Chapter 3 - The Uncle Who Wanted Him Broken
Marco Bellucci had feared many men.
His uncle had never been one of them.
That changed in a single sentence.
“You found the Italian records.”
Marco tightened his grip on the phone.
Elena stood close enough to hear Gabriel’s voice.
Adrian silently activated recording software.
“Where is Sanz?” Marco asked.
“Safe.”
“With you?”
“Not exactly.”
“Did you order the attack tonight?”
“No.”
Marco looked at Adrian.
He didn’t believe Gabriel.
Neither did Adrian.
Gabriel continued.
“You need to come to the family estate.”
“So you can finish what the bomb failed to do?”
“You think I planted the bomb?”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did you keep me in this chair?”
Silence.
That was answer enough.
Marco’s voice fell dangerously low.
“Did you?”
Gabriel exhaled.
“I kept you alive.”
“You drugged me.”
“I prevented something worse.”
“For seventeen months?”
“You have no idea what you were involved in.”
“I know my company. I know my family.”
“No, Marco. You knew the part we allowed you to see.”
Marco’s face changed.
Elena realized Gabriel wasn’t speaking like a man caught committing a crime.
He sounded like a man defending a decision.
That frightened her more.
“Come alone,” Gabriel said.
Marco laughed.
“You’ve known me thirty-eight years and think I’m stupid?”
“I’ve known you long enough to know you’ll come.”
“Why?”
“Because I can tell you who planted the bomb.”
Marco went still.
“And why.”
The call ended.
Adrian immediately said, “Absolutely not.”
Marco put down the phone.
“We’re going.”
“I said no.”
“You work for me.”
“I protect you. Occasionally that requires ignoring you.”
Elena interrupted.
“You’re both missing something.”
They looked at her.
“Gabriel said he kept Marco alive.”
“That’s nonsense,” Adrian said.
“Maybe.”
“But if Gabriel wanted control of the company, Marco dying would have been easier.”
Marco frowned.
“My shares would have transferred to Sofia.”
“So he needed you alive but incapacitated.”
“Yes.”
Elena shook her head.
“That explains the paralysis. It doesn’t explain the bomb.”
Marco understood.
“Someone else tried to kill me.”
“Which means you may have two enemies.”
The next morning they drove north to the Bellucci estate under heavy security.
Gabriel’s home sat behind iron gates and acres of forest.
Marco had spent summers there as a boy.
After his father died, Gabriel had taught him to ride horses.
To shoot.
To negotiate.
To never bluff with a man who could afford to call.
Marco remembered those lessons as Adrian wheeled him into the library.
Gabriel Bellucci stood beside the fireplace.
At sixty-eight, he still carried himself with elegant authority.
He looked at Elena.
“I said alone.”
Marco replied, “I stopped following your instructions around the time I learned they included poisoning me.”
Gabriel’s expression tightened.
“Send the nurse outside.”
“No.”
“Elena,” Gabriel said, “you don’t understand this family.”
“She understands more about my body than anyone you hired.”
Gabriel looked at Marco.
“Fine.”
He poured himself a drink.
Marco watched.
“Start talking.”
Gabriel sat opposite him.
“The bomb was planted by Dominic Ferraro.”
Adrian swore under his breath.
Ferraro had once been Marco’s father’s business partner.
He disappeared fifteen years earlier after being accused of betraying the Bellucci organization.
Most assumed he was dead.
Marco said, “Ferraro is dead.”
“No.”
“You told me he was.”
“I lied.”
“Apparently a family tradition.”
Gabriel ignored the insult.
“Ferraro has spent fifteen years building an organization overseas. He returned because of something your father hid.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Marco stared at him.
“My father kept hundreds.”
“Not financial.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“A record of political payments, blackmail operations, secret accounts, law enforcement contacts. Enough information to destroy half the criminal alliances on the eastern seaboard.”
Elena glanced at Marco.
“And Ferraro thinks Marco has it?”
Gabriel nodded.
“He believed your father gave it to Marco before his death.”
“He didn’t.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you tell Ferraro?”
“I did.”
“He didn’t believe you.”
“No.”
Marco’s eyes narrowed.
“So Ferraro planted the bomb.”
“Yes.”
“And you arrived at the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“Saw I was recovering.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“And realized Ferraro would try again.”
“So you destroyed my life instead.”
“I made you useless to him.”
Marco stared at his uncle.
Gabriel’s voice cracked for the first time.
“He wanted the most powerful Marco Bellucci. I gave him a broken man everyone believed had lost control of his empire.”
“You drugged me every day.”
“I kept Ferraro convinced.”
“You stole my company.”
“I kept it intact.”
“You let me believe I would never walk again.”
Gabriel looked away.
“That was the price.”
Marco rolled closer.
“No. It was the price you chose for me.”
Silence filled the library.
Elena watched Gabriel carefully.
There was guilt.
Real guilt.
But there was also something he had not admitted.
“Why not tell Marco privately?” she asked.
Gabriel looked at her.
“You could have protected him and still allowed rehabilitation.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Ferraro had someone inside Marco’s medical team.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
“Sanz?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Gabriel looked at Marco.
“We never identified them.”
Marco laughed bitterly.
“So your solution was to control the entire medical team yourself.”
“Yes.”
“And Sanz agreed?”
“He disagreed at first.”
“What changed?”
“I showed him photographs of his daughter entering university.”
