**Chapter 7: The Brother She Buried**
947 Words
The name **Gabriel** hadn’t been spoken in years.
Not in her house. Not in the streets.
Not even in her memories — not properly.
He was her older brother. Two years apart. Protective. Proud. Reckless in the way only favored sons of mafia kings could afford to be. Isabelle remembered how he used to sneak her gelato in the middle of the night, and how he made her swear she’d never be like him — never get dragged into the world their father bled for.
But Gabriel had disappeared five years ago.
And everyone said the same thing:
> “It was a mistake.”
> “He crossed the wrong people.”
> “It wasn’t personal.”
No body.
No funeral.
Just a closed door, a closed casket, and silence.
Until now.
---
“Tell me everything,” Isabelle demanded.
Luca leaned against the wall in the corridor, watching her carefully. “Your brother was working with the Morettis before he vanished.”
She blinked. “That’s impossible. My father—”
“Didn’t know,” Luca interrupted. “That’s how it works. Sometimes the right hand doesn’t tell the left who’s cutting the deal.”
“You’re saying Gabriel betrayed my father?”
“I’m saying he *tried to fix things* before they broke.”
He pulled a small photo from his coat. It was faded, worn from being folded and unfolded too many times.
In the image: Gabriel and Dominic, younger, laughing, standing near a car.
“You were what... seventeen when he disappeared?” Luca asked.
Isabelle nodded slowly, her voice caught in her throat.
“He wasn’t just your brother,” Luca said. “He was Dominic’s best friend. Maybe the only one he ever had.”
The hallway suddenly felt colder. The walls closer.
“Why would he never tell me that?”
“Because Gabriel’s death wasn’t clean,” Luca said softly. “And Dominic still blames himself.”
---
She stormed into Dominic’s office twenty minutes later, fists clenched, eyes burning.
He didn’t look up from the stack of documents he was signing.
“You lied to me,” she said.
His pen paused.
“I’ve lied about a lot of things,” he replied.
“Gabriel,” she said sharply. “You knew him. You worked with him. You *loved him like a brother*—and you never told me.”
He finally looked up. His expression was unreadable.
“That’s because I buried him,” he said quietly. “Twice.”
She stepped closer. “Then tell me the truth. All of it.”
A long silence.
Then Dominic stood, moving to the liquor cabinet. He poured himself a drink. Not because he needed it — but because it gave him something to do with his hands.
“Your brother came to me behind your father’s back,” he began. “He said the Romano family was collapsing from the inside — corruption, infighting, dirty deals with international arms groups. He wanted to fix it.”
“He wanted *out,*” Isabelle whispered.
Dominic nodded. “He wanted peace between the families. He thought if he could bring me evidence, I’d take it to my father and force the alliance through early. No blood. No war.”
“And then?”
“He got caught.”
The words were ice. Blunt and unforgiving.
“Your father found out. But before he could make a move, Valente did.”
Isabelle’s breath caught. “Valente?”
“He kidnapped Gabriel. Used him as leverage against both families. Wanted a bidding war — who cared more for the boy, who would pay more, who would lose more.”
Her knees nearly gave out.
“And you didn’t save him?” she asked, voice shaking.
“I tried,” Dominic said. “I offered money. Land. Protection. But Valente didn’t want any of it.”
“Then what did he want?”
Dominic’s gaze darkened.
“He wanted a reason to start a war.”
The last time Dominic had seen Gabriel, he was tied to a chair in a warehouse on the Jersey waterfront.
Bloodied. Bruised. Smiling through a split lip.
> “You shouldn’t have come,” Gabriel had said, even as the gun was pressed to his temple.
> “You shouldn’t have tried to save me.”
But Dominic had.
He went in alone. No guards. No backup. Just desperation.
And he watched Gabriel die before he could pull the trigger on the man who did it.
That man was **Giovanni Valente**.
Isabelle sat in stunned silence as Dominic finished the story.
The room felt like it was caving in.
All these years, she’d believed her brother had made some mistake — that maybe he had run, maybe he’d been caught in some random war. But no.
He had *sacrificed himself* for peace.
And she had never been told.
“You should’ve told me,” she whispered.
Dominic sat across from her now, his voice low.
“You were seventeen. You were innocent. And I knew if you ever learned the truth, you’d come back.”
Her eyes met his. “Is that why you married me?”
He didn’t answer.
Because they both already knew.
That night, Isabelle found herself back in the chapel, holding the black rose in her hands.
She knelt where the altar had once stood, letting the silence of the broken place wrap around her like armor.
She wasn’t crying.
Not anymore.
Tears didn’t belong here.
*Vengeance did.*
Back inside, Dominic received a new alert.
A message intercepted from Valente’s inner circle.
Four words.
Typed. Untraceable.
> **The sister dies next.**
- Writer
