"My six-year-old nephew crawled to my door with a broken leg while his three-year-old sister clung to his shirt, sobbing, “Please don't make us go back to Mommy.” Their father, my brother, had been dead for only three months, and his widow thought his children had nobody left to protect them. She was wrong about one thing: the uncle they had escaped to was the most feared mafia boss in Austin.

By 1:30 AM, Senior Detective Marcus Stone of the Austin Police Department arrived at the hospital, carrying an unsealed court order signed by the Chief Magistrate.

Stone was a veteran homicide detective who had crossed paths with the Moretti family for a decade. He knew what my name meant in this state, but tonight, there was no hostility in his eyes—only the grim solidarity of two men confronting a monster.

“Thomas,” Detective Stone said, stepping into the private consultation room and closing the blinds. “The Medical Examiner’s office just completed the exhumation toxicology screen on your brother Ethan.”

I stood by the window, watching the rain lash against the glass. “Ethan was thirty-four. He had no history of cardiac disease.”

Detective Stone laid a red-tagged forensic laboratory dossier onto the table.

“He didn't have a heart attack, Thomas,” Stone said quietly. “The toxicologist found lethal concentrations of Arsenic Trioxide embedded in his hair follicles and liver tissue. It was administered in micro-doses over a six-month period. It mimics progressive congestive cardiomyopathy.”

The air in the room felt like liquid nitrogen.

Ethan hadn't died of natural causes.

Rebecca had methodically poisoned my brother at his own dinner table, smiling in his face, tucking his children into bed, and slowly destroying his organs until his heart gave out three months ago.

“And the motive?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm.

Detective Stone pulled up the financial records.

“Two weeks before Ethan died, a revised testamentary trust was registered with the county clerk. Ethan’s signature was forged. It transferred the entire $12 million Moretti Logistics inheritance and a $3 million life insurance policy directly to Rebecca, stripping Leo and Maya of all trust protections upon their father’s death.”

“She poisoned my brother for twelve million dollars,” I whispered. “And then she locked his orphaned babies in a basement to starve so she wouldn't have to spend a dime of his money on their food.”

Detective Stone closed the folder. “We have an active capital murder warrant against Rebecca Vance-Moretti and Gregory Cole. But Thomas... she’s inside the Riverfront Club right now with armed private guards.”