25. Enzo
ENZO
G abriel is with Valentina.
I left him curled beside her and her children, as she read from a Russian fairytale to all of them.
His eyes were wide, and for the first time, happy. He hasn't been around kids his age for a while, and that, to me, is another big crime.
There's only one way to understand what Giovanni is actually made of. I've already asked the guards and I know where to go.
I follow the scent of roses and old earth down the eastern path, past the weather-worn benches and the chapel ruins that haven't held a prayer in years.
And then I see Cristiano and Alessandra, tangled in shadow behind the trellis wall, her arms wrapped around his neck, his mouth brushing her collarbone. The intimacy is careless, and stupidly so. It pisses me off immediately.
I step out from the path, gun already in my hand. "Get off her."
Cristiano jerks like a whip just cracked near his spine. Alessandra gasps, shoving him back with a startled curse. "What the hell?—"
"I said move."
Cristiano puts his hands up, half-expecting a joke, but I do not smile. I keep the muzzle trained right where his heart beats.
"Enzo, what are you doing?" Alessandra snaps, trying to mask her fear with arrogance. "Put that thing away."
"You're going to tell me the truth," I say, stepping closer. "About Giovanni. About where he came from. And who he answers to."
Cristiano scowls. "Gio's with the family. He's always been?—"
"Shut up."
He falls silent. I turn my gaze to Alessandra, watching the way her throat tightens. Her composure falters now, but not from fear of the gun.
"You've known all along," I say. "Haven't you?"
"I don't know what you think you're accusing me of?—"
I move fast, slamming Cristiano against the garden wall, gun pressed beneath his chin. Alessandra screams, backing away, hands to her mouth.
"You think Luca won't let me pull this trigger?" I continue, drawing each word out with great care. "If I tell him I'm doing it to protect this house, he'll hand me the bullets himself."
Cristiano's eyes widen in alarm and he begins struggling beneath the grip, but he doesn't fight back.
He knows I'm right.
"Please," Alessandra gasps. "You don't understand."
"Then explain."
She shakes her head once, violently, like she wants to undo the last ten years. Then her voice cracks.
"Giovanni isn't my real brother."
"What?"
She takes a breath, choking on it.
"His mother married my father when I was sixteen. He came with her."
Cristiano groans beneath me. I keep him pinned. "You're saying he's your stepbrother."
My voice feels hollow coming out of me. Like it already knows what's coming next.
"Yes."
She says it without hesitation now, and that makes it worse. Like she's been carrying this truth in her throat for years, and it finally broke loose.
"Who was his father?"
The silence is immediate and thick. Her breath stalls, her gaze flickers.
Cristiano shifts underneath me, but I don't take my eyes off her. The weight of her silence says more than a scream.
"Alessandra."
I don't raise my voice. I don't need to. Just her name, steady and low, like a warning before the world tilts.
She meets my eyes—and for once, the mask is gone. No poise. No polish. Just raw, unvarnished fear.
"Cesare Gotti."
My stomach drops.
Everything in me locks up.
Giovanni Gotti.
Born of a woman who married into Alessandra's house, brought her son with her like luggage.
No last name, no trace.
Just a boy planted into the Salvatore world like a seed waiting for the right season to bloom.
He wasn't working with us all this time. He was studying, plotting. Earning trust the way only a bastard son of a dead empire would know how.
I see it now. Every conversation. Every smooth deflection. The way he always managed to be useful, always just clever enough to avoid being feared.
That was the plan. Make himself indispensable and invisible. And I let him in. I called him brother. I trusted him with my back, my family. My jaw clenches so hard it aches. I swallow down the fire building in my throat.
"My father knew," she says. "He didn't care. He loved her. And she swore Cesare was gone. Dead. She said Giovanni had no ties to that world."
"But she lied."
"She must have. Somewhere along the way, Cesare found him again.
Or maybe Giovanni found him. I don't know which came first. All I know is, about three years ago, he started to change.
The way he spoke. The way he talked about Luca.
About legacy. He was always clever, but he started asking questions. Watching too much."
"And you said nothing."
Alessandra trembles. "He's my family."
"No. He's Cesare's."
Cristiano breathes harder now. I loosen my grip slightly, just enough for him to gasp, then step back.
"He said he was building something," Alessandra whispers, looking miserable. "That the Salvatores didn't deserve what they had. That they took it. That Cesare would make it right. That he would make the name feared again."
