Z

Nicholas remembered almost nothing about the night his father died.

That was what he had always told me.

He remembered dinner.

Rain.

His father's hand on his shoulder.

A gunshot.

Blood.

Then waking in a hospital with his mother beside him.

But after meeting Victor, those missing hours no longer felt innocent.

We sat in our living room until nearly dawn.

Nicholas held a glass of bourbon he never drank.

I sat across from him.

“What did Victor mean?”

“I don't know.”

“You were fourteen.”

“Yes.”

“Were you hurt that night?”

He frowned.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Hospital?”

He looked at me.

“My mother said I fainted.”

“Do fourteen-year-old boys usually get admitted overnight because they faint?”

“No.”

“Did you ever see the records?”

“No.”

I waited.

Nicholas stared into the glass.

“My mother handled everything.”

“Then we ask her.”

He shook his head immediately.

“Why?”

“Because if she lied—”

“Then we deserve to know.”

He looked tired.

Not physically.

Something deeper.

“I spent eighteen years hating myself because I couldn't save him.”

“You were a child.”

“I know that now.”

“You know it intellectually.”

His eyes lifted.

I touched my chest.

“But not here.”

Nicholas smiled faintly.

“Therapy has made you dangerous.”

“It made me expensive.”

He almost laughed.

By eight that morning, Isabella arrived.

She took one look at Nicholas and knew.

“What did Victor tell you?”

Nicholas stood.

“That Father hurt me.”

All color left her face.

There it was.

Truth before words.

Nicholas saw it too.

“Mother.”

Isabella sat down slowly.

“Sofia, could you—”

“No,” Nicholas said.

His mother looked at him.

“She stays.”

I didn't move.

Isabella folded her hands.

“What do you remember about that night?”

“Don't answer my question with one.”

She closed her eyes.

“Nico.”

“What did Father do?”

“Nothing intentionally.”

Nicholas laughed once.

“That's reassuring.”

“He was trying to protect you.”

Of course.

The Moretti family motto.

Protection.

The word that excused everything.

Isabella looked at me.

I understood instantly.

She wanted help explaining.

I gave her none.

This was hers.

“Nicholas,” she said, “your father learned Victor was planning to use you as leverage.”

“How?”

“Kidnapping.”

His expression hardened.

“Victor planned to kidnap me?”

“Yes.”

“So Father staged his death.”

“Eventually.”

“Eventually?”

She swallowed.

“Antonio wanted you out of Chicago first.”

“Where?”

“Italy.”

“I never went.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you refused.”

Nicholas frowned.

“I don't remember that.”

“You were fourteen. Angry. You said if your father was staying, you were staying.”

“That sounds like me.”

“It was.”

She smiled sadly.

Then it vanished.

“Antonio panicked.”

Nicholas went completely still.

“What did he do?”

“He asked a doctor to sedate you.”

I felt something in Nicholas change.

Not anger.

Something colder.

“He drugged me?”

“It was supposed to be mild.”

“Supposed to be?”

“You had a reaction.”

The glass in Nicholas’s hand cracked.

Bourbon ran over his fingers.

I stood immediately.

He didn't seem to notice.

“You almost died.”

Isabella started crying.

“Nico, I didn't know until afterward.”

“What happened?”

“The medication slowed your breathing.”

“And?”

“You went into cardiac arrest for ninety seconds.”

I stopped breathing.

Nicholas stared at his mother.

“I died?”

“For a minute and a half.”

His face emptied.

Isabella covered her mouth.

“They brought you back.”

Nicholas’s voice was barely audible.

“And Father?”

“He blamed himself.”

“So he staged his death.”

“Two nights later.”

“Not because Victor forced him.”

“Victor was part of it.”

“But he also ran because he nearly killed me.”

Isabella whispered, “Yes.”

Nicholas walked out.

I followed him to the backyard.

He stood on the patio beneath a gray sky.

“Nicholas.”

“I died before.”

I didn't know what to say.

He laughed.

Not humor.

Shock.

“I've had two funerals and apparently one actual death.”

I moved beside him.

“Your father made a terrible choice.”

“He drugged his own son.”

“Yes.”

“To protect me.”

“Yes.”

He looked at me.

“Sound familiar?”

There it was.

I understood.

Everything Nicholas had done to me.

The lies.

The funeral.

Watching me mourn.

Making choices without me.

