Chapter 7 - WHY LEO CHOSE ME

I hit Leo before anyone could stop me.

Not hard enough to break his nose.

Hard enough to make my point.

His head snapped sideways.

Matteo said, “I like her.”

Dante ignored him.

“Why did Vincent know her name?”

Leo touched his cheek.

He looked at me.

Then at Dante.

“Because I asked about her before I went to Brooklyn.”

My stomach turned.

“You told him?”

“I told security I was bringing an outside consultant.”

“You gave him my name.”

“Yes.”

“Why me?”

Leo went quiet.

I stepped closer.

“Why did three armed men walk into my shop instead of a toxicology clinic?”

Dante’s stare sharpened.

“Answer her.”

Leo took a breath.

Then he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small black notebook.

Worn leather.

Cracked spine.

My grandfather’s initials were stamped into the corner.

G.R.

My entire body went cold.

“Where did you get that?”

Leo placed it on the table.

“From Dante’s father.”

Dante stared at him.

“My father?”

Leo nodded.

“Enzo Moretti gave it to me before he disappeared.”

The room changed.

Dante’s father had vanished eleven years earlier.

No body.

No goodbye.

No explanation anyone believed.

Leo opened the notebook.

My grandfather’s handwriting filled the pages.

Botanical compounds.

Clinical observations.

Toxicology notes.

And one case from twenty-two years ago.

MALE, 46.

REPEATED HEAVY-METAL EXPOSURE.

WHITE TRANSVERSE NAIL BANDS.

NEUROPATHY.

GASTROINTESTINAL DISTRESS.

SUSPECT DELIBERATE ARSENIC ADMINISTRATION.

The patient’s name had been replaced by two initials.

E.M.

Dante sank into a chair.

“My father.”

Leo nodded.

“Your father was poisoned once too.”

I turned pages with shaking hands.

My grandfather had stabilized him, then sent him to a hospital under a false name for chelation and observation.

There was one final note.

PATIENT BELIEVES SOURCE IS INTERNAL.

TRUSTS SECURITY LEAST.

Dante looked up.

“Who ran security then?”

Leo swallowed.

“Vincent’s father.”

Matteo went still.

“Antonio Santoro.”

Leo nodded.

Dante stared at nothing.

A history buried under two decades suddenly opened beneath us.

“What happened to Antonio?” I asked.

Dante answered.

“He died in a warehouse fire six months later.”

“And Vincent?”

“Seventeen years old.”

There it was.

Not just money.

Inheritance.

A grievance passed from father to son.

But something still didn’t fit.

“If Antonio poisoned Enzo,” I said, “why would Vincent repeat the exact method? He’d know someone could connect it.”

Leo looked at the notebook.

“Maybe he never saw this.”

“Or maybe he wanted the connection found.”

Dante’s eyes lifted to mine.

“Why?”

“Because revenge isn’t always about killing someone.”

I looked at the two brothers.

“Sometimes it’s about making them understand why.”

Leo turned another page.

A folded photograph slipped out.

Old.

Faded.

Three men stood outside a restaurant.

Enzo Moretti.

Antonio Santoro.

And a much younger Leo.

On the back, in my grandfather’s handwriting, were six words.

THE WRONG MAN TOOK THE BLAME.

Leo stopped breathing.

Dante looked at him.

“What does that mean?”

Leo stared at the photograph for a long time.

Then he sat down.

“I don’t know.”

It was the worst lie he had told yet.

Dante knew it.

So did I.

“Leo,” Dante said.

No anger.

That was worse.

“Tell me what happened to my father.”

Leo closed his eyes.

“When Enzo was poisoned, everyone blamed Antonio Santoro.”

“Everyone?”

“Your father included.”

Dante’s hands curled.

“And?”

“Antonio swore he was innocent.”

Matteo whispered, “The warehouse fire.”

Leo nodded.

“Your father ordered it.”

Silence.

Dante’s face emptied.

“So Vincent’s father burned alive because mine blamed him for a poisoning he may not have done.”

Leo looked down.

“Yes.”

I finally understood the note.

The wrong man took the blame.

Vincent wasn’t only stealing an empire.

He was finishing a sentence that had started before Dante became a man.

Then Leo’s phone rang.

One of the guards outside Vincent’s room.

Leo answered.

His expression changed instantly.

“What do you mean gone?”

Dante stood.

The guard was shouting through the speaker.

The window was open.

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The bathroom vent had been removed.

And Vincent Santoro was no longer in the room.