“People don’t do shit like this out of the goodness of their hearts, Salvatore. Get a fucking clue.”

I turned and walked the length of the room, running both hands through my hair, trying to make sense of what I’d just learned.

That my uncle had hired the man who had fathered me to kill my half-brother.

“Mr. Henderson, perhaps—”

“My son was the bystander who died that day along with your brother. He was a young man, engaged to be married in a few weeks’ time. So you see, your uncle was ultimately responsible for his death as well.”

“Why now?” I asked. “Why didn’t you go to my father then?”

Henderson sat back in his seat and turned his palms up on the desk. “Because I’m alone now. My wife passed a few months ago. There’s no one left who can be hurt or killed because of what I do now.”

“And Roman doesn’t know about the change in the will?” Salvatore asked.

“No.”

He checked his watch and stood. “We need to go, Mr. Henderson. We’ll be late for my father’s funeral.”

Henderson rose to his feet. I looked at the old man, tall but bent and tired.

“Why would he name me as successor, when it was my father who killed his most beloved son?” I wasn’t sure who I was asking.

“It was his final act perhaps to do right by you. He did love you like his own, and he regretted that final night very much. In the short time I knew him, he talked about it often. About you often.” Henderson walked around the desk. “Old age makes us see things differently, son.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. I looked at that hand, unable to speak, unwilling to feel. I shrugged it off. Salvatore and I walked toward the door.

“One more thing, gentlemen,” Henderson started. We stopped and turned to him. He straightened something on his desk before looking at us. “The guards who will be at the reading of the will are loyal to your father.”

I watched the old man’s eyes. Heard his message.

Salvatore thanked him and said good-bye. We walked out of the room.

Lucia and Gia stood. Gia’s eyes when she met mine turned angry, fierce even, and she shifted that anger to Henderson. Salvatore must have seen it too, because just as she took a step toward the old man, he intervened, taking her by the arm.

“Let’s go. We’re leaving.”

She glanced from him to me and back.

“I said we’re leaving,” Salvatore said.

Lucia took Gia’s other hand. “Come on. We’ll talk in the car.”

20

Gia