16. Alexei #2
Roman stands near the fireplace in a dark suit, his hands clasped loosely in front of him. He doesn’t look impatient. Roman rarely does. His stillness has always been more threatening than another man’s rage.
Enzo sits at the dining table with two of Roman’s men behind him.
He looks nothing like the smug bastard who once sat across from me in a private restaurant and spoke about Maggie like leverage.
His shirt is wrinkled. His face is pale.
The scar I gave him cuts across his cheek, red and uneven against his skin.
Enzo looks up when I enter. Fear flashes across his face before he manages to conceal it.
Good.
Roman’s eyes move from Enzo to me. “He asked for protection.”
“From me?”
Enzo swallows. “From her.”
The room goes very still.
I take the seat across from Enzo without taking my eyes off him. Luka remains near the door. Viktor stays by the wall. Roman does not move from the fireplace.
“Start talking,” I say.
Enzo stares at me for a beat, the last pieces of arrogance fighting to survive beneath whatever has finally frightened him more than I do.
Then he leans forward, his voice low and uneven. “Your wife lied to you.”
No one moves.
The words remain between us, deliberate and ugly.
Your wife lied to you.
Enzo watches me after he says them, as if he expects me to react like a grieving husband instead of the man sitting across from him. He expects anger. He expects denial. He expects the mention of my dead wife to give him power inside this room.
It doesn’t.
I lean back in the chair and let the silence stretch long enough for him to understand the mistake he’s made.
“Choose your next words carefully,” I warn him.
Enzo swallows. The movement pulls at the scar along his cheek, and for the first time since I met him, there’s no arrogance on his face. Only fear. It sits in the hollows beneath his eyes and in the sweat gathering at his temples.
“I didn’t mean Clara betrayed you,” he says quickly. “I mean she wasn’t who you thought she was.”
Roman finally moves, crossing the room with unhurried steps until he stands beside the table. He places a folder down in front of Enzo, but he doesn’t open it. “Then tell us who she was.”
Enzo looks from Roman to me and seems to realize there’s no way out of this room except through the truth. “Clara Bennett was never Clara Bennett.”
I think of the name on the marriage document, hospital forms, charity event invitations, and Ivy’s birth certificate.
Clara Bennett Agapov. A name I had spoken without question for years because the woman who carried it had been mine.
She told me Bennett was the name she chose when she left New York, a clean break from family expectations and a life built on control.
I believed her because I loved her. Because I had wanted one part of my life untouched by suspicion.
Roman’s voice remains calm. “Her name.”
Enzo wets his lips. “Clara Moretti.”
The room seems smaller suddenly.
Moretti.
The same name is attached to the woman who has been circling my family for months.
Luka's eyes move to me for an instant. Viktor's hand flexes once at his side before he forces it still. Roman says nothing, but his face hardens in a way I know well. My brother is already building the map in his head. Clara’s missing history. The foundation. Enzo’s routes.
The older woman who appeared too often near every financial thread.
I stare at Enzo. “Who is Isabella Moretti?”
Enzo closes his eyes for one second, as though hearing her name aloud confirms something he hoped to avoid. “Her mother.”
The room changes.
Not loudly. But every person inside it feels the difference. Roman's men near the back wall become more alert. Luka goes still. Viktor takes one slow breath through his nose.
Clara’s mother.
The woman in the photograph.
The woman tied to Enzo.
The woman Sasha traced through the Bennett Foundation.
The woman who’s been moving money and men around my life while I stood inside the wreckage she helped create and looked in the wrong direction.
I keep my voice even. “Say it clearly.”
Enzo looks at me with something close to dread. “Isabella Moretti is Clara’s mother.”
Suddenly, I’m no longer inside the guest house.
I’m in a kitchen years ago, watching Clara stand barefoot near the counter with Ivy asleep against her shoulder.
She was tired that night, her hair falling loose from its clip, her hand moving over our daughter's back with a care that quieted the brutal parts of me.
She asked me if people could ever truly leave the lives they were born into.
I told her no.
She smiled then, but it had not reached her eyes.
I remember that now with a clarity sharp enough to cut.
Roman opens the folder and turns several pages toward me. Bank statements. Corporate structures. Trust documents. Foundation filings. Sasha’s work, expanded and reinforced by whatever Enzo brought with him.