"He was placed here," I say flatly. "Raised inside these walls. Built like a weapon."
Alessandra doesn't deny it.
My thoughts are already racing ahead. I recall the way Giovanni always managed to be exactly where he needed to be.
Always watching.
Always waiting, like there was nothing more important than for him to be involved in every family affair, big or small.
"What does he want?" I ask.
"Everything," she replies.
I have to act, and as fast as possible. Aria saw something that would have led to Giovanni's downfall.
Pointing my gun at Alessandra, I gesture to the pocket of her jeans. "Phones, both of you."
"What—"
"Shut the fuck up and give me your phones," I snarl, my patience running thin. "If you thought I'd run the risk of you calling Gio as soon as I turn my back, you're wrong. And if either of you makes a wrong move, you're not getting out of here alive."
Cristiano's eyes grow round with panic, but to his credit, he tries pulling the Luca card once more. "I bet I could kill you and tell Luca you had gone mad looking for Aria and wanted to hurt him."
The ridiculousness of that makes me snort. "You're a kid," I say, pity thick in my voice. "And you don't understand what I have with Luca. Fifteen years to your one. I wouldn't place too much faith in that bet of yours."
He opens and shuts his mouth like a fish out of water. "Please." Alessandra is the one who speaks.
She fishes out her phone and takes Cristiano's as well before tossing them both to my feet, where they land with a sharp thwack . "Please…are you going to kill him?"
"Not my call." I holster the gun, turning away.
Cristiano never had a spine, so he pleases himself by hurling a curse. Neither of them follows me as I break into a brisk run.
Giovanni doesn't yet know what I've uncovered, which means he's still in the estate.
I pass a guard near the orchard.
He nods, but I do not stop. My eyes scan the trees. I want to see him before he sees me.
I want to catch the lie forming in his throat before it has time to twist itself into charm.
Giovanni is not in his rooms. Not anywhere in the main estate. Not where he claimed he would be.
But I find him eventually, near the eastern wall of the north garden, that opens to the sea, where the vines have overgrown the archway and the old swing creaks in the wind.
He is crouched beside the fountain, one knee bent, one hand skimming the surface of the water as if trying to remember a version of himself that once felt clean.
"Gio."
He looks up. His expression is not startled, but it is not welcoming either.
"Enzo," he says, rising slowly to his feet. "I thought you'd be with the others. Still searching."
"I am."
A pause.
"You look like a ghost," he says lightly. "Has the boy said anything new?"
"No. He only cried. Called for her. Told me she promised she'd be there when he woke."
Something flickers in Giovanni's eyes.
Not remorse. Not concern.
Something else.
The gleam of a man who already knows what has happened but is pretending to still be part of the search.
"Where were you last night?"
He smiles faintly. "You know where I was. I couldn't go to Florence because the boss summoned me, so I was with him. Went over shipment ledgers. Then the phone lines—there was an issue with the port logs from Altavilla. Ask anyone."
His voice carries that same easy rhythm it always has, polished and mild, the cadence of a man used to being believed.
I step closer, boots crunching over gravel, and let the silence sharpen around us like glass drawn too tight. "I'm asking you."
My voice is low, stripped of every pretense.
I don't give him the out of looking to someone else. I want his truth.
He licks his lips, slowly.
Blinks like it bothers him that I didn't just let that answer sit. "Why are you looking at me like that, Enzo? As if I had anything to do with her vanishing."
I reply quietly. "Because something stinks. And I've known you too long to pretend I don't notice when your smile starts to curdle."
Giovanni tilts his head. "You think I would hurt her? After all this time? After all I've done for this family?"
"I think you're hiding something. And I think you've been playing a game only you know the rules to."
His eyes harden, and something inside him splinters. I see it.
"I've always stood beside you," he says, his voice strained now. "Even when others whispered that you'd gone soft. Even when they said you were more loyal to a ghost of a girl than to the blood that raised you."
"You're not blood."
His eyes begin glowing, but the light is ugly. "Neither was she. And yet you'd burn for her."
I take a step back, suddenly certain of something I cannot yet name.
I turn toward the house, toward the shadowed path that leads to the main hall. Luca needs to hear everything, because I can't get the truth out of Giovanni any other way.
And I can't kill him until I know where Aria is.
"You know where she is," I say, not turning back.
"And if I did?" His voice is closer, just behind me.