Chapter 22 - The Enemy Without a Name
The photograph had been printed at a pharmacy in suburban Chicago.
The purchase was made in cash.
Security footage showed a man wearing a baseball cap.
His face remained hidden.
The license plate on his car was stolen.
Everything led nowhere.
For three days Adrien’s security team worked without sleep.
Then Eleanor noticed something nobody else did.
“The handwriting.”
Adrien looked at the threat.
YOU CANNOT LEGITIMIZE BLOOD.
“What about it?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Where?”
Eleanor disappeared into Lorenzo’s study.
She returned with an old Christmas card.
Signed:
Peter Donati.
The handwriting matched.
Carlo and Paolo’s father.
Officially dead for six years.
Adrien stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Eleanor sat.
“Is it?”
Peter Donati supposedly died in Sicily after a stroke.
Closed-casket funeral.
No American relatives saw the body.
Carlo had attended.
Paolo had not.
Adrien called Rebecca Shaw.
She searched travel and financial records.
Within hours, they found something strange.
A passport under the name Pietro Donato entered Canada seven months earlier.
Age matched.
Photograph unclear.
Then Carlo requested to speak with Adrien.
Under federal supervision, they met.
Adrien placed the handwriting samples down.
Carlo stared.
His face drained.
“He’s alive.”
“You knew?”
“No.”
Carlo looked genuinely stunned.
“I swear.”
“What happened when he supposedly died?”
“My mother received a call from Sicily. I flew over. The coffin was sealed because they said decomposition—”
“You never saw him.”
“No.”
Carlo covered his face.
“My brother knew.”
Adrien leaned forward.
“Paolo?”
Carlo nodded slowly.
“That’s why Paolo disappeared from Chicago. Dad always preferred him.”
The Donati attacks suddenly made more sense.
Bellini had not merely recruited Carlo.
Peter had orchestrated the family from hiding.
“Why target Isabella?”
Carlo looked at the pregnancy-clinic photograph.
“Because my father believes family blood is destiny.”
“What does that mean?”
“He hates what you’re doing.”
Adrien frowned.
Carlo continued.
“My father used to say the old families survive because sons inherit fathers’ wars.”
Isabella’s expression hardened.
“And if Adrien’s child grows up outside that world…”
“He proves Peter wrong.”
The idea sounded insane.
Then again, men had killed for smaller beliefs.
Carlo gave them one location.
A farmhouse near Galena used by Donati loyalists.
Federal agents searched it.
Empty.
But inside they found photographs of Isabella.
Eleanor.
Adrien.
And ultrasound-clinic schedules.
Adrien had never felt fear like that.
Not even with Victor’s gun pointed at him.
This was different.
His unborn child had become part of someone else’s war.
Rebecca placed Isabella under temporary federal protection.
She hated it.
Adrien hated it more.
“No arguments,” Rebecca said.
Isabella crossed her arms.
“I am a lawyer.”
“I’m aware.”
“You cannot order me—”
“I absolutely can if you want federal resources protecting you.”
Isabella looked at Adrien.
He wisely said nothing.
She glared.
“Fine.”
They moved to a secure property outside Chicago.
For one week Adrien slept beside Isabella in a plain bedroom without family portraits or armored walls.
Strangely, it felt peaceful.
They cooked.
Badly.
Watched old movies.
Argued over baby names.
Adrien wanted Lorenzo as a middle name.
Isabella said absolutely not.
“You loved him.”
“I did.”
“He was complicated.”
“That is a diplomatic word.”
Then, on the seventh night, Isabella woke to find Adrien sitting by the window.
“What?”
He looked at her.
“I don’t know how to be a normal father.”
She sat beside him.
“Good.”
He frowned.
“Good?”
“You shouldn’t think you know.”
She took his hand.
“We learn.”
“My father taught me to shoot before he taught me to drive.”
“Then our child learns bicycles first.”
Adrien smiled.
“And if it’s a girl?”
“Still bicycles.”
He laughed softly.
His phone buzzed.
Rebecca.
Peter Donati had been found.
Not arrested.
Found.
He had walked voluntarily into a federal building in Milwaukee.
Adrien stared at the message.
“Why would he surrender?”
Isabella read it.
“Maybe he didn’t.”
Adrien looked at her.
She understood.
Peter Donati was not giving up.
He was entering the system intentionally.
Which meant he believed he could still control something from inside.
The next morning Peter requested one person.
Not Adrien.
Not Carlo.
Not Rebecca.
Eleanor Moretti.
Adrien immediately refused.
May you like
Eleanor accepted.
And nothing Adrien said could change her mind.
