Chapter 12 - Landon’s Impossible Choice
Nobody left the house.
Not Landon.
Not Serena.
Not Isabella.
Not Leo.
Dominic locked the building down and personally checked every member of staff.
Twenty-three employees.
Eight guards.
Three drivers.
Two housekeepers.
One private nurse.
Every phone collected.
Every access log examined.
The envelope had no fingerprints except Serena’s and Landon’s.
No usable DNA.
Security footage showed nothing unusual.
That was the frightening part.
A perfect breach.
“Someone didn’t enter,” Serena said.
They stood in Landon’s study at three in the morning.
“What?”
“The note could have been here before lockdown.”
“Where?”
“Inside something brought into my room.”
Dominic checked deliveries.
Fresh towels.
Clothing from Isabella.
A suitcase purchased for Serena.
Laundry.
The suitcase.
It came from a Moretti-owned department store.
Delivered by a trusted driver.
They traced it backward.
Warehouse.
Stockroom.
Packaging.
One employee had accessed it.
A man named Peter Lang.
He had worked there eleven years.
Landon recognized the name.
Peter’s father had worked for Landon’s father.
“Bring him in,” Landon said.
Dominic did.
Peter arrived frightened.
Fifty-six.
Gray hair.
No criminal history.
Two daughters in college.
Mortgage.
Ordinary life.
He admitted placing the envelope.
“Why?”
Peter looked at the floor.
“They told me to.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Landon nearly lost patience.
Serena stopped him.
“What did they threaten?”
Peter’s eyes filled.
“My daughter.”
Landon’s anger changed direction.
“They sent photographs?”
Peter nodded.
“Instructions?”
“A phone.”
“Where?”
Peter handed it over.
One message remained.
PUT THE ENVELOPE IN THE SUITCASE. SAY NOTHING.
No identity.
Cross traced the device.
Disposable.
Another dead end.
The network survived because it rarely required loyalty.
Only fear.
Landon sent guards to protect Peter’s family.
Peter stared.
“You’re not going to hurt me?”
“No.”
“But I—”
“You were threatened.”
Peter began crying.
Landon turned away.
Years earlier, his father would have called Peter weak.
Maybe Landon would have too.
Now he saw the structure clearly.
Vale had built power by making ordinary people terrified of consequences.
Destroying them for obeying threats only strengthened that structure.
Later, Serena found Landon alone.
“You surprised him.”
“Who?”
“Peter.”
“I’m not my father.”
“No.”
She sat across from him.
“You’re finally believing that.”
Landon looked at the fireplace.
“Vale built part of his network through my family.”
“Not you.”
“I benefited.”
“That isn’t the same as choosing it.”
“It creates responsibility.”
“Yes.”
He looked toward her.
She smiled faintly.
“That sounded like Santino.”
“Everyone needs to stop telling me that.”
“No chance.”
Morning brought worse news.
Federal investigators had reviewed the Santino Moretti death file.
Dental confirmation had been performed.
But the original dental records used for comparison came from a clinic owned by one of Vale’s healthcare companies.
DNA had never been run.
The body could be Santino.
Or someone else.
Exhumation results were expected within hours.
Landon refused to leave the house.
He sat with Leo.
They built a model boat.
Leo concentrated intensely on attaching a tiny sail.
“Papa had a boat.”
“Yes.”
“It was blue.”
“It was.”
“You crashed it.”
Landon looked at him.
“I did not crash it.”
“Papa said you did.”
“Your father lied.”
Leo giggled.
The sound startled Landon.
He had not realized how long it had been since he heard the boy laugh.
“Uncle Landon?”
“Yes?”
“Is Sara family?”
Landon almost dropped the glue.
“Why?”
“She sings Papa’s song.”
“That doesn’t make someone family.”
“Mama says family is who stays.”
Landon glanced across the room.
Isabella was pretending not to listen.
“Your mother says many things.”
“She says you’re stubborn.”
“That one is true.”
Leo attached the sail.
“Can Sara stay?”
Landon looked toward the doorway.
Serena stood there.
She had heard.
Her expression became unexpectedly vulnerable.
“I don’t know,” Landon said.
Leo considered.
“Ask her.”
