Chapter 15 - THE WRONG BUS
Mia was not on the bus.
That saved them.
After the threats, Elena had kept her home.
Vittorio did not know.
Police locked down the area.
Sofia moved Mia into the estate’s inner suite.
Elena hated returning to the house she had just decided to leave.
But for one night, it was the safest place.
Matteo stood in the security room watching road cameras.
“He’ll come here.”
Dominic shook his head.
“Too obvious.”
“He thinks like family. He believes this house is still his.”
Matteo was right.
At 11:14 p.m., a sensor tripped beneath the old greenhouse.
Service tunnel.
The same network Vittorio had used before.
Police took positions.
Matteo stayed upstairs because Elena made him promise.
“You do not go hunting him.”
“He threatened Mia.”
“And she needs you not to turn this into a war.”
Again, she was right.
Vittorio emerged into the greenhouse carrying no weapon.
Only his cane.
He walked directly to the yellow-room corridor.
Police surrounded him there.
He raised his hands.
“Where is Matteo?”
Detective Lena Ortiz answered.
“Not your concern.”
Vittorio smiled.
“It is entirely my concern.”
They arrested him.
Too easily.
Then Dominic noticed the cane.
Different handle.
He opened it.
Inside was a small storage drive.
Vittorio had brought evidence into the house.
Why?
The drive contained a single video.
Carlo Bellandi.
Matteo’s father.
Recorded six years earlier at St. James Hospital.
Carlo looked weak.
Vittorio sat beside him.
Carlo said, “Marco Rossi brought me proof.”
Matteo leaned closer.
Then his father said the sentence that changed everything.
“I buried it.”
Sofia gasped.
Carlo continued.
“I told Marco to let it go. I told him family scandal would destroy the company.”
Matteo stared at the screen.
His father had known.
Vittorio smiled from the hospital video.
“You protected us.”
Carlo shook his head.
“No. I protected the name.”
May you like
Then he looked toward the camera.
“And a name is not a family.”