“The Bennett Foundation,” Roman says.
Enzo nods. “It belongs to Isabella in every way that matters. Not on paper, not directly, but through trusts and board members who owe her everything. She uses it for legitimacy. Charity events. Cultural grants. Children’s programs. Donors see clean money. People like us see channels.”
My eyes move over the pages. The Bennett Foundation. Clara’s chosen name. Not chosen for freedom after all, or perhaps chosen because it once meant something else. A shield. A warning. A trail hidden in plain sight.
“Money moved through this foundation to you,” Roman says.
Enzo drags a trembling hand across his mouth. “Yes.”
“For surveillance.”
He nods quickly. “Yes.”
“For the shelter fire.”
Enzo hesitates.
Roman's hand comes to rest on the back of the chair beside him. The gesture is calm, almost casual, which makes it more threatening.
Enzo answers. “Yes.”
The word empties the air from the room.
For one heartbeat, I see smoke rising above the shelter. I hear Maggie coughing. I see Jules with soot across his face and my men dragging them from a burning building. Maggie stood in the ashes of the place she built with her own hands and tried not to break because animals still needed her.
Isabella ordered that. The fire was never random, nor was Enzo acting alone. It was a calculated attack meant to hurt Maggie and weaken everyone connected to Ivy.
My fingers remain flat against the table. “Why the shelter?”
Enzo’s attention drops. “Because Maggie Hayes wouldn’t stay away from it. Isabella believed if the shelter was destroyed, Maggie would become easier to move. Easier to isolate. She underestimated her.”
A humorless breath leaves Roman. “Many do.”
My brother’s words would almost amuse me under different circumstances. Here, they only confirm what I already know. Maggie survives by refusing to become what people expect. She turns grief into work. Fear into stubbornness. Love into action.
That may be why Isabella fears her.
I look back at Enzo. “The original attempt on Ivy.”
“Isabella financed it. She didn’t want Ivy harmed.” He lifts both hands slightly, as if that distinction might help him. “She wanted her removed from your custody and taken somewhere controlled.”
“Controlled by her.”
“Yes.”
Luka’s jaw works once. Viktor stares at Enzo with open disgust now, no longer bothering to hide it. Roman remains unreadable, but the quiet around him has grown heavier.
I think of Clara again. Her refusal to post photographs. Her discomfort around certain donors with New York names. The way she kept Ivy’s daycare private and changed pediatric appointments when too many people learned the schedule. I thought those fears belonged to my world.
I was wrong. Clara had been protecting Ivy from hers.
“Who are the Morettis?” I ask.
Enzo gives a small, bitter laugh before remembering himself.
“Not what you think. Not street soldiers waving guns in restaurants. Not men shouting threats from cars. The Morettis are old money and older blood. New York, Italy, ports, private banks, shipping contracts, art boards, charity foundations, political favors. They host galas while other men bury bodies for them.”
Roman’s eyes narrow. “Italian networks.”
“Generational,” Enzo says. “Quiet. Refined. The kind of people who sit beside judges at fundraisers and make customs delays disappear with one phone call.”
That matches every instinct I had about the woman in the photograph. Isabella Moretti didn’t look like someone who needed to ask twice. She looked like someone who had spent a lifetime making other people mistake elegance for mercy.
“She came from Italy?” Viktor asks.
“Her family did. Naples first, then Rome, then New York. The legitimate branches are hotels, galleries, imports, and foundations. The other branches are harder to prove.” Enzo rubs both hands down his face, exhaustion and fear making him look older.
“You understand how this works. Families like that don’t separate business from blood. ”
Roman looks at me. “Clara ran from a dynasty.”
The word resonates in a way I don’t like.
Clara never said dynasty. She said family. Controlling. Image-driven. Suffocating. I hear her voice now and realize she had given me the truth stripped of the parts most likely to make me act. She hadn’t lied. She had edited danger into something I could accept.
I hated her for half a second. Then grief erased it because I understand why she did it.
Clara knew where I came from. She knew what I had left behind, or thought I had left behind. She believed telling me the truth would drag another war to our door. So, she kept her silence, thinking distance and a new name would keep Ivy safe.
It didn’t.
“Why now?” I ask.
Enzo looks down at the table. “Clara’s death changed Isabella.”
“My wife died four years ago.”