Chapter 5 - The Brother Behind the Mask
Victor waited in Leo's office the next morning.
He stood beside the window as if the city belonged to him.
When Leo walked in, Victor smiled.
“You disappeared.”
Leo removed his coat.
“Busy night.”
Victor turned.
“Arthur says Clara betrayed us.”
Leo watched him.
“Arthur says a lot.”
Victor laughed.
“She's dangerous.”
“Why?”
“She knows too much.”
“That sounds familiar.”
Victor studied Leo.
“You don't trust me.”
Leo walked toward the bar.
“I trust evidence.”
Victor leaned against the window.
“You think I'm involved.”
“I think everybody is involved.”
“Even Damon?”
“Especially Damon.”
Damon, standing outside the office door, almost choked.
Victor smiled.
“That's paranoid.”
“Paranoia is survival.”
Silence.
Victor's phone rang.
He glanced down.
Leo saw the caller ID.
Moretti.
Victor declined the call.
Leo smiled.
“Who was that?”
“A vendor.”
“For what?”
Victor didn't answer.
Leo poured himself bourbon.
“Leave.”
Victor's eyes narrowed.
“You're my brother.”
Leo looked at him.
“No.”
The word landed like a gunshot.
Victor stopped.
“What?”
“I said no.”
“You don't know what you're talking about.”
“I know enough.”
Victor's face slowly changed.
Then the pleasant mask disappeared.
“You should have stayed ignorant.”
Leo's hand moved toward his weapon.
Victor didn't reach for his.
Not yet.
Instead, he said, “Did Clara tell you about the trust?”
Leo's blood ran cold.
Victor smiled.
“So she did.”
He turned toward the door.
“Then you know this ends badly.”
“You're not leaving.”
Victor stopped.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
Leo stared.
Victor laughed.
“That's the difference between us.”
“No.”
Leo's voice was calm.
“The difference is that I still have a choice.”
Victor left.
Damon entered immediately.
“Boss.”
“Follow him.”
Victor did not return to the Moretti estate.
He went to an old warehouse.
Leo watched from a distance through a surveillance feed.
Arthur was there.
So were three Moretti men.
Leo's stomach tightened.
Arthur handed Victor a file.
Victor opened it.
Inside was Clara's photograph.
Another was placed beside it.
A photograph of a little girl.
The same hazel eyes.
The same crooked smile.
Leo leaned closer.
He knew that face.
It was Clara.
But she was eight years old.
Standing beside Samuel Bennett.
The photograph had been taken twenty years earlier.
Impossible.
Unless the date was wrong.
Leo called Damon.
“Find out everything about the girl in that photo.”
Damon did.
The answer came back twenty minutes later.
The girl was Samuel's daughter.
Her mother died during childbirth.
Her name had been Mara Bennett.
But there was something else.
Mara had not disappeared six years ago.
She had been legally declared dead after a fire.
No body had ever been recovered.
Leo felt the anger rise.
Victor wasn't the mastermind.
He was part of something larger.
That night, Clara returned to the safe house.
Leo confronted her.
“You're twenty-seven?”
“Yes.”
“The photograph is from twenty years ago.”
“Yes.”
“You were seven.”
“Yes.”
“You disappeared after the warehouse fire.”
“Yes.”
“Then how did you survive?”
Clara sat.
“My father knew the people who wanted him dead. He prepared an escape.”
“What happened?”
“The fire was supposed to kill three people.”
“Who?”
“My father, me, and the man who arranged it.”
Leo stared.
“Who?”
Clara looked at him.
“My father's employer.”
“Vincenzo Rossi?”
She nodded.
Leo's face hardened.
“My father killed Samuel?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Clara's voice dropped.
“Arthur.”
Leo froze.
“Arthur was there.”
“No.”
Clara shook her head.
“The man who ordered it was someone who wanted to destroy the Rossi family from inside.”
“Victor.”
“No.”
Leo stared.
“Then tell me.”
Clara reached into her bag and removed the missing medical record.
She opened it.
A blood test.
Paternity results.
The father's name was not Samuel Bennett.
It was Vincenzo Rossi.
Leo stopped breathing.
Clara whispered.
“Your mother wasn't protecting an accountant's daughter.”
She looked into his eyes.
“She was protecting your father's daughter.”
Leo could not speak.
Every lie of the last twenty years shifted.
Mara Bennett was not Samuel's biological daughter.
She was Vincenzo Rossi's child.
His half-sister.
Victor was also Vincenzo's son.
The Rossi family had not been a family of two sons.
It had been three children.
Leo.
Victor.
And Mara.
Leo sat slowly.
“Why did my mother hide you?”
“Because she knew Vincenzo would use us.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“Because you were a child.”
“And later?”
“Because by then you had become the heir.”
Leo stared at the blood test.
“Who killed my father?”
Clara looked away.
“Your father wasn't killed.”
Leo lifted his head.
“What?”
“He died in a prison hospital.”
Leo's eyes widened.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Why did everyone say he died in an accident?”
“Because he never wanted you to know the truth.”
“Which was?”
“Your father was arrested by federal agents the week before his supposed death.”
Leo stood.
“That's impossible.”
Clara nodded.
“He cooperated.”
“With the government?”
“He gave them names.”
Leo's world shattered.
His father had been working with federal investigators?
The feared Vincenzo Rossi had betrayed his own organization?
Clara continued.
“He was trying to dismantle the empire.”
“And my mother?”
“She helped.”
Leo walked toward the wall.
All his life, he had believed his parents built the machine he inherited.
Perhaps they had spent their final years trying to destroy it.
A sound came from outside.
Three knocks.
Clara froze.
“Someone found us.”
Damon reached for his gun.
Leo looked toward the door.
A voice spoke from the hallway.
“Leo.”
Victor.
Leo raised his weapon.
“How did you find us?”
“I didn't.”
Victor's voice was strained.
“They did.”
Gunfire erupted.
The safe house lights exploded.
Victor shouted from the corridor.
“Get down!”
For the first time, Leo saw something he had not expected in Victor's face.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For them.
Victor fired into the darkness.
Damon dragged Clara behind cover.
Leo moved beside Victor.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving my family.”
Leo stared.
Victor reloaded.
“Believe me later.”
May you like
He looked into Leo's eyes.
“Survive now.”
