Chapter 5 - THE BROTHER NO ONE NAMED
“Your father had two sons before you were born.”
Massimo nearly fell.
I caught his arm.
He jerked away from me, not in anger but humiliation.
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“Massimo.”
“I said no.”
Vittorio moved forward.
Massimo's stare stopped him.
“Who?”
Vittorio looked older suddenly.
“Antonio.”
Lucia appeared in the doorway.
Nobody had heard her approach.
She saw the second watch.
Then closed her eyes.
Massimo turned on her.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Apparently that's becoming your favorite word.”
Lucia absorbed the cruelty without defending herself.
Antonio Pascale had been their father's eldest son from a relationship before Lucia.
He was fourteen when Vittorio was born.
Twenty when Massimo arrived.
“He lived with us?” Massimo asked.
“For a while,” Lucia said.
“I don't remember him.”
“You were three when he left.”
“Why?”
Lucia looked toward Vittorio.
Their silence was its own answer.
Massimo slammed his hand against the table.
“Stop deciding what I can survive!”
The sound echoed through the library.
Lucia flinched.
“Antonio believed your father owed him the family business. Your father refused because Antonio had become reckless.”
“Meaning?”
“He hurt people unnecessarily.”
Massimo's face darkened.
“That never bothered Father.”
“It did when children were involved.”
The room went quiet.
Lucia explained that Antonio disappeared after a violent dispute.
For decades, they believed he had left the country.
Then, six months before Massimo's accident, money began disappearing from Pascale-controlled businesses.
Small amounts at first.
Then millions.
The transactions passed through a legitimate charity supporting children with neurological disabilities.
My stomach tightened.
“What charity?”
Vittorio said the name.
I stopped breathing.
The charity funded a scholarship at my university.
My scholarship.
Massimo saw my reaction.
“Tessa?”
“I receive funding from them.”
Nobody spoke.
Suddenly my presence at the estate felt less accidental.
“Camila found this job for me.”
Vittorio's eyes narrowed.
“Who told Camila about the position?”
“I assumed your family.”
“No.”
Massimo's voice was cold.
“I told Rinaldi to find someone outside our usual circle.”
Dr. Rinaldi.
The same physician connected to the substituted pills.
A terrible thought arrived.
“What if I wasn't hired because I'm qualified?”
Massimo looked furious.
“You are qualified.”
“That isn't what I mean.”
Someone knew my financial situation.
Someone knew I would accept an absurdly dangerous job for enough money.
And someone connected to the charity funding my education had helped put me inside Massimo's home.
I felt suddenly exposed.
Massimo noticed.
“You leave today.”
The words hurt.
I stared at him.
“You're firing me?”
“I'm protecting you.”
“By making decisions for me?”
His face tightened.
I pointed toward Lucia.
“You just screamed at your mother for doing exactly that.”
Vittorio looked away, perhaps hiding amusement.
Massimo didn't.
“This is different.”
“It always is when you're the person controlling someone else.”
I walked out.
He followed.
In the wheelchair.
Which made the argument even more absurd.
“Tessa.”
“No.”
“You don't understand what Antonio is.”
“Neither do you. You barely remember him.”
“I know enough.”
“So do I.”
I stopped and faced him.
“Somebody interfered with your medication. Somebody manipulated your mother. Somebody possibly caused your crash. And now my tuition is connected to the same charity.”
His anger faded.
“That's exactly why I want you away from this.”
“And if I leave, who checks your medication?”
Silence.
“Who pushes you when your leg hurts?”
His jaw flexed.
“Who tells you you're being an ass?”
“That service appears difficult to replace.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
So did he.
Then his expression changed.
“You're scared.”
“Yes.”
I wasn't going to pretend otherwise.
Massimo reached for my hand.
This time, I let him.
“So am I,” he said.
Those three words did more to me than any display of power ever could.
That afternoon, we examined records from the charity.
Not secret ledgers.
Public annual reports.
I recognized one name among the scholarship recipients.
A former classmate.
Nora Keating.
One of Massimo's previous nurses.
“That's impossible.”
Massimo leaned closer.
“You know her?”
“She left my program last year.”
“Why?”
“I thought money.”
Nora had worked at the estate for eight days.
Then disappeared from clinical work entirely.
I called the last number I had.
Disconnected.
But Teresa remembered her.
“She was frightened,” Teresa said. “Not of Mr. Pascale.”
“What frightened her?”
“She kept asking about Dr. Rinaldi.”
There it was again.
Rinaldi.
Massimo's physician.
The man controlling his prescriptions.
The person asked to recruit me.
We found Rinaldi in his office at the estate.
He didn't run.
He didn't deny the medication substitutions either.
“I reduced Massimo's motor activity intentionally.”
Massimo's hands tightened on his chair.
“Why?”
“Because someone threatened my daughter.”
That stopped everything.
Rinaldi opened his desk.
Inside was a child's drawing.
A little girl in a purple dress holding a physician's hand.
“My daughter is nine.”
His voice cracked.
“Antonio's people photographed her walking into school.”
The villain I had imagined became another frightened parent.
“You could have told us,” Vittorio said.
“And risked my daughter?”
Rinaldi looked at him with disgust.
“You Pascales think everyone considers your wars worth dying for.”
Massimo didn't argue.
“What were you ordered to do?”
“Keep you weak. Not permanently paralyzed. Just dependent.”
“Why?”
“So Vittorio would continue running operations.”
Vittorio's face changed.
Massimo looked at his brother.
“You benefited.”
“I didn't know.”
Rinaldi nodded.
“I believe him.”
That surprised all of us.
“Antonio needed Massimo alive,” Rinaldi continued. “He needed Vittorio controlling the organization while believing it was temporary.”
“Why?”
“Because Vittorio was unknowingly approving payments.”
Vittorio went pale.
The charity transactions.
Antonio had been using Vittorio's authority.
Massimo leaned forward.
“And Elena?”
Rinaldi looked at the floor.
“She discovered it.”
“Where is she?”
“I don't know.”
Massimo rolled closer.
“Look at me.”
Rinaldi did.
“You know something.”
The doctor swallowed.
“I treated her after the crash.”
Massimo went absolutely still.
“Where?”
“Not at a hospital.”
“Where?”
“At a house near Worcester.”
“Whose?”
Rinaldi hesitated.
Then looked at Lucia.
“Yours.”
Lucia staggered backward.
“My house?”
“The old lake house.”
Massimo stared at his mother.
Lucia shook her head.
“I haven't been there in years.”
Rinaldi reached into the locked cabinet.
He removed a red child's coat.
Small.
Maybe a six-year-old's size.
Massimo recognized it instantly.
“Leo's.”
Rinaldi nodded.
“It was in the room where I treated Elena.”
Massimo took the coat.
Something heavy shifted inside the lining.
I felt along the seam.
There was a cut that had been stitched closed by hand.
I opened it carefully.
A small metal object fell into my palm.
A key.
Attached to it was a plastic tag bearing one handwritten word.
CAMBRIDGE.
Massimo stared at me.
Then I realized what was familiar about the number printed beneath it.
It wasn't an address.
May you like
It was a locker number.
At my university.
