Chapter 5 - The Brother Who Attended the Funeral
Adrian Duca had been dead for eleven years.
At least that was what Lorenzo believed.
His older brother had vanished during a bombing in Marseille when Lorenzo was twenty-six. The blast destroyed a warehouse, killed seven men, and left only fragments identified through dental records.
Lorenzo had buried Adrian beside their father.
Apparently the Duca cemetery contained more fiction than history.
Marco stared at the frozen image.
“That can’t be him.”
“It is.”
“Boss, Adrian would be fifty.”
“He is.”
The reflection showed an older man with a scar cutting through one eyebrow.
But the face was unmistakable.
Adrian.
Lorenzo’s first hero.
His first rival.
The brother who taught him how to drive before he had a license.
The brother who once broke a man’s hand for insulting Isabella.
The brother whose coffin Lorenzo had stood beside eleven years earlier.
Matteo swore softly.
Jeppe did not react enough.
Lorenzo noticed.
“You knew.”
Jeppe looked at him.
“I suspected.”
“When?”
“After the church.”
“And once again you decided silence was useful.”
“I had no proof.”
“You have spent six years surrounded by secrets and somehow proof only matters when telling me the truth.”
Jeppe lowered his head.
Lorenzo called the mansion.
No answer from security.
He called again.
Nothing.
Marco grabbed his keys.
“We go now.”
Lorenzo looked toward the hidden passage.
“Isabella and the children.”
“Matteo can stay.”
Matteo objected.
“No.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I’m not dying in a guest bedroom while my family finishes a war.”
Lorenzo turned to Jeppe.
“You stay.”
Jeppe stiffened.
“You don’t trust me.”
“No.”
“At least we understand each other.”
Lorenzo followed the passage to the cellar.
Maria, Isabella, Lucia and Emma were waiting.
Lucia ran toward him.
“You came.”
“I promised.”
He held her briefly.
Isabella saw his expression.
“What happened?”
“My brother is alive.”
She went pale.
“No.”
“You knew too?”
“No.”
He believed her.
That surprised him.
“Adrian is in our house.”
Isabella looked at the floor as though old pieces had just connected.
“The church.”
“What?”
“The man I saw near the sacristy.”
“You saw him?”
“Only from behind.”
“And?”
“He walked like Adrian.”
Lorenzo’s stomach tightened.
“You never told me.”
“I thought grief was making me imagine things.”
“Did Adrian know you were Carvelli?”
“I don’t know.”
Matteo spoke from behind them.
“Yes.”
Everyone turned.
He leaned against Marco but remained conscious.
“How?”
“Because I told him.”
Lorenzo stared at his uncle.
“When?”
“Before Marseille.”
“Why?”
“I needed help protecting Isabella.”
“And then he died.”
“I believed he did.”
Lorenzo laughed bitterly.
“You people are remarkably bad at confirming deaths.”
Matteo ignored it.
“Adrian became obsessed with the Carvelli inheritance.”
“Money?”
“Power.”
Matteo looked at Lucia.
“He believed whoever controlled Isabella’s heir could rebuild the Carvelli network under the Duca name.”
Isabella’s face tightened.
“He wanted Lucia.”
“Yes.”
“And the church attack?”
“I don’t know if he ordered it.”
Lorenzo did.
Some truths arrived before evidence.
His brother had known.
His brother had disappeared.
His daughter became valuable.
His wife was attacked.
“Adrian.”
Lorenzo tasted the name.
The childhood memories changed shape.
Every kindness became questionable.
Every protective act acquired another possible motive.
Marco looked at the live feed.
“He’s still in your study.”
Lorenzo kissed Lucia’s forehead.
“Stay with Maria.”
Lucia caught his hand.
“Is he bad?”
Lorenzo looked at his daughter.
Children deserved simpler worlds.
He hated that his family had never given her one.
“He made bad choices.”
“Are you going to hurt him?”
Isabella watched Lorenzo carefully.
He crouched.
“I’m going to stop him.”
Lucia seemed to consider whether that answer was good enough.
Finally she nodded.
Emma whispered, “Can we sing?”
Lorenzo almost smiled.
“Yes.”
He looked at Isabella.
“Keep them here until Marco calls.”
She caught him before he left.
“No disappearing.”
“I won’t.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
Their foreheads touched.
Six years of separation did not vanish.
It waited.
There would be anger.
Questions.
Perhaps forgiveness.
But first they needed a future long enough to argue in.
Lorenzo drove back to the mansion with Marco.
Matteo remained at the villa under protest.
Jeppe stayed with the family, which Lorenzo hated but accepted because Isabella trusted him more than Lorenzo currently did.
Night had fallen.
The Duca mansion stood dark except for Lorenzo’s study.
One lamp glowed behind the second-floor window.
Marco checked his phone.
