Chapter 5 - ISABELLA’S SECRET
Matteo did not sleep.
He sat in Daniel’s old study until sunrise.
Isabella.
His baby sister.
The person he trusted more than almost anyone.
She had known.
The proof came from an old storage box at their mother’s former house.
After Isabella died, most of her things went into storage.
Matteo had never opened half of it.
He did now.
Letters.
Photographs.
Medical bills.
Recipes.
Then a sealed envelope inside an old Bible.
MATTEO — ONLY IF DANIEL COMES BACK INTO THE STORY.
He laughed once.
Bitter.
“Very funny, Izzy.”
His hands shook as he opened it.
Matt,
If you’re reading this, then either I failed Daniel or the truth finally found you.
He stopped.
Then continued.
Daniel contacted me on December 31.
He was alive.
Hurt.
Terrified.
He begged me not to tell you.
Matteo closed his eyes.
Of course.
Everyone protected him by lying.
Isabella explained why.
Daniel believed Matteo’s phone, house, and car were monitored by Roberto.
If Matteo knew, he would immediately move.
Roberto would know Daniel had contacted him.
Daniel needed time.
Isabella drove to Pennsylvania.
Found him.
Got him medical help through a doctor outside the family network.
Then helped him disappear.
Matteo stood.
“Disappear?”
He read faster.
Daniel refused to return to Brooklyn.
Not because he feared Matteo.
Because he had discovered the theft involved more people than Roberto and Anthony.
He believed some of those people would kill Matteo if Daniel resurfaced openly.
So Isabella placed him somewhere none of the Romano network would search.
Where?
No address in the letter.
Only:
St. Matthew’s.
Matteo frowned.
Church?
Hospital?
Shelter?
Then Isabella wrote:
Daniel was supposed to leave the country after three months.
He never made the flight.
Something happened before that.
I do not know if he died.
I only know he vanished from me too.
There.
No miraculous secret brother living quietly for eleven years.
No cheap twist.
Daniel disappeared again around March.
Isabella spent years searching discreetly.
Never found him.
She died four years later still not knowing.
Matteo sat.
Grief layered over grief.
Then another line:
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.
You would have burned Brooklyn to get him back.
Maybe you would have found him.
Maybe I was wrong.
That one hurt.
Not absolution.
Doubt.
Human.
At breakfast, Grace asked why Matteo looked bad.
Elena frowned.
“Grace.”
“What?”
“He does.”
Matteo smiled faintly.
“My sister lied to me.”
Grace thought.
“Bad lie?”
“Yes.”
“Was she scared?”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe scared lie.”
Elena looked at her daughter.
“What does that mean?”
Grace shrugged.
“Still a lie.”
“But scared.”
Matteo laughed.
First time in days.
“Exactly.”
They traced St. Matthew’s.
There were thirty-seven institutions in Pennsylvania with that name.
Hospitals.
Churches.
Shelters.
One mattered.
St. Matthew’s Recovery Center outside Bethlehem.
Closed eight years ago.
Privately run.
No direct Romano connection.
Former director alive.
Federal investigators found her.
She remembered Isabella.
And Daniel.
Not by surname.
He had used the name David Ross.
Daniel Romano.
D.R.
Close.
“He stayed about ten weeks.”
“What condition?”
“Injured when he arrived.”
“Then recovering.”
“Why recovery center?”
“They treated addiction and trauma.”
Daniel had developed dependency on prescription pain medication after his injuries.
That stunned Matteo.
He had never imagined Daniel vulnerable that way.
“What happened after ten weeks?”
“He left.”
“With who?”
The director thought.
“A man.”
“Name?”
“He signed visitor logs.”
Those records had survived in archived tax materials.
Name:
Thomas Vale.
The family accountant.
The man Daniel originally suspected.
The man Anthony said Roberto blamed.
Thomas Vale had found him.
Matteo’s heart sank.
Three days after Vale’s visit, Daniel left the center.
No forwarding address.
No later record.
Thomas Vale died two years later in an apparent boating accident.
Pattern.
Every man who touched the secret eventually disappeared or died.
But then investigators found something else.
Vale had rented a storage unit in New Jersey.
Closed after his death.
Contents auctioned.
Buyer records still existed.
One buyer remembered a box of old business files he had never thrown away because the unit contained collectible watches.
Matteo went personally this time.
With federal approval.
The buyer opened a dusty garage cabinet.
Inside:
Thomas Vale’s files.
And a photograph.
Daniel.
Alive.
Date stamped April 3.
Eleven years ago.
Four months after his funeral.
Standing beside Vale.
No visible injuries.
Thin.
Serious.
Holding a newspaper.
Proof of date.
On the back, in Vale’s handwriting:
D.R. agreed.
No return to NY until M is safe.
Matteo stared.
M.
Matteo?
Probably.
Daniel had chosen exile.
At least temporarily.
Then another paper appeared.
A bus ticket.
Philadelphia to Montreal.
April 5.
Name:
David Ross.
Daniel may have crossed into Canada.
Then vanished.
Matteo looked at Elena.
She had come because Grace was staying with her aunt that afternoon.
“You think he survived?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at the photograph.
“You want him to.”
“Yes.”
“Be careful.”
He stared.
“Why?”
“Because hope can make people stupid too.”
That sounded like something Daniel would say.
Matteo almost smiled.
Then Nico—Luca, his security chief—called.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Paul Greene agreed to talk.”
“In exchange for?”
“Protection.”
“From who?”
A pause.
“That’s the interesting part.”
“What?”
“He says Roberto wasn’t the last person controlling Daniel’s disappearance.”
“Who was?”
Luca hesitated.
“Your father.”
Matteo stopped breathing.
Their father.
Vittorio Romano.
Dead eight years.
The man Matteo worshiped.
The man whose empire he inherited.
According to Greene—
May you like
Vittorio had learned Daniel survived.
And ordered everyone to keep Matteo from knowing.