Marco’s face twisted with disgust.
“You threatened his child?”
“I convinced him that cooperation protected everyone.”
Adrian said coldly, “That’s a threat.”
Gabriel drank.
“Yes.”
Elena thought about Sanz’s fear.
“He wasn’t trying to expose Marco’s condition last night.”
“No.”
“He was trying to confess.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Sanz recently learned Ferraro had discovered the truth.”
Marco frowned.
“What truth?”
“That your spinal cord was healing.”
Gabriel looked directly at him.
“The injections were supposed to stop six weeks ago.”
Elena froze.
“What?”
Gabriel stood.
“I ordered Sanz to taper you off.”
Marco’s voice sharpened.
“But I’ve been taking them every night.”
Gabriel went pale.
That reaction was unmistakable.
He hadn’t known.
Elena looked at Adrian.
“Someone continued the medication.”
Adrian said, “Without Gabriel.”
Marco stared at his uncle.
“Who controls the clinic deliveries?”
Gabriel answered slowly.
“Sanz.”
“And?”
“His office manager.”
“Name.”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Lydia Crane.”
Elena stopped breathing.
Marco noticed.
“You know her?”
Elena didn’t respond.
“Elena.”
She looked toward him.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Elena’s voice became small.
“She was the nurse supervising my residency.”
Gabriel stared at her.
“When?”
“Nine years ago.”
“Where?”
“St. Matthew’s.”
Gabriel’s drink slipped slightly in his hand.
Marco saw it.
“What?”
Gabriel looked at Elena as though seeing her for the first time.
“Your full name.”
“Elena Marie Hart.”
Gabriel’s face emptied of color.
Marco rolled closer.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Gabriel looked toward the doorway.
“Adrian, get her out.”
Marco slammed his hand against the chair.
“No one moves.”
Elena felt suddenly afraid.
“What does my name have to do with this?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he looked older.
“Your father wasn’t named Thomas Hart.”
Elena stared at him.
“My father died when I was four.”
“Yes.”
“You knew him?”
Gabriel didn’t answer.
Marco looked between them.
“Gabriel.”
His uncle finally spoke.
“Elena’s father was Dr. Michael Renner.”
The name meant nothing to Elena.
But Marco knew it.
He had seen the name in old company records.
“Renner worked for my father.”
Gabriel nodded.
“He was a neurologist.”
Elena whispered, “My mother told me my father was an accountant.”
“She lied to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
Gabriel looked at Marco.
“From Dominic Ferraro.”
The room became impossibly quiet.
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
“Your father discovered Ferraro was funding neurological research through Bellucci shell companies.”
“What research?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“The same class of compounds used in Marco’s injections.”
Elena sat down.
“My father created them?”
“No.”
“He tried to destroy them.”
Marco stared at Gabriel.
“Why?”
“Because Ferraro wanted a weapon that could incapacitate someone without killing them.”
Elena felt sick.
Gabriel continued.
“Michael Renner collected evidence. He planned to expose Ferraro.”
“What happened?”
Gabriel looked at the floor.
“His car went off a bridge.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“My mother said it was an accident.”
“It wasn’t.”
For several seconds, she could not speak.
Marco moved closer.
“Elena.”
She held up a hand.
“Don’t.”
She turned back to Gabriel.
“You knew this for nine years?”
“Longer.”
“And said nothing?”
“I thought you were safer not knowing.”
“You people keep deciding ignorance is protection.”
Gabriel looked ashamed.
Then Adrian’s phone buzzed.
He read a message.
“Marco.”
“What?”
“We found Sanz.”
“Where?”
“Security camera near the river.”
“Alive?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Barely.”
They reached the abandoned marina twenty minutes later.
Sanz had been beaten and left inside an empty storage building.
Elena knelt beside him.
“Victor?”
His eyes opened.
“Elena.”
“You know me.”
“I knew your father.”
Her chest tightened.
“Who did this?”
“Lydia.”
“Crane?”
He nodded weakly.
“She works for Ferraro.”
Marco leaned closer.
“Where is Ferraro?”
Sanz struggled to breathe.
“He’s been closer than you think.”
“Where?”
“Inside your house.”
Adrian immediately drew his weapon.
“Who?”
Sanz looked at Marco.
“You trusted the wrong person.”
“Name them.”
Before he could answer, blood rose at his lips.
Elena stabilized him.
“Stay with me.”
Sanz gripped her wrist.
“Your father hid something.”
“What?”
“Before he died.”
“Where?”
“With your mother.”
“My mother is dead.”
Sanz shook his head.
“No.”
Elena froze.
“My mother died six years ago.”
“No.”
Sanz’s fingers tightened.
“She disappeared.”
“What are you saying?”
He looked directly into Elena’s eyes.
“Your mother is alive.”
Elena stared at him.
“Where?”
Sanz whispered two words.
“Ferraro has her.”
Then his eyes closed.
But the final secret came from Marco.
Because as Adrian called for the ambulance, Marco stared at a photograph hanging in the marina office.
An old photograph.
Six men standing beside a boat.
One of them was Dominic Ferraro.
Another was Marco’s father.
Another was Gabriel.
And beside them stood a younger man Marco recognized instantly.
Adrian Vale’s father.
Marco slowly turned toward the bodyguard he had trusted with his life for twelve years.
May you like
“Adrian,” he said quietly.
“What was your father doing with Ferraro?”
