Chapter 5 - A BROTHER’S PRICE
Matteo Rossi had always been the charming son.
He smiled at funerals.
He remembered birthdays.
He knew which wine to send after an argument and which joke would make their mother forgive an insult.
Julian had spent most of his life protecting him.
Now Matteo stood in a burning tunnel with a gun aimed at Julian’s pregnant wife.
“Put it down,” Julian said.
Matteo glanced at the weapon.
“You always did mistake commands for authority.”
“Let Elena go.”
“She was free to go eight months ago.”
“You threatened our child.”
“I offered her a solution.”
Elena pressed one hand against the stone wall.
“You told me Julian had ordered my death.”
Matteo smiled.
“You believed it because part of you already feared it.”
Julian took one step forward.
Matteo raised the gun.
“Stop.”
Smoke rolled through the tunnel behind them.
The convent burned above.
“You have what you came for,” Julian said.
“The drive is not enough.”
“What else?”
“The key.”
Matteo looked at Julian’s hand.
“The brass key opened the archive compartment.”
“It no longer matters.”
“It opens something else.”
Clara appeared behind Julian.
Her face was streaked with soot.
“You never understood your father,” she told Matteo.
Matteo’s smile vanished.
“My father was a coward.”
“He sacrificed his reputation to keep you out of prison.”
“I was twelve.”
“Five people died.”
“It was an accident.”
“The cover-up was not.”
Matteo’s eyes hardened.
“You should have stayed dead.”
Clara stepped forward.
“You have spent twenty-three years stealing money to purchase silence.”
“I spent twenty-three years keeping this family alive.”
“No.”
Julian’s voice was quiet.
“You spent twenty-three years making certain no one could take power from you.”
Matteo laughed once.
“You want to lecture me about power?”
“You were born first.”
“You inherited the name.”
“The board.”
“The properties.”
“Father looked at you and saw a future.”
“He looked at me and saw a mistake.”
Julian remembered Matteo at seventeen.
Drunk beside the lake.
Asking why their father never trusted him with anything important.
Julian had promised that one day Matteo would have a place beside him.
He had given him that place.
Matteo had used it to steal hundreds of millions.
“I defended you,” Julian said.
“You managed me.”
“I loved you.”
“You pitied me.”
Elena shifted slightly.
Matteo noticed.
“Do not move.”
“She needs medical care,” Julian said.
“Then we should conclude this quickly.”
“What do you want?”
Matteo looked at the burning passage.
“Sign away your controlling shares.”
Julian stared at him.
“You planned to take Rossi Group.”
“I planned to correct an accident of birth.”
“Victor Laurent will destroy the company.”
“Victor will destroy you.”
“There is a difference.”
“You think Camila will let you keep control?”
Matteo’s expression changed slightly.
Julian saw uncertainty.
“You do not know her,” Julian continued.
“She knows what you did to her mother.”
“That is impossible.”
“She knows enough.”
“She knows your father killed Isabella.”
“That is the story you gave her.”
Matteo stepped forward.
“Be careful.”
“You were in the control room.”
“I was a child.”
“You released the support system.”
“I did not know what it controlled.”
“And then you helped bury it for twenty-three years.”
Matteo’s hand tightened around the weapon.
Elena suddenly cried out.
Her knees weakened.
Julian moved instinctively.
Matteo turned toward him.
Marcus fired from the shadows.
The bullet struck Matteo’s shoulder.
His weapon discharged into the ceiling.
Stone fragments rained down.
Julian reached Elena before she fell.
Matteo dropped the digital drive.
Clara grabbed it.
Marcus advanced.
“Do not move.”
Matteo pressed one hand against his bleeding shoulder.
“You think this changes anything?”
“It changes your ability to aim,” Marcus replied.
A heavy explosion sounded above them.
The tunnel ceiling cracked.
Clara pointed toward the western passage.
“We have less than two minutes.”
Marcus secured Matteo’s hands with a plastic restraint.
They moved through the smoke.
Julian carried Elena.
