GUARDED BY MY POSSESSIVE MAFIA BROTHERS

Chapter 12: The Forgotten Son

“Dominic.”

A gun clicked in the darkness.

“And I have waited thirty-five years for my family to remember me.”

No one moved.

The safe house had become completely silent except for Dante’s uneven breathing beside me. Moonlight entered through the windows, revealing the outline of the man standing in the doorway.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a dark coat. Silver touched the hair near his temples. He held his weapon steadily, but it wasn’t aimed at me.

It was pointed at Dante.

“Put the gun down,” Luca said.

Dominic laughed softly.

“You sound exactly like Antonio.”

“You knew our father?” I asked.

The stranger turned his face toward me.

When the moonlight touched him, I understood why everyone had gone silent. His eyes were the same dark gray as Dante’s. His jaw

resembled Luca’s, although age and scars had made his face harder.

He looked like both of my brothers.

An older, colder version of them.

“I knew him better than either of them did,” Dominic said. “I was his first mistake.”

Dante stepped in front of me despite his injured leg.

“If you came here to kill me, leave Elena out of it.”

“Still pretending to be her protector?”

“I am her brother.”

Dominic’s expression changed.

“So am I.”

The words struck the room like another gunshot.

I stared at him. “You ordered my father’s death.”

“I did no such thing.”

“The ledger identifies D as the eldest De Santis son.”

“The ledger says what its owner wanted you to believe.”

“Rocco is delivering Antonio’s cassette to you,” Dante said.

“No. He is delivering it to the man who stole my name.”

Dominic lowered the gun slightly.

Then another shot shattered the window behind him.

Dominic threw himself to the floor.

“Get down!” he shouted.

Dante pulled me behind the kitchen counter as bullets tore through the walls. Luca overturned the table, creating a barrier. Noah dragged Sofia down beside him while Marco reached for his weapon with his uninjured arm.

The safe house filled with gunfire.

“Your men?” Dante shouted at Dominic.

“If they were mine, you would already be dead.”

Dominic fired through the broken window. A man outside cried out.

Headlights appeared between the trees. Three black vehicles surrounded the house, their engines running.

Rocco’s voice came through a loudspeaker.

“Bring me the ledger, Elena.”

My blood turned cold.

“Where is Father Gabriel?” I shouted.

“At Saint Orso Cemetery, exactly where I told you.”

“You said I had thirty minutes.”

“You wasted twelve of them.”

Dominic moved closer to the counter.

“Rocco is lying.”

Dante aimed his gun at him. “Take another step and you die.”

“If you kill me, you’ll never find the priest.”

“You know where he is?” I asked.

Dominic looked at me.

“Father Gabriel was never at the cemetery. The photograph was taken in the basement beneath this house.”

Everyone froze.

Sofia shook her head. “There is no basement.”

“There is. Isabella used it to hide evidence from Vincent.”

A heavy impact sounded beneath the floor.

Once.

Then twice.

Someone was down there.

“Father Gabriel,” I whispered.

Rocco’s voice came through the loudspeaker again.

“Ten minutes, Elena. After that, the old man dies.”

Dominic pointed toward the fireplace.

“There is a lever behind the photograph.”

Luca crawled across the floor and lifted Isabella’s picture from the mantel. Behind it was a small metal switch.

He pulled it.

Part of the wooden floor opened near the wall, revealing a narrow staircase descending into darkness.

Another bullet passed through the window.

“This is a trap,” Dante said.

“Yes,” Dominic replied. “But not mine.”

Dante looked at Luca. “Take Elena and get the priest.”

“No,” I said. “Luca should stay here. He can fight.”

“And you can’t?”

“I can help Father Gabriel while you hold them back.”

“You’re not going down there alone.”

“I’ll go with her,” Noah said.

Dante’s expression hardened. “Of course you will.”

“This is not the time to be jealous,” I snapped.

“I am not jealous.”

Luca fired toward the vehicles outside. “You look jealous.”

“Luca.”

“What? We may die. I’m trying to make our final conversation honest.”

Another volley of bullets struck the walls.

