards to remain outside. Nadia followed him through a side entrance into a corridor that smelled of damp wood and old machinery.
At the far end stood a blue door.
Nadia stopped.
The color was faded, but unmistakable.
The room from her mother's warning.
Casius noticed her expression.
“This is it.”
“Why would Daniel bring us here?”
“Because he wants us to remember something.”
The door stood slightly ajar.
Casius pushed it open.
Inside, a bare bulb illuminated a small room containing a metal chair, a table, and a red wooden boat.
Nadia's knees nearly gave way.
She recognized the boat.
Its paint had chipped along the edge, and one side carried a tiny white star she had once painted herself.
It had belonged to her childhood.
She had believed she lost it during a move.
Now it sat on the table in a room where someone had once kept a child behind a locked door.
“Casius,” she whispered.
He had already seen it.
Beside the boat lay a photograph.
Nadia picked it up.
The image showed three children standing in front of the blue door. One was a little girl with dark hair. Another was a boy holding the wooden boat. The third child stood slightly behind them, her face half-hidden by shadow.
On the back, someone had written:
Three children. Three names. One family that must never be reunited.
Nadia stared at the faces.
The girl in the foreground looked like her.
The boy looked like Casius.
The third child looked like Gemma.
Her fingers tightened around the photograph.
“Why does he look like you?” she asked.
Casius took it carefully.
The boy in the photograph had the same dark eyes, the same straight nose, even the same small scar beneath his chin.
It was a scar Casius had received in a childhood accident.
He stared at the photograph.
“That isn't me.”
“Then who is he?”
Casius turned the picture over.
Beneath the handwritten message was a name.
ADRIAN LEONE.
A floorboard creaked behind them.
They spun around.
A man stood in the doorway.
Daniel Voss looked thinner than he had in the photograph, his face bruised and his wrists marked by restraints. He held a small pistol in one hand and a folded document in the other.
“I'm sorry,” he said.
Casius raised his weapon.
“You have five seconds to explain.”
Daniel looked at Nadia.
“I didn't send the photograph to frighten you. I sent it because the man who took your brother has found him.”
“Where is Adrian?”
Daniel swallowed.
“In the estate.”
“What estate?”
“The one where Casius saw him as a child.”
Casius went still.
“That place was demolished.”
“The buildings were demolished. The underground rooms were not.”
Daniel unfolded the document.
Inside was a recent photograph of a man sitting beside a window.
He was older than the boy in the photograph, perhaps in his early thirties. His dark eyes were unmistakable.
Nadia stared at him.
The man was wearing a silver crescent pendant surrounded by three stars.
Daniel's voice broke.
“Your brother is alive. He's been alive all these years.”
“Then why haven't you brought him to us?”
“Because he doesn't know who he is.”
“Where is he?”
Daniel looked at Casius.
“He is the man who ordered the attack on your father.”
Silence filled the room.
Nadia shook her head.
“No.”
May you like
Daniel placed the document on the table.
“His name is Adrian Leone. And tonight, he's coming for the wedding gown.”
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