CHAPTER 18
ELENA
Marco appeared on the screen wearing the blue shirt I had bought him for his thirty-second birthday.
He had complained the color made him look trustworthy.
I told him that was why he needed it.
Now the shirt was wrinkled at the collar, and exhaustion shadowed his face. He sat in the private office inside his suite, close enough to the camera that I could see the small scar beneath his chin from falling off a bicycle at twelve.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
He looked toward someone outside the frame.
Then back at me.
“If you are watching this, I ran out of time.”
Sofia sat beside me on the library sofa.
She had arrived at Long Island shortly before dawn with Adrian and twice the number of guards necessary. Our father had objected until Nico told him the property was already compromised and that Sofia’s presence was not a negotiation.
I had expected to resent the intervention.
Instead, I had felt relief so deep it bordered on weakness.
Nico stood near the fireplace.
He had offered to leave before we played the recovered video.
I told him to remain.
That had been my choice too.
Marco continued.
“Elena, you are going to be angry.”
Sofia made a sound that might have been a laugh if it had not ended in a sob.
“He knows you,” she whispered.
On the screen, Marco rubbed both hands over his face.
“I kept telling myself I would explain once I had proof. Then once the hotels were safe. Then after I understood who was involved. There was always another condition.”
My gaze moved to Nico.
He did not look away.
“I told Nico not to give you everything immediately,” Marco said. “If he has followed that instruction too well, blame me first. Then blame him. He enjoys believing obedience and judgment are the same thing.”
Adrian, near the door, lowered his eyes.
Nico remained motionless.
The dead had reached across the room and found the precise point of his shame.
“We discovered weapons moving through Bellandi properties,” Marco continued. “The stock belonged to the Orsinis and should have been destroyed years ago. Someone revived an old route and used our hotels as cover.”
He lifted a folder.
“The evidence points in too many directions because it was designed that way. Orsini guns. Bellandi signatures. Employees who appear in places they never visited. If I die, the first proof you see will be the proof someone wants you to see.”
The gun near his body.
Nico entering the hotel.
My signature on the transport order.
Sofia gripped my hand.
Marco’s expression softened.
“I am sorry about the marriage.”
My fingers became cold inside Sofia’s.
“I do not know if it happened,” Marco said. “I only know that if I am dead and the families are preparing for war, it may be the fastest way to stop them.”
“May be,” Sofia whispered.
I did not answer.
“I chose Nico because Carlo cannot control him and because the Orsinis cannot dismiss him. More importantly, Nico knows enough about the route to understand why you matter.”
Marco looked away again.
When he returned his gaze to the camera, something like embarrassment crossed his face.
“He also wants you.”
Sofia turned toward Nico.
Adrian stared at the floor with greater concentration.
My face became hot.
Marco continued before I could recover.
“He has attempted to hide that fact from me with the subtlety of a building fire.”
Nico closed his eyes briefly.
Under any other circumstances, I might have enjoyed his discomfort.
“I used it,” Marco said. “That was unfair to both of you. I needed someone who would protect Elena even if the alliance failed, and I believed Nico would.”
His expression hardened.
“But protection is not ownership. If he forgets, leave him.”
The room became very still.
Nico received the sentence without visible resistance.
“He has an exit agreement outside the family contract,” Marco continued. “I required it before giving him the full evidence. Elena, the marriage cannot legally bind you if you choose to leave after the immediate threat.”
I turned toward Nico.
“You said you prepared it.”
“Yes.”
“Marco required it.”
“Yes.”
“You allowed me to think it was your idea.”
“I said I prepared it. I did not say the idea was mine.”
The precision of the answer would have enraged me earlier.
Now it only exhausted me.
Onscreen, Marco leaned closer.
“Nico did not kill me.”
The sentence stopped the room.
Sofia’s hand crushed mine.
Marco spoke slowly.
“If evidence says he did, it is false. If he was at the hotel, he was there because I called him. If he deleted footage, it was to protect this investigation. He will believe silence keeps you alive. It will not.”
My vision blurred.
I blinked hard, refusing to lose even a second of my brother’s face.
