Chapter 8 - Blood Is Not Loyalty

Raffaele Kuzo was found at 4:40 that afternoon in a private marina thirty miles south of the city.

He was not trying to leave the country.

He was trying to board a fishing boat owned by a retired accountant.

The accountant had no idea why a sixty-year-old businessman in a thousand-dollar coat had offered him twenty thousand dollars in cash for a ride to a lakeside town ninety miles away.

Police arrested Raffaele before the boat left the dock.

He did not resist.

His first words were, “Is Dominic alive?”

His second were, “Is the boy safe?”

Mara called Marco from the marina.

“He wants to talk.”

Marco stood near the cathedral altar, staring at the place where he should have married Isabella six years earlier.

“Good.”

“To me.”

“Not good.”

“He specifically said he will not speak if you are in the room.”

“Then put me behind the glass.”

“Marco.”

“Behind the glass, Mara.”

She sighed.

“I’ll see what the prosecutor allows.”

Isabella found him still standing there after the call ended.

“You’re going.”

“Yes.”

“So am I.”

He turned.

“No.”

She raised one eyebrow.

Marco corrected himself.

“I would prefer you stay with Luca.”

“Better.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

“Isabella—”

“Raffaele knew I was pregnant. He knew Dominic was using that information against you and against me. He chose silence for six years.”

Marco’s voice softened.

“You do not owe him your presence.”

“This isn’t for him.”

“Then for who?”

“For the woman who spent six years believing you never tried.”

He had no answer to that.

Raffaele was interviewed at the county major-crimes office just after seven.

Mara sat across from him with an assistant prosecutor.

Marco and Isabella watched through one-way glass.

Raffaele looked smaller without his tailored confidence.

His silver hair was disordered. His shirt collar was open. He kept rubbing the pale band on his finger where the onyx signet ring usually sat.

Mara noticed.

“Where is your ring?”

Raffaele looked at his hand.

“Gone.”

“When?”

“Three days ago.”

“Lost?”

“Stolen.”

“From where?”

“My bedroom.”

“Why didn’t you report it?”

He laughed bitterly.

“To whom? The same police I expected Dominic to have watched?”

Mara opened a folder.

“Let’s begin six years ago.”

Raffaele closed his eyes.

“I was afraid you would.”

“You paid Northstar Risk Consulting nine hundred thousand dollars around Marco Kuzo’s wedding.”

“Yes.”

“For project ALTAR.”

“Yes.”

“What was project ALTAR?”

Raffaele looked toward the mirrored glass.

He could not see Marco.

Somehow, it felt as if he knew exactly where his nephew stood.

“I paid Dominic Vale to stop the wedding.”

Marco’s shoulders went rigid.

Isabella did not move.

Mara asked, “How?”

“I did not care at first.”

“That is not an answer.”

Raffaele swallowed.

“He said he could manufacture a security concern. Something serious enough that Marco would postpone the ceremony.”

“Why did you want it postponed?”

“Because my brother’s trust restructuring would have removed most of my voting authority the moment Marco married.”

“You stood to lose money?”

“Power more than money.”

“Meaning?”

“For thirty years I helped build those companies. Vittorio inherited the controlling line because he was born first. I accepted it. Then he decided Marco should take control and I should become ceremonial family.”

Mara’s expression did not change.

“So you sabotaged your nephew’s wedding.”

“Yes.”

“By convincing him someone planned to murder his bride.”

“I told Dominic no one was to be hurt.”

“Your moral distinction is noted.”

Raffaele flinched.

Behind the glass, Isabella almost smiled at Mara’s tone.

The prosecutor placed a transcript from the recorder on the table.

Raffaele read the first lines.

His face collapsed.

“He kept them.”

“Recordings?”

“He told me he destroyed them.”

“People blackmailing family members often lie.”

Raffaele covered his face with both hands.

Mara waited.

Finally he said, “I did not know he would intercept Marco’s evacuation letter until afterward.”

“You knew later.”

“Yes.”

“And you said nothing.”

“Yes.”

“You learned Isabella was pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“And said nothing.”

“Yes.”

“You learned Dominic’s man had entered her family’s coastal house.”

Raffaele’s eyes filled.

“Yes.”

“And said nothing.”

“Yes.”

Isabella’s nails dug into her palm.

Marco reached toward her hand and stopped before touching it.

She noticed.

Then she opened her fingers and took his hand herself.

It was the first time she had touched him voluntarily since the wedding day.

His grip closed carefully around hers.

Inside the interview room, Mara asked, “Why?”

Raffaele looked toward the mirror again.

“Because by then Dominic owned me.”

“How?”

“He had proof of the payments, recordings, access logs. He said if I exposed him, he would make it look as though I ordered a murder plot.”

“You did order a fake murder plot.”

“I ordered fear. Not murder.”

“To the person being terrorized, the distinction is academic.”

Raffaele lowered his head.

“I know.”

“How much did you pay him after the wedding?”

“Over six years?”

“Yes.”

“Almost eleven million dollars.”

Marco whispered, “Eleven million.”

Isabella looked at him.

“That is why Dominic continued.”

