Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Aric
Ifind Eero in the corridor, leaning against the wall outside the guest suite—the one he personally selected for Naomi. He’s not even trying to be subtle.
“Brother.” He straightens when he sees me approach. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“I’ve been looking for you,” I drawl, “and something was telling me that I’d find you right here. What are you doing here?”
“I’m… standing. In a hallway.”
“Outside her door?”
“Coincidence.”
“Eero.”
He sighs. Runs a hand through his unruly hair. For a moment, the mask slips—the easy grin, the careless charm—and I see something underneath.
Something that looks uncomfortably familiar.
“Walk with me,” I say.
We move through the house in silence. Past the library. Past the study. Past the gallery where portraits of dead Volds stare down in disapproval at every generation that follows. I lead him into my office, close the door, and turn to face him.
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He’s still teasing, but it’s thin. “I’m being hospitable. She just fled her country. She’s scared, she’s alone, she’s—”
“She’s Ayanna’s sister.”
“I’m aware.”
“She’s eighteen years old.”
“Also aware.”
“She just escaped a forced marriage arranged by her father, and she’s vulnerable in ways you can’t possibly understand.”
“I understand more than you think.” His voice has changed.
My brother has always been the light to my shadow. The warmth to my cold. Where I learned to lock everything away, he learned to let it spill over—emotions worn on his sleeve, charm deployed like a weapon, laughter used to deflect anything that gets too close.
But right now, he’s not laughing.
Right now, he looks like a man who’s already made a decision and is bracing for the consequences.
“Don’t play with her.” My eyes bore into his. “I mean it, Eero. This isn’t one of your games. She’s not one of your conquests. If you hurt her—”
“I won’t.”
“If you use her and discard her—”
“I won’t.”
“Then what are you doing?”
He’s silent a long moment. I watch him struggle with something—words he wants to say, words he isn’t sure how to form. This is new. Eero always has words. Eero has too many words, most of them unnecessary, all of them delivered with that infuriating grin.
Not now.
Now he looks at me with eyes that remind me, too much, of my own.
“The truth is, the first time I saw her was at the wedding.” He exhales. “Yours. In Monsera. She was standing near the back, trying not to cry. And I thought—” He swallows. “I thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And the saddest.”
I look at my brother, and for a moment, it’s like looking into a mirror. What he’s describing sounds unnervingly close to what I felt the first time I looked at Ayanna.
“Then again, when we went back for the funeral, but you’d told me about the marriage arrangement—”
“Before I found out about the deal Ayanna made with her father.” I cut in. “That changed things.”
“I tried to forget her, Aric. Told myself it was nothing. A moment. An impression.” He shrugs. “And then she showed up at our door today looking like the world had broken her, and I—”
He looks at me, something raw flicking in his eyes.
“I’m not playing. I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what it’s going to be. But I know it’s not a game.”
“You’ve known her for like three hours total.”
“You’ve known Ayanna for three months, and you’d burn the world for her.”
The words hit like a punch.
“That’s different.”
“Is it?” Eero tilts his head. “Or is it just faster for some of us?”
For once, I’m not sure what to say.
I want to tell him he’s being reckless, impulsive, that whatever he thinks he’s feeling is adrenaline and the thrill of something new.
But I remember standing at that altar. I remember looking at Ayanna for the first time—the hatred in her eyes, the defiance in her chin, the way she looked at me like I was both enemy and executioner.
I remember thinking “This changes nothing.”
And I remember how quickly that became a lie.
“She’s fragile right now,” I tell my brother. “Damaged. Running from a father who tried to sell her. If you push too hard, too fast—”
“I know.” Eero’s voice is serious. “I’m not going to push at all. I’m going to be there. Let her decide what she wants, if she wants anything. Give her room to breathe.”
“And if she doesn’t want you?”
“Then I’ll respect that.” He nods. “But I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel what I feel just because the timing’s inconvenient.”
I say nothing, only watch him. My brother. The one who followed me everywhere as a child. The one who chose to stay in this house, in this life, when his mother offered him an escape. The one who has never looked at anyone the way he looked at Naomi Almaviri.
“If you hurt her,” I warn him, “Ayanna will kill you. And I will help her hide the body.”