“Security system was overridden using internal access.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“My biometric code?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Someone copied it.”
Lorenzo remembered Adrian teaching him years earlier that every lock was merely a delay.
Apparently he had taken the lesson seriously.
They entered through the kitchen.
Three guards lay unconscious.
Alive.
Adrian had deliberately avoided killing them.
That complicated nothing.
They reached the study.
The door stood open.
Adrian sat behind Lorenzo’s desk.
The walnut music box rested before him.
He looked older.
Harder.
Alive.
“Little brother.”
Lorenzo stopped in the doorway.
Marco raised his gun.
Adrian glanced at it.
“Still collecting loyal dogs?”
Marco moved forward.
Lorenzo blocked him.
“Leave us.”
“Boss—”
“Outside.”
Marco hesitated, then stepped into the corridor.
Lorenzo entered.
“You attended your own funeral?”
Adrian smiled faintly.
“From a distance.”
“Did you attend Isabella’s too?”
The smile vanished.
“Yes.”
Lorenzo struck him.
Adrian fell sideways.
He touched his split lip.
“I expected that.”
“Good.”
Lorenzo closed the door.
“Did you order St. Michael’s?”
“No.”
“Did you know it was going to happen?”
Adrian looked away.
“Yes.”
Lorenzo hit him again.
This time harder.
Adrian dropped to one knee.
“You knew my wife and daughter were targets.”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing.”
“I tried to stop it.”
“You failed.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
Adrian stood slowly.
“Because I was working for the man who planned it.”
The admission hung between them.
Lorenzo pointed the gun at his brother’s chest.
“Name.”
Adrian laughed quietly.
“You’re still asking the wrong question.”
“I’m becoming tired of people saying that.”
“The man who planned the church didn’t want Lucia dead.”
“I know.”
“He wanted Isabella alive too.”
“Why?”
“Because Isabella possessed something he couldn’t access without her.”
“What?”
Adrian opened the music box.
He removed the metal cylinder.
Inside was a tiny key.
Lorenzo stared.
“That was there all this time?”
“Yes.”
“What does it open?”
“A vault.”
“Where?”
“Switzerland.”
“What’s inside?”
“The original Carvelli ledger.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“Accounts?”
“Names.”
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
“Judges. Ministers. police chiefs. shipping executives. financiers. Men whose careers were built on the destruction of the Carvelli family.”
“And Isabella inherited it.”
“She inherited the key.”
“Who has the vault credentials?”
“Lucia.”
Lorenzo went still.
“She’s six.”
“Her genetic profile is the secondary lock.”
The room seemed to cool.
“That is why they wanted her alive.”
“Yes.”
“And who is they?”
Adrian looked toward the door.
“The man who made your father rich.”
Lorenzo’s expression changed.
“My father built this family.”
“No.”
Adrian almost looked sorry.
“He inherited a deal.”
“What deal?”
“The Ducas helped destroy the Carvellis.”
Lorenzo’s gun lowered slightly.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“Our father helped kill Isabella’s family?”
“He helped hide Sofia. That was his guilt.”
Lorenzo thought of his father differently for the first time.
“Who did he work with?”
Adrian leaned closer.
“A man named Viktor Sanz.”
Lorenzo knew the name.
Everyone did.
International banker.
Philanthropist.
Private security investor.
A man with access to governments and criminals while publicly belonging to neither.
“He’s seventy-eight.”
“And still dangerous.”
“Why would he care now?”
“Because Isabella’s ledger could destroy everything he built.”
Lorenzo stared at the key.
“Why are you here?”
“To take that before Sanz does.”
“For yourself?”
“At first, yes.”
Adrian did not pretend innocence.
“I spent years believing controlling the ledger would give me enough power to come home.”
“And now?”
“Now I know Sanz intends to kill everyone connected to it after he opens the vault.”
“Lucia too?”
Adrian’s silence was answer enough.
Lorenzo’s voice went flat.
“Where is Sanz?”
“Closer than you think.”
The study phone rang.
Both men looked at it.
Lorenzo answered.
Jeppe’s voice came through.
“Sir.”
Something was wrong.
“What happened?”
“The villa has been breached.”
Lorenzo’s heart stopped.
“Isabella?”
“Gone.”
“Lucia?”
A pause.
“Gone.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
“How?”
“We were attacked from the tunnel.”
“Maria?”
“Injured. Alive.”
“Emma?”
“Safe with me.”
“Who took them?”
Jeppe’s breathing was ragged.
“One man stayed behind.”
“Did you get a name?”
“Yes.”
Lorenzo gripped the phone.
“Tell me.”
Jeppe said it.
Lorenzo slowly looked at Adrian.
His brother’s face lost all color.
“What?” Adrian whispered.
May you like
Lorenzo lowered the receiver.
“The man who took my wife and daughter said he works for you.”