Children simplified difficult things with irritating efficiency.
Landon looked at Serena.
“Do you want to stay?”
She leaned against the door.
“For breakfast?”
Leo nodded enthusiastically.
“Then yes.”
He smiled.
Problem solved.
For him.
Not for adults.
At eleven seventeen, Cross called.
“Results are in.”
Landon stood.
Everything in the room changed.
“Say it.”
“The body in Santino’s grave is genetically related to Leo.”
Landon closed his eyes.
So it was over.
Then Cross continued.
“But it isn’t his father.”
Landon opened his eyes.
“What?”
“The relationship is wrong.”
“How?”
“The deceased is a paternal relative.”
Landon’s mind stopped.
“Who?”
“We’re checking.”
“There are only—”
Then he remembered.
His father had a younger brother.
Anthony Moretti.
Estranged.
Disappeared fifteen years ago.
Presumed dead.
“Could it be my uncle?”
“We need comparison samples.”
Landon sat slowly.
“If the body isn’t Santino…”
Cross answered carefully.
“Then we don’t currently have proof your brother died that night.”
Isabella heard.
She collapsed into a chair.
Leo looked confused.
“Mama?”
Serena knelt beside her.
Landon could not move.
Hope entered the room like an intruder.
Uninvited.
Dangerous.
Impossible to ignore.
Cross continued.
“We also found something inside the coffin.”
“What?”
“A small metal capsule sewn into the lining.”
Landon’s pulse raced.
“What’s inside?”
“A memory card.”
“Read it.”
“We are.”
Minutes became hours.
At one thirty, Cross called again.
The card contained one audio file.
Recorded two days after Santino’s supposed death.
Two days.
Landon nearly stopped breathing.
Cross sent it.
The family gathered in the study.
Landon pressed play.
Static.
Then Santino.
Weak.
But unmistakably alive.
“If you found this…”
A breath.
“…then the wrong man is in my grave.”
Isabella covered her mouth.
Leo stared at the phone.
“Papa.”
Santino continued.
“I don’t know how long I have.”
Landon gripped the desk.
“Vale thinks I’m dead. Keep it that way.”
Serena closed her eyes.
“I had help getting out. I’m injured, but alive.”
Isabella began crying silently.
“I cannot come home yet. Not until the network is exposed.”
Landon whispered, “Idiot.”
But his voice broke.
The recording continued.
“Tell Isabella I’m sorry.”
She sobbed.
“Tell Leo…”
Santino stopped.
A long pause.
“Tell Leo the stars still watch while the sun sleeps.”
Serena turned away.
“And Landon…”
Another breath.
“If you’re hearing this, don’t come looking for me.”
Landon almost laughed through tears.
Of course.
His brother knew him.
“I mean it.”
No chance.
“The safest thing you can do is finish what I started.”
The recording ended with four final words.
“Find the monastery road.”
Dominic looked up.
“What monastery?”
Serena knew.
“There’s an old Benedictine monastery in the mountains south of Cefalù.”
Landon was already reaching for his coat.
Serena stepped in front of him.
“Santino told you not to look.”
“He also knows I ignore him.”
“Landon.”
“My brother may be alive.”
“Yes.”
“And you expect me to sit here?”
“No.”
She held his gaze.
“I expect you to think.”
That stopped him.
“Vale is in custody. Matteo is talking. The network is falling apart. If Santino survived, someone helped him stay hidden for two years.”
“Which means?”
“Maybe he’s still being protected.”
Landon understood.
Storming into Sicily with a convoy might expose him.
Again.
The choice was brutal.
Search for his brother immediately.
Or finish dismantling the network so Santino could safely return.
For the first time in Landon’s life, action might be the selfish choice.
He sat down.
“What would Santino do?”
Isabella wiped her eyes.
“He’d protect Leo first.”
Landon nodded.
Then looked toward Cross’s evidence files.
“Then we finish this.”
And somewhere across the Atlantic, in a quiet stone building above the Sicilian coast, a man with dark wavy hair opened a newspaper and saw Adrian Vale’s arrest on the front page.
After two years of living as a ghost, Santino Moretti smiled.
May you like
Because his brother had finally chosen the truth over revenge.
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