Eero’s mouth twitches. “Noted.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” He straightens. “Trust me, Aric. Just this once. I know what I’m doing.”
I don’t trust easily. That’s been my policy since childhood—since I learned that people leave, people lie, people take what they want, then disappear or stab you in the back.
But Eero has never betrayed me. He’s never left.
My brother’s been the one constant in a life defined by inconsistency.
And maybe—maybe—that earns him the benefit of the doubt.
“Don’t make me regret it,” I say.
“I won’t.”
A knock on the door breaks our conversation.
Tassilo enters without waiting for permission. That’s unlike him. He’s efficient, brutal, and meticulous about protocol. He waits. He asks. He doesn’t barge into my office unless…
Unless something is wrong.
“Boss.” His voice gives nothing, but I’ve known him long enough to hear what he’s keeping buried. “We found something.”
“About?”
“Leandro Almaviri.”
I stop dead. Eero straightens beside me, the conversation about Naomi instantly forgotten.
“Close the door,” I order.
Tassilo does and comes to my desk before he places a tablet in front of me with the kind of tension on his face that suggests it’s about to explode.
“Our people in Monsera have been digging. Financial records, mostly. Communications, where they could find them.” He glances at me. “It points one direction.”
“Which?”
“Luca Bassi’s death.”
For a heartbeat, the world narrows to the sound of those words echoing in my head. I pick up the tablet and scroll through what he’s compiled. Bank transfers. Encrypted messages. Time stamps that paint a very specific picture.
“Understand the limits of it,” Tassilo says, watching me read. “It points at Leandro, but it’s not enough to convict him. A defense lawyer would have half of this thrown out and the other half explained away by lunch.”
“Walk me through what you do have.”
“Luca threatened him. About a week before the wedding. Multiple communications, aggressive ones. Luca was demanding something in exchange for keeping quiet about something he knew.”
“What did he know?”
“We’re not certain. But the messages suggest he had information about Leandro’s operations. Something damaging enough that Leandro couldn’t risk it surfacing.”
The recording at Luca’s funeral plays again in my mind.
I didn’t choose to die.
Not a suicide note. A warning from someone who knew death was already on its way.
“Leandro had him killed,” I state.
“Working theory.” Tassilo nods. “The timeline fits. Luca makes threats. Leandro answers them. Then Luca is dead, dressed up as a suicide.”
“The recording suggests Luca knew it was coming. Prepared it in advance as though insurance, a way to point the finger even if he couldn’t be alive to do it himself.”
I set the tablet down and lean back in my chair.
Would my father-in-law dearest really murder the man his daughter once loved, stage it as a suicide, and then come to the funeral, playing the grieving parent while she mourned a man he’d ordered into the ground?
“Keep digging,” I demand. “I want to know what Luca was holding over him. Find out what was worth killing to bury.”
“Understood.” Tassilo nods.
“Are you going to tell Ayanna?” Eero asks.
I exhale a heavy breath, propping my temple against my hand.
If I tell her now—if I show her this evidence before we’re certain—it will break something in her. The last illusion she has about the man who raised her.
I won’t do that to her.
Not until I’m sure.
“No,” I state, lacing my fingers together. “Not until we have proof. Concrete, undeniable proof. I’m not going to destroy her relationship with her father based on theories and financial records. When I tell her, it will be because I have evidence she can’t deny. Evidence that removes any doubt.”
Tassilo nods. “Understood.” He turns to leave but pauses at the door. “Boss. One more thing.”
“What?”
“The financial records. The payments around the time of Luca’s death, the shell companies, the routing.” He pauses as if to brace me for what’s coming. “Same patterns are showing up again. Last few weeks. Same structure. Active now.”
I exhale through my nose, jaw tightening.
“He’s moving on something again.”
“Looks that way.” He leaves, closing the door behind him.
Eero watches me, concern etching his face, which is new. “You think he’ll come for Naomi?”
“Yes,” I mumble. “Which is why I want the security on both of them doubled. Eyes on Naomi and Ayanna at all times. No exceptions, no gaps.”
“Done.”
“And Eero?”
He stops at the door.
“The thing with Naomi. Whatever it is, whatever it becomes.” I search his face. “Don’t let it distract you. If Leandro makes a move, I need you focused.”