Chapter 11 - THE MAN WHO STARTED THE WAR WAS ALREADY DEAD
Austo’s father, Dominic Castillion, had been dead for six years.
All my life, I had heard his name spoken like thunder.
Powerful.
Cold.
Untouchable.
According to Vittorio, Dominic discovered that his younger brother Matteo had fathered a child with Sofia before her marriage fully collapsed.
Me.
He feared scandal.
Inheritance complications.
Weakness.
The same disease that infected every powerful family in our world.
So he arranged Matteo’s “accident.”
Austo rejected it immediately.
“My father loved Matteo.”
“So did Cain love Abel until he didn’t.”
Even under arrest, Vittorio could still sound poisonous.
But the ledger supported part of his story.
Payments to the mechanic had not originated from Bellucci accounts.
They came through a Castillion-controlled company.
Austo looked sick.
For the first time since I met him, his control visibly cracked.
I touched his arm.
Then immediately wondered whether I should.
He looked down at my hand.
Did not move away.
That was enough.
Later, in a private office beside the church, Sofia confirmed Dominic had hated the uncertainty around my birth.
She had suspected him.
Never proved it.
That was why she gave the brass key to Caterina before disappearing.
She wanted evidence preserved somewhere neither family fully controlled.
Austo sat by the window.
Silent.
I understood something then.
The dangerous man who had rescued me from one family had his own ghosts.
Protection did not make him pure.
Power never did.
The difference was what a person chose once truth reached them.
Austo stood.
“If my father killed Matteo, I will make it public.”
Tobaya stared.
“Sir, that could damage—”
“I know.”
Family reputation.
Business alliances.
Power.
Everything men like our fathers placed above truth.
Austo looked at me.
“They took choices from both of us.”
“Yes.”
“I’m done preserving them.”
That was the moment I began loving him.
Not because he saved me.
Because when truth threatened his own name, he chose truth anyway.
But love was still dangerous.
Especially after learning we were cousins.
Distant blood or not, I needed clarity.
Sofia solved that hours later.
The medical records contained another correction.
Matteo was not Dominic’s biological brother.
He had been adopted into the Castillion household as a child after his parents died.
No blood relation existed between Austo and me.
The relief that moved through me felt too immediate.
I hated that.
Then Sofia smiled for the first time.
“Now you know why your grandmother used to say Castillion genealogy required a lawyer.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
Then Tobaya entered.
His face erased it.
Olindo Valeri had disappeared.
May you like
So had Aunt Renata.
And the original paternity file was gone.