“I do not know the killer’s name yet,” Marco said. “I suspect someone with access to Carlo’s office, the family archives and the hotel renovation accounts. The person understands both families and needs both heirs discredited.”
The file flickered.
Marco looked over his shoulder.
A door had opened somewhere outside the frame.
He lowered his voice.
“If this reaches you, look at the renovation contractor. Not the company. The person who recommended it.”
The image shook.
Marco stood.
“Elena, I am sorry I made another decision for you. I told myself it was different because I trusted you to undo it.”
His mouth twisted.
“That is probably something a coward says when he wants credit for knowing better.”
Tears moved down Sofia’s face.
I could not feel mine until one reached my mouth.
Marco looked directly into the camera.
“I love you. Both of you. I should have said that before the part where I interfered with the rest of your life.”
He reached toward the screen.
The video ended.
No static.
No damaged final word.
One moment he existed.
Then the screen was black.
Sofia leaned into me.
I held her while grief removed every useful thought from the room.
For several minutes, no one spoke.
Nico moved toward the door.
“Stay,” I said.
He stopped.
Sofia’s shoulders shook beneath my arm.
“Did you know what the video said?” I asked.
“No.”
“Did you know he told me to leave you?”
“No.”
“Would you have shown it if you had?”
Nico considered the question.
The pause hurt.
“Yes,” he said. “But I might have waited until I believed the immediate threat was controlled.”
“Then you still do not understand.”
“I understand more than I did.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
Sofia lifted her head.
Her eyes were red, her voice rough.
“Everyone keeps deciding when Elena gets the truth.”
Nico looked at her.
“You are right.”
She seemed almost disappointed that he did not argue.
Adrian stepped away from the door.
“The contractor recommendation,” he said. “Do we know who made it?”
I remembered the nine-year-old renovation agreement.
The firm had been selected after three others were rejected.
Marco and I had been too young to participate in the final negotiations.
My father signed.
Vittorio managed the legal review.
“The recommendation came from Vittorio,” I said.
Sofia went still against me.
“No.”
The refusal arrived immediately.
Not reason.
Family.
“He had worked with the contractor before,” I continued. “He brought them to Carlo.”
“That does not mean he killed Marco.”
“No.”
But the denial had changed shape inside me.
It no longer meant impossible.
It meant please let there be another explanation.
Nico approached the table and placed the exit agreement in front of me.
The document was already signed by him.
No Orsini approval required. No Bellandi permission. No penalty.
I could leave the marriage once the immediate security emergency ended, and Nico had waived every claim connected to territory, money or family reputation.
“When did you sign this?” I asked.
“The morning of the wedding.”
“Before I signed the other agreement?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you not show me?”
“Because I believed you might leave before I could protect you.”
The answer was exactly what I expected.
That did not make it easier to hear.
“You married me while withholding the fact that I could leave.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe the alliance trapped me.”
“Yes.”
“Because you wanted me safe.”
“Yes.”
“And because you wanted me.”
Pain crossed his face.
“Yes.”
The honesty no longer shocked me.
It made the betrayal more complete.
I picked up the agreement.
For one ugly moment, I wanted to tear it.
I did not intend to stay.
I wanted destruction to feel like decision.
I placed it back on the table.
“I am not leaving while Marco’s killer is free.”
Nico’s shoulders shifted slightly.
Relief.
I saw it and hated that part of me answered.
“That does not mean I have chosen the marriage,” I said.
“I know.”
“You will give me every file connected to the investigation.”
“Yes.”
“Every Orsini record related to the weapons.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Not what you decide is relevant.”
His gaze held mine.
“All of it.”
“And I hold the keys.”
“All right.”
Adrian looked toward Nico.
Nico ignored him.
“I am not Marco’s promise,” I said. “I am not the reason you made an agreement with a dead man.”
“No.”
“What am I?”
The question escaped before I had decided to ask.
Nico answered without hesitation.
“My wife, until you choose otherwise.”
The title should have felt like another claim.
Instead, because he placed the choice inside it, it felt frighteningly close to an answer.