PART 2
**The Brother in the Frame**

The drive burned against my palm like a live wire as Elena slipped out of the room, her simple heels whispering down the corridor. I kept my face blank, eyes glᴀssy, the way a man who had just been sH๏τ at would. Marco’s voice carried from the hallway, already ordering fresh coffee and pretending the world hadn’t just cracked open.

But inside, everything had.

My brother.

Four years ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. Buried in the Moretti family plot like a loyal soldier who’d gone missing in action. The lie my uncle had told the world. The lie Marco had helped maintain by sleeping with my former mistress in the hospital cafeteria and then disappearing for two days the moment the doctors confirmed I was “stable.”

I closed my fingers тιԍнтer around the flash drive.

Marco stepped back in, smiling the same loyal smile he’d worn since we were kids. “Boss, you look like hell. Want me to have the chef send you something light?”

I laughed once, soft and broken. “Light? I feel like I got hit by a truck.”

His eyes flicked to the blank monitor on my IV stand. The one I’d made sure was aimed away from the door. The one that showed nothing but static because I had long since deleted every second of footage—except the one Elena had copied in thirty seconds flat.

He pulled up a chair, close enough that I could smell the cologne he’d stolen from my father’s funeral. “You scared us, Vincent. Real bad. The whole family’s on edge. But you’re alive. That’s what matters.”

I let my head tilt like I was still struggling to remember. “Marco… you were right by the door before the glᴀss broke. I saw you on the security feed.”

His smile didn’t falter. But his hand тιԍнтened around the armrest until the knuckles went white. “Yeah. I was checking the kitchen staff. You know how paranoid I get.”

I watched the lie settle over his face like fresh paint. Perfect. A guilty man would relax. A guilty man would get sloppy.

“Relax,” I said quietly. “You did good.”

He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for two days. “You’re not mad?”

I shook my head. “Of course not. You’re family.”

He stood, already turning to leave. That was when the real twist hit me like a second bullet.

His phone rang. He stepped into the hallway to take it—standard procedure. The door clicked shut behind him.

I waited exactly seven seconds. Then I bolted upright, ripped the IV out, and limped down the corridor in nothing but my hospital gown and bare feet. The nurses gasped. I ignored them.

The security room was three doors down. I slammed the door open, heart hammering so hard I tasted blood.

Marco was already at the keyboard, dragging a new hard drive across the desk. “Boss? What the hell are you doing out of bed?”

I didn’t answer. I ripped the flash drive from his hand. His eyes widened for half a second—long enough for me to see the exact moment he realized I wasn’t the amnesiac I pretended to be.

“You copied everything,” I said, voice low and ᴅᴇᴀᴅly. “Before you erased the real one.”

He lunged. I side-stepped, slammed his head into the desk, and pinned him there with my knee on his spine.

“Elena,” I growled. “Where is she?”

He laughed through the blood in his mouth. “ᴅᴇᴀᴅ. Got hit in the crossfire. That’s why she’s not here. She was just trying to get close to you. Stupid.”

My vision tunneled red.

But then I saw it.

The small pH๏τo on his desk. Taken the night of the shooting. Marco and my brother—Nico—standing shoulder to shoulder outside the restaurant, both holding identical earpieces. Same height. Same build. Same scar on the left eyebrow. Someone had spliced the footage to make them look like the same man.

I didn’t need to watch the video.

I already knew.

Nico hadn’t died.

Nico had been the inside man.

The one who had fed me false intel for two years. The one who had stood beside Marco the night the lights died. The one who had smiled at my funeral.

And Marco had killed him too.

Because the real target hadn’t been me.

It had been my brother all along.

The bullet I’d let graze my temple? It was meant for Nico.

The amnesiac act? I’d used it to keep Marco comfortable while I stole back everything he thought he’d erased.

I reached for the phone on the desk.

“Security,” I said into it, voice calm for the first time since I woke up. “Bring me the full unedited feed. And call Uncle Vito. Tell him the prodigal son just came home.”

Marco’s face went gray.

I smiled down at him.

“Welcome to the rest of your life, Marco. Because the Moretti family just got a new boss.”

And somewhere in the city, my real brother—alive, furious, and waiting—had just received the first encrypted message from a burner I’d kept since 2008.

The game wasn’t over.

It had only just revealed the last two players.

And the bullet I’d missed? It had always been aimed at the man who taught me how to miss.

Now the real war was about to begin.

And I was no longer pretending to be helpless.