PART 2: THE SECRET LEO WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO FIND

Dante couldn’t speak.

For six years, he had believed Leo’s mother was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.

He had watched his son grow up without her.

And now an eight-year-old boy was telling him the impossible.

“Leo,” Dante said quietly, “who told you your mother is alive?”

Leo looked toward Javier.

“He did.”

Dante turned.

Javier finally spoke.

“I never meant for the boy to find out.”

“Find out what?”

Javier’s eyes dropped.

“The accident six years ago wasn’t an accident.”

Dante’s expression hardened.

“What are you saying?”

Javier explained that Leo’s mother had survived the crash.

She had been taken somewhere safe after someone tried to kill her.

But before she could return, she discovered a secret involving Dante’s organization.

She disappeared to protect Leo.

Dante stared at the flash drive.

“And what’s on this?”

Javier shook his head.

“Everything.”

Dante plugged the drive into his phone.

A video appeared.

Leo’s mother was sitting in a dimly lit room.

She looked older, frightened, but unmistakably alive.

Dante’s breath caught.

She looked directly into the camera.

“If you’re watching this, Leo must have found the drive.”

Dante’s hands began trembling.

“I need you to listen carefully.”

She paused.

“Don’t trust Javier.”

Javier closed his eyes.

Dante turned toward him.

But the video continued.

“Don’t trust anyone in the Romano family.”

Dante froze.

Then his mother’s voice became softer.

“The person who ordered my disappearance wasn’t your enemy.”

A long pause.

“It was someone you call family.”

Dante stared at the screen.

Leo moved closer to him.

“Dad… who is she talking about?”

Before Dante could answer, the video revealed a pH๏τograph.

It showed Leo’s mother standing beside a man.

Dante recognized him immediately.

His own father.

A man who had supposedly died twelve years earlier.

Dante dropped the phone.

Javier whispered:

“He’s alive.”

Then the lights across the garden suddenly went out.

A single gunsH๏τ echoed from the house.

Dante grabbed Leo and pulled him behind him.

From somewhere in the darkness came a familiar voice:

“It’s time my grandson came home.”