Chapter 12 - WHAT HAPPENED TO MATTEO
Charles Vale did not confess at the gala.
Men like him rarely did.
Instead, he smiled, denied everything, and left with three lawyers.
Victoria left separately.
But she made one mistake.
She went directly to a townhouse owned by Argent Harbor.
Federal investigators followed.
So did Dominic’s security team.
Inside a basement office, authorities recovered shredded papers, hard drives, and one fire-damaged folder labeled M.R.
Matteo Russo.
The folder contained photographs from the warehouse where Matteo died.
One image showed a damaged electrical panel.
Another showed an insurance report calling the fire accidental.
But tucked behind them was an independent engineering assessment.
The wiring had been deliberately bypassed.
Someone had created the conditions for the fire.
Dominic read the report twice.
His face became completely unreadable.
Then investigators recovered an email.
From Victoria to Charles.
Sent two days before Matteo’s death.
HE WON’T DROP IT. HANDLE THE WAREHOUSE BEFORE HE TALKS TO DOMINIC.
Victoria claimed “handle the warehouse” referred to records.
Maybe it did.
Maybe it didn’t.
But a second message was worse.
Charles replied:
THEN MAKE SURE HE HAS NO REASON TO GO BACK.
Dominic left the room.
I found him outside.
For several minutes, he said nothing.
Then:
“I spent eight years blaming myself.”
“For what?”
“Matteo called me the night before he died.”
My chest tightened.
“I didn’t answer.”
“Why?”
“We had fought.”
“About Victoria?”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
Matteo had warned Dominic not to marry her.
Dominic believed his brother was jealous, paranoid, or trying to interfere in the family business.
He ignored him.
Twenty-four hours later, Matteo was dead.
“You didn’t know,” I said.
Dominic shook his head.
“I chose not to know.”
That distinction mattered to him.
Before I could answer, my phone rang.
Mom.
Her voice sounded stronger than it had in months.
“Casey, I remembered something.”
“What?”
“When Matteo visited me, he gave me more than the key.”
My heart sped up.
“What else?”
“A sentence.”
“What sentence?”
Mom repeated it.
“When the lion faces east, the truth is underneath.”
Dominic suddenly looked toward me.
I covered the phone.
“What?”
He answered:
May you like
“There’s a stone lion in my father’s old library.”
And the house containing it now belonged to Victoria.
