Chapter 19
On the first anniversary of Marco’s death being officially solved, Dante took Mateo to the cemetery.
No security detail.
No black convoy.
Just one car.
Mateo carried flowers and another terrible dinosaur drawing.
They stood in front of Marco’s stone.
“Do you talk to him?” Mateo asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Does he answer?”
“No.”
“Then that seems inefficient.”
Dante smiled.
“Your father would have liked you.”
Mateo placed the drawing down.
“I don’t know him.”
“No.”
“People keep telling me stories like I’m supposed to miss somebody I never met.”
Dante nodded.
“You don’t have to.”
Mateo looked relieved.
“Can I be sad anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I don’t know why?”
“Yes.”
They stood quietly.
Then Mateo asked, “Why didn’t you know about me?”
Dante could have blamed Elena.
Lucia.
Marco.
Carlo.
Instead he said, “Because the adults around you were scared. And because I wasn’t the kind of man they trusted with the truth.”
Mateo looked at him.
“Are you now?”
“I’m trying.”
“That’s not yes.”
Dante laughed softly.
“No. It isn’t.”
Back at the estate, Sophia ran toward them with the one-eared cat.
“Uncle Dante!”
She had started calling him that because Mateo did.
She climbed into his arms.
Elena followed.
“Dinner in ten.”
Mateo groaned. “Vegetables?”
“Yes.”
“This house used to be criminal. How did it get worse?”
Rocco nearly choked laughing.
Dante looked at the open front doors.
A year earlier, those doors had been guarded by men pretending to be gardeners.
Now sunlight came straight through the foyer.
He realized something.
For decades, every Moretti man had believed safety meant controlling who could enter.
Marco had tried to teach him the opposite.
Sometimes safety meant making sure the right people were free to leave.
That evening, Dante called Samuel.
“Prepare another trust amendment.”
“For Mateo?”
“No.”
“For who?”
Dante watched Sophia stealing a carrot from Mateo’s plate.
“For no one. I want my own estate documents changed.”
May you like
“How?”
“So nobody has to become me to inherit anything.”
