Chapter 11 - Gemma's Secret
They found Sofia in a small care facility under another name.
She was alive.
She had advanced memory loss.
But when the twins entered, she recognized them.
“My boys.”
Matteo stopped at the doorway.
Leonardo cried openly.
Sofia touched Matteo's face.
Then Leonardo's.
“I tried to keep you together.”
Matteo knelt.
“Why did you leave?”
Her expression clouded.
“I didn't.”
The truth emerged slowly.
Vittorio had hidden her after she discovered Enzo's plan.
He told the twins she had died from an illness.
He told Sofia her sons had been moved overseas for protection.
Then a stroke damaged her memory.
Joseph had secretly paid for her care after Vittorio died.
That was why Joseph had behaved suspiciously.
He was protecting one final Ferraro secret.
Sofia remembered one thing clearly.
The night before the crash, she had called Leonardo.
Leonardo had forgotten the conversation.
“You said you found Carlo's papers,” she told him.
Leonardo frowned.
“What papers?”
“His letter.”
A letter Carlo had written to his sons before his death.
It had been hidden inside the Ferraro mansion.
Sofia gave them one clue.
“Where the boys measured themselves.”
Matteo understood.
Their childhood bedroom.
Behind the old doorframe were pencil marks showing their height year after year.
They removed the molding.
A letter fell out.
Carlo had known he might die.
He asked his sons not to inherit his enemies.
He left his legitimate wealth equally to them.
But one paragraph mattered more than money.
Blood does not make brothers. Choosing each other does.
Matteo stopped reading.
Leonardo finished aloud.
Gemma stood in the doorway.
She thought about Daniel.
About all the years fear had stolen.
That night, she went to her father.
“I don't forgive you yet.”
Daniel nodded.
“I understand.”
“But I don't want another seven years.”
His eyes filled.
“Neither do I.”
It was enough for a beginning.
Later Gemma returned to the east wing.
Leonardo was writing.
“You killed Michael yet?”
“No.”
“Disappointing.”
“He hired a housekeeper.”
Gemma narrowed her eyes.
“Make her thin.”
“Why?”
“I'm suing.”
Leonardo laughed.
A real laugh.
Matteo heard it from the corridor.
He stopped.
Smiled.
Then his phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One photograph.
Gemma standing beside Leonardo.
Taken through the mansion window minutes earlier.
A message followed.
ENZO WAS NEVER IN CHARGE.
Matteo's smile vanished.
Another message arrived.
May you like
YOUR FATHER LEFT ONE ENEMY ALIVE.
Then the front-door security alarm began screaming.
