Chapter 9 - Brother of the DeadRafael Conti had always known how to cry beautifully.
At Isabella’s funeral, he had wept in a way that made old women clutch their pearls. He had spoken of his sister’s kindness, her stubborn heart, her tragic love for a man born into darkness.
Lorenzo remembered putting a hand on his shoulder.
Comforting him.
The memory tasted like poison now.
At Pier 39, Crowley refused to speak until Grant showed him the federal charges lined up like gravestones.
Kidnapping.
Conspiracy.
Fraud.
Evidence tampering.
Child endangerment.
Attempted murder.
Then Marco placed a photograph on the table.
Not of Crowley.
Of Crowley’s mother leaving a church in New Jersey, holding groceries in both arms.
Crowley looked at Lorenzo.
Lorenzo looked back.
“No threats,” Lorenzo said. “Just truth. You still have a mother. I am trying to save mine.”
Crowley’s face changed.
Not soft.
Men like that did not soften.
But calculation shifted.
“Rafael has a place north,” he said. “Old chapel property. Bought under a dead charity. Clara liked the symbolism.”
“What symbolism?” Grant asked.
Crowley smirked.
“Weddings. Funerals. Same building if you decorate right.”
Lorenzo nearly broke the table.
Grant stepped between them.
“Address.”
Crowley gave it.
Then added, “You won’t make it in time.”
Lorenzo leaned close.
“You should hope I do.”
The drive north was the longest forty minutes of Lorenzo’s life.
Rain became sleet against the windshield. The city thinned into industrial lots, then old stone walls, then dark roads lined with bare trees.
In the back seat, Grant reviewed satellite images. Marco loaded and unloaded the same magazine three times without firing a shot.
Lorenzo held Emma’s rabbit in his lap.
He had promised a three-year-old child he would return it.
He had made promises before.
To Isabella.
To Serafina.
To graves that should never have existed.
This one, he decided, he would keep.
Grant’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, then looked at Lorenzo.
“Preliminary DNA from the grave came back.”
He did not move.
“The woman buried as Isabella was not Isabella.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
He had known.
Still, knowing and hearing were different punishments.
“Who was she?” Marco asked.
Grant’s face hardened.
“Clara’s older sister. Lucia Conti. Institutionalized fifteen years ago. Disappeared from care two weeks before the crash.”
Lorenzo stared at the road ahead.
Lucia.
He had met her once, long ago, when she still laughed too loudly and wore red lipstick at family parties. Then she vanished into the private sadness wealthy families paid to hide.
They had used her body.
They had dressed her in Isabella’s necklace.
They had burned her enough to erase her face.
Even the dead had been betrayed.
“Rafael did this to his own blood,” Marco muttered.
“No,” Lorenzo said. “He did it because she was his blood. He thought blood meant ownership.”
The old chapel appeared just after midnight.
Stone walls. Broken stained glass. A wooden cross leaning over the roofline. Lights burned inside.
Too many cars were parked behind the building.
Not just Rafael.
A gathering.
Lorenzo understood before Grant said it.
“They’re not running.”
“No,” Grant said. “They’re finalizing something.”
Inside the chapel, Rafael Conti stood before a long table covered in legal documents.
Clara sat nearby in a cream dress, her yellow shawl folded over her lap.
Matteo Varrone stood beside them, free.
Lorenzo’s guard at the mansion had failed.
Or Matteo had never really been captured.
On the altar steps, Isabella knelt with her hands bound.
Serafina was in Clara’s arms.
The baby was crying.
Lorenzo watched from the dark through a broken side window, and the world narrowed into one red point.
Matteo spoke first.
“He will come.”
Rafael smiled.
“Good. Fathers are predictable.”
Clara rocked Serafina with stiff arms, irritated by the crying.
“Hush,” she snapped.
Isabella lifted her head.
“Don’t speak to her that way.”
Clara looked down at her with disgust.
“You should be grateful. Your daughter will inherit more than your bad choices.”
Rafael leaned over Isabella.
“You could have married properly. You could have kept Conti blood clean. But no. You chose DeLuca.”
Isabella spat at his feet.
“I chose love.”
Rafael slapped her.
Lorenzo moved.
Grant caught his arm.
“Wait,” she breathed. “We need them all.”
Lorenzo looked at her hand on his sleeve.
Grant had faced killers.
But in that moment, she wisely let go.
Then Serafina cried louder.
Isabella began to sing.
Softly.
Brokenly.
The lullaby.
Even outside in the sleet, Lorenzo heard it.
And for the first time in eight months, his daughter quieted to the sound of her mother’s voice.
Lorenzo looked at the chapel doors.
Then he walked toward them.
Not hidden.
May you like
Not sneaking.
A father entering his own nightmare.