Noah took my hand. “We need to move.”

Dante grabbed his wrist.

“If anything happens to her—”

“I know,” Noah interrupted. “You’ll kill me.”

“No. I’ll make you wish I had.”

I pulled Noah toward the staircase before they could continue.

The passage was narrow and smelled of damp stone. We descended until the gunfire above became distant.

A single light flickered at the end of the corridor.

Father Gabriel sat tied to a chair beneath it.

Blood covered his white collar.

“Father!”

I ran toward him, but Noah grabbed my arm.

“Wait.”

A thin wire stretched across the floor in front of us.

My heart stopped.

Noah crouched beside it. The wire led to three metal containers placed against the wall.

“Explosives,” he said.

A digital timer showed eight minutes and forty-two seconds.

Father Gabriel slowly lifted his head.

“Elena, don’t come closer.”

“We’re getting you out.”

“The chair is connected to the device.”

Noah examined the wires. “If we cut the wrong one or move him, the bomb may detonate.”

“Can you stop it?”

“I’m a journalist, Elena, not a bomb technician.”

“You break into mafia warehouses.”

“That does not include a certification in explosives.”

Despite everything, Father Gabriel smiled weakly.

“You two argue like Antonio and Isabella.”

I knelt just beyond the trip wire.

“Did you know Dominic was alive?”

The priest’s smile disappeared.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because Antonio made me promise to protect him.”

“From whom?”

“From the De Santis family.”

I stared at him.

“Dominic said he is Antonio’s first son.”

“He is.”

“Then why was he erased?”

Father Gabriel closed his eyes.

“Dominic’s mother was a woman named Teresa Romano. Antonio loved her before he married Dante and Luca’s mother. When

Teresa became pregnant, Antonio’s father refused to recognize the child. The Romano family was poor and had no political power.”

“So Antonio abandoned them?”

“At first, yes.”

My anger grew. “It seems our father destroyed every woman he claimed to love.”

“Antonio was not a good man,” Father Gabriel said. “But he tried to become one.”

“Too late,” Noah muttered.

The timer reached seven minutes.

“Tell us how to stop this,” I said.

“There is a key inside Rocco’s pocket.”

“Rocco is outside shooting at us.”

“That was his intention. He wanted Dominic and Dante to kill each other while the evidence burned beneath the house.”

Noah studied the device again. “There may be another way.”

Footsteps sounded behind us.

I turned quickly.

Dominic stood at the bottom of the staircase.

He had blood on his coat.

Noah placed himself between us.

“You should be upstairs.”

“And you should stop pretending you can disarm that bomb.”

Dominic walked toward the wire.

“Don’t cross it,” I warned.

He stepped over it carefully and knelt beside the device.

“You know how to stop it?” I asked.

“I built the original security system beneath this house.”

“You’ve been here before.”

“This was my mother’s house before Antonio gave it to Isabella.”

The revelation made me look at the walls differently.

Once again, my mother’s safety had been built upon another woman’s loss.

Dominic opened the metal panel.

“Rocco replaced most of the wiring, but the trigger mechanism is old.”

“Can you deactivate it?”

“If everyone stops speaking.”

I folded my arms. “You’re definitely a De Santis.”

His hands paused.

For the first time, something almost gentle entered his expression.

“So are you.”

The gunfire above suddenly stopped.

The silence was worse.

Dante’s voice echoed from the staircase.

“Elena!”

“We’re here!”

He descended with Luca, Marco, and Sofia behind him.

Dante immediately aimed at Dominic.

“Move away from the bomb.”

Dominic didn’t look up. “If I move now, it explodes.”

Dante kept the weapon raised.

Father Gabriel sighed. “Must every De Santis reunion involve loaded guns?”

“Usually,” Luca answered.

The timer showed four minutes.

“Where is Rocco?” I asked.

“He escaped into the woods,” Marco said. “His men are dead or running.”

“And the cassette?”

“He still has it,” Dante replied.

Dominic removed the first wire.

The timer continued counting down.

“What did you do?” Noah asked.

“Disconnected the pressure trigger.”

