Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER WHO NEVER CAME HOME
Matteo Moretti disappeared seventeen years earlier.
He was twenty-one.
I was twenty-four.
He had my mother's dark eyes and our father's stubbornness, but none of our father's appetite for violence.
Matteo wanted to become an architect.
He sketched bridges on restaurant napkins.
Collected photographs of old buildings.
And talked about leaving New York for a city where nobody knew our last name.
I called him foolish.
He called me afraid.
We argued the night he disappeared.
I remembered every word.
“You're becoming Dad,” he told me.
“And you're too naive to survive this family,” I answered.
He left before midnight.
His car was found near the East River three days later.
The police discovered blood inside.
No body.
No confirmed account of what happened afterward.
Vincent told me a rival family had taken him.
Daniel, then a young security operative, claimed he'd seen suspicious vehicles near the docks.
I believed them.
For seventeen years, I'd lived with the possibility that Matteo died thinking I hated him.
Vincent looked at me across the desk.
“We've discussed this.”
“Discuss it again.”
He sighed.
“Your brother crossed people he shouldn't have crossed.”
“Which people?”
“The Ferraro organization.”
“Evidence?”
Vincent blinked.
“Luca.”
“Evidence,” I repeated.
Daniel leaned forward.
“We had witnesses.”
“Names.”
Silence.
I stared at them.
Then opened a drawer and removed an old photograph.
Matteo and me, standing beside our father at a summer barbecue.
Matteo was laughing.
I wasn't.
“Seventeen years,” I said quietly. “And I've never seen a single witness statement.”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“You were there when we searched.”
“I was there when you told me where to search.”
Daniel shifted.
“Boss, this is ancient history.”
I looked at him.
“My brother isn't ancient history.”
A phone rang.
Vincent glanced at the screen.
He rejected the call.
I noticed the caller's initials.
E.B.
Elena Bennett.
The coincidence made something cold settle in my stomach.
“Who called?” I asked.
Vincent slipped the phone into his pocket.
“Business.”
I stood.
“Then take your business outside.”
He looked offended.
“Luca—”
“Both of you.”
They rose.
At the door, Vincent turned.
“Don't let a frightened maid's imagination disturb seventeen years of loyalty.”
I smiled without warmth.
“That's interesting.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“I never told you what Elena said.”
For the first time, Vincent had no answer.
After they left, I called Noah.
“Are Elena and Mia safe?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Alvarez is with them.”
“Good. No one enters the conservatory without Elena's permission.”
“Understood.”
I hung up.
Then opened the locked cabinet beneath my desk.
Inside was Matteo's last sketchbook.
I hadn't touched it in years.
The final page showed a bridge.
Beneath it, he'd written:
If I disappear, look where the city forgets its children.
May you like
I used to think it was poetry.
Now I wondered whether it had been a warning.
