Chapter 26 - Vittorio’s Last Secret
Vittorio looked twenty years older.
Federal detention had stripped away the tailored suits, private aircraft, and glass towers.
He sat behind reinforced glass wearing a gray prison uniform.
Elena sat opposite him.
Adrian waited outside.
“You’re engaged,” Vittorio said.
Elena looked at her ring.
“News travels.”
“Congratulations.”
“Why am I here?”
He smiled faintly.
“Still impatient.”
She moved to leave.
“Antonio’s grave is empty.”
Elena stopped.
Slowly, she sat again.
“What did you say?”
“Your father’s grave in Palermo.”
“I heard you.”
“He isn’t in it.”
Her heart began pounding.
“That’s impossible.”
“The remains buried after the fire were never scientifically identified.”
“You paid Bernardo to kill him.”
“Yes.”
“Did he?”
Vittorio leaned closer to the glass.
“I believed so.”
“Until?”
“Three years ago.”
He described a photograph taken in Montenegro.
An elderly man entering a monastery.
Facial recognition matched Antonio Caruso at seventy-eight percent.
Elena’s hands went numb.
“My father would have contacted me.”
“Unless he didn’t remember you.”
She thought of Sofia.
Brain trauma.
Memory loss.
“No.”
“I had investigators search.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know whether Bernardo lied.”
“Did you find him?”
“No.”
“Then this is nothing.”
“Perhaps.”
Vittorio slid a paper toward the glass.
A monastery name.
Sveti Luka.
Montenegro.
Elena stared.
“What do you want?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Neither would Antonio.”
“Why tell me now?”
Vittorio looked suddenly tired.
“Because prison simplifies ambition.”
She almost laughed.
He continued.
“I destroyed your family over pride. I cannot repair that.”
“No.”
“But I can stop taking things from you.”
Elena folded the paper.
“If this is a trick—”
“What exactly am I going to accomplish from federal custody?”
She stood.
“Men like you always find something.”
Outside, Adrian saw her face.
“What?”
She handed him the paper.
They flew to Montenegro two days later.
The monastery stood high above a coastal valley.
A monk led them through stone corridors.
When Elena showed Antonio’s photograph, he nodded.
“Yes. We knew him as Tomas.”
“Knew?”
“He died eighteen months ago.”
Elena closed her eyes.
So close.
Again too late.
“Was he Antonio Caruso?”
The monk brought a box.
Inside were personal effects.
A watch.
A leather wallet.
And a small carved wooden rabbit missing its left ear.
Elena collapsed into a chair.
Generale.
Her father had lived.
Perhaps without knowing who he was.
The monk sat beside her.
“Tomas remembered little. But sometimes he spoke a name.”
“Elena?”
“No.”
The monk smiled gently.
“He said ‘my little general.’”
Elena wept.
Adrian held her.
Later, the monk gave her a notebook.
Antonio had filled pages with fragmented drawings.
Ships.
Falcons.
A woman resembling Sofia.
A little girl.
On the final page, written shakily:
If she exists, tell her I tried to come home.
Elena pressed the notebook against her chest.
That evening, she stood above the Adriatic.
“I’m angry,” she said.
Adrian stood beside her.
“At him?”
“At everyone. Bernardo. Vittorio. Fate.”
“You’re allowed.”
“I spent thirteen years thinking he was dead. Then I learn he survived, only to discover he died before I found him.”
Adrian took her hand.
“You found the part of him that still remembered you.”
Elena looked at the wooden rabbit.
Maybe that had to be enough.
May you like
She whispered toward the darkening sea:
“You can come home now, Dad.”