“Then we can move Father Gabriel?”

“Not yet.”

Dominic reached deeper into the device.

Dante watched him carefully. “Why should we believe you?”

“You shouldn’t.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“I don’t need your trust. I need silence.”

The timer reached two minutes.

My hands began trembling.

Dominic pulled out a small circuit board. Two wires remained connected: one red and one black.

“Which one?” Luca asked.

“Neither.”

“What do you mean, neither?”

“Cutting either wire completes the circuit.”

The timer showed one minute and thirty seconds.

“Then what do we do?” I demanded.

Dominic looked at the ledger in Dante’s hand.

“Give me the book.”

“No,” Dante said.

“It contains the deactivation sequence.”

“You expect me to hand you the only evidence against you?”

“If I wanted you dead, I would wait ninety seconds.”

Dante’s jaw tightened.

I took the ledger from him.

“Elena.”

“Father Gabriel dies if we do nothing.”

“You don’t know Dominic.”

“Neither do you.”

I handed the ledger across the wire.

Dominic opened it to the page marked with D’s payments. He examined the dates, then entered six numbers into a small keypad hidden beneath the timer.

The countdown stopped at seventeen seconds.

No one breathed.

Then the numbers disappeared.

Dominic removed the device from beneath Father Gabriel’s chair.

“It’s safe.”

Relief weakened my legs.

Noah stepped over the wire and cut Father Gabriel’s restraints. I helped the priest stand.

Dante snatched the ledger back from Dominic.

“Now explain why you knew the code.”

“Because the dates in that ledger are not payments,” Dominic answered. “They are coordinates and security codes.”

Marco frowned. “I have seen records like these for years.”

“That was the point. Antonio disguised his evidence as Valenti financial transactions.”

“What about D?” I asked. “Location confirmed.”

Dominic’s expression darkened.

“D was not a person.”

He pointed to the page.

“D meant Dossier. Antonio had completed a file identifying the people who controlled both families.”

“And C.B.?” Luca asked.

“Car Bomb.”

Sofia looked disturbed. “Then R.B. does not mean Rocco Bellini.”

“Recovery Burn,” Dominic said. “It is an instruction to retrieve the cassette and destroy everything else.”

Dante studied him. “Who gave the instruction?”

“The same man who ordered Rocco to steal my identity.”

Before Dominic could say more, Father Gabriel grabbed my arm.

“There is something you must know about the recording.”

“You heard it?”

“I helped Antonio make it.”

“Did Dante sabotage our father’s car?” I asked.

Dante became still.

Father Gabriel looked at him.

“No.”

Dante’s shoulders lowered slightly, but the relief didn’t reach his eyes.

“Then who did?” Luca demanded.

“Antonio never named the killer directly. He feared the tape would be discovered. Instead, he used a phrase only his children would understand.”

“What phrase?” I asked.

Father Gabriel answered quietly.

“The wolf who sleeps beneath the family crest.”

Dominic’s face changed.

Dante noticed.

“You know what it means.”

Dominic looked toward the ceiling as smoke began entering the passage.

“The De Santis crest hangs above the fireplace in the mansion,” he said. “Behind it is a private room Antonio built for the only person he trusted with every family secret.”

“Who?” I asked.

Dominic faced Marco.

“My godfather.”

Everyone turned toward him.

Marco stared back in disbelief.

“You think I killed Antonio?”

“I think Antonio trusted you more than his own sons.”

“I was twenty-two when he died.”

“You were also the last person who inspected his car.”

Dante raised his weapon.

Marco stepped back. “Dante, you know me.”

“I thought I knew Rocco too.”

“I have protected this family my entire life.”

“Then prove it.”

Marco slowly reached inside his jacket.

Sofia drew her gun, but Marco removed only a folded photograph.

He handed it to Dante.

It showed Antonio standing beside a much younger Marco and another man whose face had been partially burned from the image.

On the back, someone had written:

Three sons. One name. Only one will inherit my sins.

I looked at Marco.

“Three sons?”

Marco’s eyes filled with something I had never seen in them before.

Fear.

“Antonio wasn’t only my godfather,” he whispered.