Marco shook his head.

“Money is why he began continuing. Control is why he never stopped.”

Mara asked, “What did Dominic mean by ‘the boy becomes the final key’?”

Raffaele went still.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“You fled this morning.”

“Because he contacted me last night.”

“What did he say?”

“That Marco had found Isabella. That the boy existed. That everything was changing.”

“What did he demand?”

“Twenty-five million dollars.”

“For what?”

“His evidence. His silence. His disappearance.”

“Did you agree?”

“No.”

“Why not now, after paying for six years?”

Raffaele laughed miserably.

“Because there is no last payment to a man like Dominic.”

“So you ran.”

“I planned to reach a property nobody connects to me. I was going to call Vittorio from there and tell him everything.”

“After six years.”

“Yes.”

Mara leaned back.

“Where is Dominic?”

“I don’t know.”

“Elias?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who stole the cream stationery from Vittorio’s house?”

“Dominic, I assume.”

“Who stole your ring?”

“Dominic or Elias.”

“Why?”

“To put me in photographs. To leave it somewhere. To make sure that if he fell, I fell first.”

Mara studied him.

“Who told Dominic Isabella had been found?”

Raffaele looked genuinely frightened.

“That is what should scare you.”

“Answer.”

“I did not tell him.”

“Then who?”

“He always knows things he should not know.”

“Specifics.”

Raffaele hesitated.

“Dominic still has someone close to the family.”

Marco leaned toward the glass.

Isabella felt his hand tighten.

Mara said, “Who?”

“I never learned the name.”

“You expect us to believe you paid this man eleven million dollars and never learned his source?”

“I tried. Dominic called the source ‘the second son.’”

Marco frowned.

Raffaele continued, “I assumed he meant someone’s younger child. A code. I don’t know.”

Behind the glass, Nico’s name arrived in Isabella’s mind before she could stop it.

Marco had no brother.

Raffaele had no surviving son.

Vittorio was a first son.

Nico was the second son in his family.

She looked at Marco.

He was already thinking the same thing.

“No,” he said.

Isabella whispered, “We don’t know.”

“I know Nico.”

“You knew Dominic.”

The words hurt him.

She regretted them immediately.

But she did not take them back.

Mara asked Raffaele, “Anything else about the source?”

“He had access to Marco’s movements. Vittorio’s house. Security schedules. Later, when Marco began using outside investigators, Dominic somehow knew those names too.”

Marco released Isabella’s hand.

Not angrily.

He simply needed both hands braced against the counter beneath the window.

His face had gone pale.

The interview-room door opened.

An officer handed Mara a note.

She read it once and looked toward the glass.

Then she ended the interview.

“What happened?” Marco asked the moment she entered the observation room.

Mara closed the door.

“We traced the unauthorized login to Luca’s reading account.”

“To where?” Isabella asked.

“A device registered to a cellular line purchased under a false name.”

Marco’s voice sharpened.

“That tells us nothing.”

“The device connected to a private Wi-Fi network for eleven minutes yesterday.”

“Whose?”

Mara looked at him.

“Nico Bellini’s apartment.”

Marco did not speak for several seconds.

Then he said, “Where is Nico now?”

“With Luca,” Isabella answered.

Mara shook her head.

“No. He left the protected apartment twenty minutes ago because one of my officers asked him to pick up medication for Luca’s allergy kit.”

Marco reached for his phone.

Mara caught his wrist.

“Do not warn him yet.”

His eyes flashed.

“He is with my son.”

“He was with your son. Luca is still upstairs with two officers and a child-services specialist.”

Isabella’s pulse eased only slightly.

Marco pulled his hand free.

“You think Nico gave Dominic access?”

“I think evidence points to his network. That is all I think.”

“He stood beside me at the cathedral. He searched for Isabella. He delivered letters to Salvatore.”

“Which would make him either extremely loyal or perfectly positioned.”

Marco looked as though the sentence physically offended him.

Isabella stepped closer.

“Do not do what our fathers did.”

He turned toward her.

“What?”

“Do not decide the answer before the evidence because loyalty makes the alternative unbearable.”

Marco’s anger disappeared.

A second later his phone rang.

Nico.

Mara put the call on speaker.

“Marco,” Nico said, breathing hard. “Somebody has been in my apartment.”

Mara’s eyes sharpened.

“How do you know?”

A pause.

“Why are you there?” Nico asked.

“Answer.”

“My router cabinet is open. I never leave it open. And there is a phone under my sofa that does not belong to me.”

The room went quiet.

Mara said, “Do not touch it. Walk out. Now.”

Nico’s voice changed.

“What happened?”

“We traced Luca’s account breach to your Wi-Fi.”

Silence.

Then Nico said something very softly in Italian.

Marco almost smiled despite everything.

Mara said, “Outside, Nico.”

“I’m moving.”

The call ended.

Isabella looked at Marco.

He exhaled for what seemed like the first time in a minute.

“Still loyal?” she asked.

“I hope so.”

It was not certainty.

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That mattered.

For the first time, Marco was allowing evidence to arrive before loyalty made the decision for him.