Chapter 4 - The Night Someone Tried to Silence Them
The darkness lasted three seconds.
It felt like thirty.
Adeline immediately shouted for backup.
Enzo moved toward Alfonso.
Emergency lights flickered on.
The monitor remained powered by battery.
Alfonso was alive.
But the hallway outside was empty.
Whoever had been listening was gone.
Security locked down the estate.
Enzo reviewed surveillance footage.
One camera had mysteriously stopped recording seven minutes before the blackout.
Someone inside the house had access.
Bruno blamed aging electrical systems.
Enzo said nothing.
That frightened Bruno more than accusation.
Over the next several days, Enzo kept Adeline and Nell under protection.
Adeline hated it.
“You have a man standing outside my apartment.”
“Two.”
“That isn't better.”
“It is statistically better.”
She tried not to smile.
“You’re impossible.”
“So I've been told.”
“By people who still work for you?”
“Not usually.”
Despite everything, something had begun developing between them.
Not love.
Not yet.
Trust.
Enzo saw Adeline when she was exhausted, angry or afraid.
She saw him when he wasn't performing authority for a room full of men.
One evening, while Alfonso slept, they sat in the mansion kitchen eating leftover pasta.
Adeline asked about the compass.
Enzo placed it on the table.
“My father gave it to me.”
“You use it to scare people?”
“Sometimes.”
She picked it up.
He almost stopped her.
Nobody touched the compass.
But he allowed it.
She turned it over.
There was an inscription.
Direction matters more than speed.
“That doesn't sound threatening.”
“My grandfather engraved it.”
Adeline handed it back.
“Maybe you've been using it wrong.”
Enzo looked at her.
No one had ever said that.
He laughed.
A real laugh.
From the doorway, Alfonso watched them.
He knew.
His choice had never been about forcing marriage.
He had simply pushed two people into the same room long enough to see each other.
But the danger was growing.
Enzo discovered that one of the council members, Dominic Rinaldi, had authorized payments connected to Bruno’s hidden accounts.
Dominic denied everything.
Then disappeared.
His abandoned car was found near the water.
No body.
Bruno insisted Dominic had fled.
Enzo believed someone was cleaning the board.
Then Nell received news.
Her surgery had suddenly been fully funded.
Anonymous donor.
Adeline immediately confronted Enzo.
“Did you pay for it?”
“No.”
“Don't lie.”
“I didn't.”
“Then who did?”
They investigated.
The payment had originated from a charitable foundation.
One controlled indirectly by a company listed in Thomas Whitaker’s ledger.
Bruno’s company.
Why would Bruno pay for Nell’s surgery?
Guilt?
A bribe?
Or bait?
Adeline wanted the money returned.
Nell disagreed.
“If this surgery lets me walk again, I don't care if Satan himself wrote the check.”
Adeline stared.
Nell shrugged.
“I'll send him a thank-you card from physical therapy.”
Even Enzo smiled.
But later, Enzo discovered the truth.
Bruno hadn't authorized the payment.
Someone else had accessed the account.
Dominic.
Before disappearing.
Dominic had left them a message.
It was hidden inside the transfer reference.
A sequence of numbers.
Coordinates.
Enzo and Adeline followed them to an abandoned storage facility in Brooklyn.
Inside locker 317 they found documents.
Recordings.
Photographs.
And a sealed envelope addressed to Enzo.
Inside was a letter from Dominic.
He confessed to helping Bruno hide stolen money.
But he denied involvement in the murders.
According to Dominic, Bruno had been stealing from the family, but someone else had ordered Enzo’s father killed.
Someone closer.
Someone nobody would suspect.
The letter contained one final sentence.
Ask Alfonso what happened the night your mother disappeared.
Enzo read it again.
Adeline watched his face.
“Your mother?”
“She died when I was young.”
“Are you sure?”
Enzo looked at her.
For the first time in years, he wasn't.
He returned to the mansion before dawn.
Alfonso was awake.
Enzo placed Dominic’s letter beside him.
“What happened to my mother?”
Alfonso’s face changed.
That was enough.
“You lied to me.”
“I protected you.”
“From what?”
Alfonso closed his eyes.
“From knowing that your father wasn't the first person in this family someone tried to destroy.”
Enzo stood.
“Where is she?”
Alfonso opened his eyes.
“She survived.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Enzo could barely speak.
“My mother is alive?”
Alfonso nodded.
“And Bruno knows where she is.”
But outside the bedroom, Adeline had just found something else.
A photograph had slipped from Alfonso’s old papers.
It showed Enzo’s mother.
Standing beside Thomas Whitaker.
May you like
Adeline’s father.
And both were holding the same brass compass.
