Chapter 13 - The Man Who Needed Us to Fight
I handed Marco his phone back.
“Not today.”
He understood.
Silas had survived by turning uncertainty into violence.
Father against son.
Brother against brother.
Parent against child.
Not anymore.
Luca arrived ten minutes later furious.
“I never sent that.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Silas wants me suspicious.”
Marco nodded.
“He sent me one too.”
Luca stared at him.
Then laughed bitterly.
“So we're finally learning.”
We entered the courthouse together.
Federal agents cleared the upper floors.
Basement door locked.
Goliath found another route.
Of course he did.
The dog led us through an old evidence corridor.
Inside the records vault, Silas stood surrounded by shelves.
No army.
No dramatic fortress.
Just one aging man holding decades of secrets.
A metal trash barrel burned beside him.
Documents curled in the flames.
Frank shouted:
“Stop!”
Silas smiled.
“You finally grew a conscience?”
Frank looked at Hannah.
“No.”
He swallowed.
“She gave me one.”
Silas's face hardened.
He held the original ledger.
Marco stepped forward.
“Give it to me.”
“Son.”
“Don't call me that.”
“I made you.”
“No. My mother did.”
Silas laughed.
Then looked at me.
“You think you're different?”
“From you?”
“From Vittorio.”
That hit.
My father had killed.
Manipulated.
Hidden Eli.
Buried truths.
Silas believed I would eventually become him.
Maybe once I would have.
Then Eli's voice echoed from behind us.
“Dante?”
I spun.
He had followed Frank downstairs.
Goliath beside him.
“Eli, stay back.”
Silas stared at the boy.
Then smiled.
“There's the heir.”
Eli moved closer to me.
Not Silas.
That mattered more than it should.
Silas held up the ledger.
“One spark and every answer disappears.”
“Do it.”
He blinked.
“What?”
“Burn it.”
Marco looked at me.
Silas laughed uncertainly.
“You've spent days chasing this.”
“We copied your digital archive.”
“Not everything.”
“I have Elena.”
His smile weakened.
“Hannah.”
Another crack.
“Isabella.”
Another.
“Frank.”
Silas looked toward him.
“Marco.”
His own son.
Then I placed one hand on Eli's shoulder.
“And the one thing you never understood.”
“What?”
“People are evidence too.”
Silas had built his empire around documents because he believed paperwork controlled identity.
But living witnesses were standing everywhere.
He could burn paper.
Not all of us.
Silas's hand shook.
First time.
Then Goliath barked.
Silas flinched.
The ledger slipped.
Frank kicked the burning barrel aside.
Agents moved.
Silas was arrested.
No execution.
No revenge.
That disappointed the Reaper inside me.
The father standing beside Eli wanted something else.
Silas alive.
Talking.
Naming everyone.
Then an agent retrieved the death certificate prepared for me.
The physician signature was fake.
So was Luca's authorization.
Silas had manufactured distrust.
Again.
It was over.
Or I thought it was.
Then Isabella examined the original ledger.
One page had been removed.
Recently.
“What's missing?”
She checked the index.
Moretti, Elijah.
My son's page.
Someone else had taken Eli's original birth record before Silas arrived.
“Who?”
Silas laughed from the floor.
“You still don't understand.”
I grabbed his coat.
“Who took it?”
He looked toward Luca.
Not at him.
Past him.
At Sofia.
My aunt.
May you like
Sofia's face changed.
Then she ran.