Her arms circled his neck.
“I can walk,” she whispered.
“No.”
“You are injured.”
“I do not care.”
“I do.”
The words silenced them both.
They emerged through an old wine cellar beyond the convent grounds.
A medical vehicle waited near the road.
Marcus had arranged it before entering.
Paramedics placed Elena on a stretcher.
Matteo was loaded into a second vehicle under guard.
Clara kept the drive inside her coat.
Julian climbed beside Elena.
Before the doors closed, Matteo spoke from the other ambulance.
“You still do not understand.”
Julian looked at him.
“I was never the one who ordered Elena’s disappearance.”
The doors shut.
At the private clinic, Elena was examined immediately.
The contractions stopped after medication and fluids.
The doctor warned that stress could trigger premature labor.
Julian remained outside while Clara and Marcus secured the clinic.
Hours later, Elena allowed him into the room.
He stood near the door.
“You may come closer,” she said.
Julian approached carefully.
“How do you feel?”
“As though your family has attempted to abduct me twice in one day.”
“I am sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for their actions.”
“I am apologizing for not seeing them.”
Elena studied him.
“You trusted them.”
“I trusted the wrong people.”
“You also stopped trusting me.”
The truth hurt more because she spoke gently.
“When you disappeared, Matteo showed me bank records.”
“What records?”
“An account in your name containing two million euros.”
“I never had such an account.”
“I know.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Julian looked down.
“He showed me photographs of you meeting a man outside a clinic.”
“The doctor who confirmed my pregnancy.”
“Matteo said he was your lover.”
“And you believed him.”
“I believed you had left without speaking to me.”
“I tried to speak to you.”
Julian sat beside the bed.
“I failed you.”
Elena’s eyes shone, but she did not look away.
“Yes.”
He accepted it.
“I do not expect forgiveness.”
“Then what do you expect?”
“A chance to keep you alive.”
“And after that?”
Julian looked at her stomach.
“A chance to know my son.”
Elena placed one hand protectively over the baby.
“You cannot purchase that chance.”
“I know.”
“You cannot command it.”
“I know.”
“You cannot treat finding the conspiracy as though it automatically repairs our marriage.”
“I know.”
She searched his face.
“You have changed.”
“No.”
Julian’s voice lowered.
“I have finally seen what I was.”
A nurse entered carrying an envelope.
“This was delivered to the front desk.”
Marcus inspected it before giving it to Julian.
Inside was a photograph.
Camila stood inside Julian’s private office at Rossi Tower.
Beside her was Sofia.
They were looking directly at the office’s security camera.
On the desk between them lay a document bearing Julian’s signature.
It transferred his voting shares to Matteo.
The timestamp showed it had been recorded ten minutes earlier.
Julian turned the photograph over.
A message had been written on the back.
COME HOME BEFORE YOUR EMPIRE BELONGS TO SOMEONE ELSE.
Elena looked at him.
“It is a trap.”
“Yes.”
“You are still going.”
“Yes.”
“Then I am coming with you.”
“No.”
Elena’s expression hardened.
“They destroyed my life because I found those accounts.”
“They made me hide my child.”
“They made me clean floors under a false name while your family spent stolen money.”
“This is not only your fight, Julian.”
Before he could answer, Clara entered.
“She is right.”
Julian looked at the older woman.
Clara held up the recovered drive.
“And neither of you has seen the worst file yet.”
She connected the device to an isolated computer.
A video appeared.
It showed Sofia Rossi speaking with Gabriel Sloane eight months earlier.
Elena’s photograph lay on the table.
Sofia pushed it toward him.
“Make her disappear,” Sofia said.
Sloane asked a question.
“What if she refuses?”
Sofia’s answer was calm.
“Then make certain my son believes she chose to leave.”
The recording continued.
A third person entered the room.
Camila.
She placed Elena’s forged bank records on the table.
But before the video ended, another figure appeared in the mirror behind them.
May you like
A man Julian had trusted more than anyone outside his family.
Marcus Hale.