Luca lowered his weapon.

“No.”

Marco looked at Dante.

“He was my biological father.”

The ceiling shook as fire spread through the house.

Dominic grabbed Father Gabriel.

“We need to leave.”

Dante remained frozen, staring at the man who had served him for years.

“You knew?”

“I discovered the truth after Antonio died,” Marco said. “Your mother begged me never to tell you.”

“How many secret children did our father have?” Luca demanded.

“Enough to create a war,” Dominic answered.

We hurried upstairs.

Flames had consumed the front room. Smoke covered the ceiling, and the broken windows glowed orange.

We escaped through the back door toward the lake.

The moment we reached the trees, an engine roared from the road.

Rocco’s truck appeared between the burning vehicles.

He leaned from the window and aimed at us.

Dominic pushed me behind a tree as bullets struck the ground.

Dante and Luca returned fire, but the truck disappeared into the darkness.

“He got away,” Noah said.

“With the cassette,” I added.

Dominic’s phone vibrated.

A message appeared on the screen.

ANTONIO’S CONFESSION WILL BE BROADCAST AT MIDNIGHT.

BENEATH IT WAS A LINK TO A LIVE VIDEO.

A countdown showed fifty-eight minutes.

“If that recording becomes public, every enemy of the De Santis family will know our secrets,” Marco said.

“Not only ours,” Dominic replied. “The tape contains the names of judges, politicians, officers, and mafia leaders who worked with Antonio.”

“Rocco is going to expose them?” I asked.

“No. He will edit the recording and make it sound as though Dante ordered Isabella’s death.”

Dante looked at me.

“He wants you to turn against me.”

“He already tried that.”

“And did it work?”

I remembered Isabella’s letter. I remembered Dante admitting that he had revealed her location when he was fourteen.

“I still don’t know if I can forgive you,” I said. “But I know Rocco is manipulating the truth.”

Dante nodded once.

It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was more honesty than we had shared before.

Dominic started walking toward the surviving vehicle.

“Rocco will broadcast from the old Bellini television station.”

“How do you know?” Noah asked.

“Because I paid for it.”

Dante grabbed Dominic’s shoulder.

“You said you weren’t working with him.”

“I wasn’t. I hired Rocco to recover Antonio’s tape before Vincent found it. Rocco betrayed me and began working for someone else.”

“Who?”

Dominic looked at all of us.

“The person who erased me from the De Santis family. The person who convinced Vincent that Isabella had betrayed him. The person who ordered Antonio’s death and then raised his sons beneath the same roof.”

Dante’s face hardened.

“Our mother is dead.”

Dominic’s gaze shifted toward Sofia.

“No,” he said. “She isn’t.”

Dante released him.

“What did you say?”

“Your mother survived the fire that supposedly killed her twelve years ago.”

Luca laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“You’re lying.”

“I saw her three weeks ago.”

“Where?”

Dominic opened the vehicle door.

“At the Bellini television station.”

My phone rang.

This time, the caller ID displayed a name I had believed belonged to a dead woman.

VITTORIA DE SANTIS.

Dante and Luca stared at the screen.

I answered.

A woman’s calm voice filled the night.

“My dear Elena,” she said. “You have caused far more trouble than I expected.”

My blood ran cold.

“Mama?”

She laughed softly.

“You should never have opened Isabella’s box.”

Behind her voice, I heard Rocco preparing the recording.

Then she spoke again.

“Bring all of Antonio’s children to me before midnight, or the entire world will learn that the De Santis brothers murdered your mother.”

The call ended.

I looked at Dante, Luca, Marco, and Dominic.

Four sons of Antonio De Santis.

Four men raised by secrets.

And somewhere in the darkness, the woman I had mourned for twelve years was waiting to destroy us all.

I tightened my grip on the phone.

“For once,” I said, “no one is leaving me behind.”

Dante opened his mouth to argue.

I raised my hand.

“That was not a request.”

Dominic smiled faintly.

Dante looked offended.

Luca looked proud.

And together, we drove toward the mother who had taught all of us how dangerous love could become.