He had become Antonio without realizing it.

His face twisted.

“Oh God.”

“Nicholas.”

“I did the same thing.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You didn't drug me.”

“I removed your choices.”

His breathing changed.

“I became him.”

I touched his hand.

“You repeated something you were taught.”

“That doesn't excuse it.”

“No.”

He looked surprised.

I squeezed his fingers.

“But recognizing it gives you the chance to stop.”

For several minutes, neither of us spoke.

Then Nicholas said, “I need to see him.”

Antonio was still in federal custody.

The meeting happened that afternoon.

I waited outside.

Not because Nicholas asked me to.

Because some conversations belonged to fathers and sons.

He came out forty minutes later.

His eyes were red.

He didn't tell me everything they said.

I didn't ask.

That was part of our new marriage too.

Truth did not mean entitlement to every private thought.

On the drive home, Luca called.

“Nicholas.”

“What?”

“We have a problem.”

“When don't we?”

“Daniel Holt disappeared.”

Nicholas sat upright.

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“Lily?”

“Missing too.”

My stomach dropped.

“Any sign of forced entry?”

“No.”

“Victor?”

“Still in custody.”

“Antonio?”

“Also in custody.”

“Then who?”

Luca hesitated.

“There's security footage.”

“Send it.”

Nicholas opened the video.

A camera showed Daniel's small house.

At 2:13 a.m., a black SUV arrived.

A man stepped out.

Tall.

Gray hair.

I had never seen him before.

Nicholas had.

His face changed immediately.

“Who is that?” I asked.

He stared at the screen.

“Samuel Cross.”

The name meant nothing to me.

Apparently it meant everything to him.

“Who?”

“My father's former consigliere.”

“I thought Victor handled operations.”

“He did.”

“Then what was Samuel?”

Nicholas looked at me.

“The man my father trusted to clean up mistakes.”

Luca spoke through the phone.

“There's more.”

The video continued.

Daniel walked outside voluntarily.

He shook Samuel’s hand.

Then Lily came out carrying a backpack.

No struggle.

No fear.

They got into the SUV.

I frowned.

“He knew him.”

Nicholas nodded.

“Apparently.”

“Where did they go?”

“Unknown.”

Another message arrived.

Luca forwarded it.

A photograph.

Lily sitting at a table.

Safe.

Unhurt.

Holding a handwritten sign.

COME TO BELLINI'S. MIDNIGHT. NICHOLAS ONLY.

Nicholas stared at it.

Bellini’s Steakhouse.

The place where Antonio had supposedly been murdered eighteen years earlier.

I looked at him.

“No.”

He turned.

“What?”

“You're not going alone.”

“It says—”

“I can read.”

“Sofia.”

“Do you honestly think after everything we have learned, I am going to let another Moretti man walk alone into a building because a note told him to?”

He stared at me.

Then something almost like surrender appeared in his expression.

“You're coming.”

“Yes.”

“You stay behind me.”

“No.”

“Sofia.”

“We were doing so well.”

He sighed.

At 11:57 that night, we entered Bellini’s through the rear kitchen.

The restaurant had been closed for renovations for months.

No staff.

No customers.

Only one light burned in the dining room.

Samuel Cross sat at the same table where Antonio had eaten his last public meal eighteen years ago.

Lily sat beside him drinking hot chocolate.

She looked completely unafraid.

Samuel raised his eyes.

“Nicholas.”

Nicholas moved in front of me.

“Where's Daniel?”

“Safe.”

“Why take the girl?”

“To make sure you came.”

“You used a child.”

Samuel smiled faintly.

“You sound like your father.”

“That's becoming less of a compliment.”

Samuel looked at me.

“Sofia Bennett.”

“Moretti.”

He nodded.

“Your father was brave.”

My pulse changed.

“You knew him?”

“Very well.”

“Then start talking.”

Samuel folded his hands.

“The story you have been told begins with Victor.”

Nicholas’s expression hardened.

“Doesn't it?”

Samuel shook his head.

“No.”

“Then who?”

He looked at Nicholas.

“Your father.”

Antonio.

Again.

Samuel leaned back.

“Victor didn't order Thomas Bennett's death.”

I stopped breathing.

“He covered it up.”

Nicholas stared at him.

Samuel continued.

“The order came from Antonio Moretti.”

And somewhere behind us, a floorboard creaked.