Chapter 8
Now, as they crossed the bridge, she watched Manhattan recede behind them.
Alessandro sat beside her.
Neither spoke for several minutes.
Finally he said, “I’m going to the house tonight.”
“What for?”
“To remove the cameras inside.”
Genevieve turned.
“All of them?”
“Anything that isn’t necessary for exterior security.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
“Why are you?”
He looked out the window.
“Because I walked into the foyer yesterday and saw the house the way you must have seen it.”
Genevieve said nothing.
“I thought security was invisible once you got used to it.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I know.”
She looked down at Lucia.
“You loved that house.”
“I still do.”
“And you’re changing it?”
“Yes.”
“For me?”
Alessandro considered.
“For whoever lives there next.”
She looked at him.
He did not say when you come home.
He did not say our daughter.
He did not make the future sound decided.
That mattered.
The Brooklyn apartment was on a quiet tree-lined street in Cobble Hill.
Three bedrooms.
Warm wooden floors.
Tall windows.
A small kitchen with green cabinets.
Genevieve had chosen it because nothing about it resembled Southampton.
No gates.
No marble.
No guards.
Just families walking dogs, delivery bicycles, and someone practicing piano badly in the building across the street.
Alessandro carried Lucia’s bags upstairs.
He stopped in the nursery doorway.
A wooden crib stood beneath the window.
Paper stars hung from the ceiling.
A small bookcase held children’s books.
On the wall was a framed print of the moon.
“You did all this?”
Genevieve stood behind him.
“Mostly.”
He looked at the rocking chair.
“You planned everything.”
“I tried.”
He turned.
“You were alone.”
“I had Claire.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
Genevieve looked away.
“No.”
Alessandro set down the bags.
“I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes.
“Please don’t apologize for everything.”
“Why?”
“Because then it becomes another way to avoid understanding specific things.”
He nodded slowly.
“That sounds like something a therapist would say.”
“It is.”
He blinked.
“You’ve been seeing someone?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Five months.”
He looked surprised.
Then thoughtful.
“Is it helping?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Genevieve stared at him.
“What?”
“You didn’t ask who.”
“Should I?”
“No.”
“Then I’m learning.”
She smiled.
Lucia made a soft sound from the carrier.
Both parents turned immediately.
Genevieve laughed.
“This is going to be exhausting.”
Alessandro looked at their daughter.
“I’m beginning to understand why people look tired in every newborn photograph.”
A knock came at the door.
Genevieve froze.
Alessandro noticed.
He did not move toward it.
“Are you expecting someone?”
“No.”
Another knock.
Gentle.
Not urgent.
Mateo called from the hallway.
“It’s me.”
Genevieve relaxed.
Alessandro opened the door.
Mateo stood outside holding an envelope.
His expression was different.
Less playful.
“I found Daniel Voss.”
Alessandro glanced toward Genevieve.
“Already?”
“He wasn’t hiding.”
“Where is he?”
“New Haven.”
Mateo handed him the envelope.
“He agreed to speak with us tomorrow.”
Genevieve stepped closer.
“What’s that?”
Mateo looked at her.
“He asked me to give this to Alessandro before the meeting.”
Alessandro opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
A recent one.
Two men stood outside a small café somewhere near the water.
Daniel Voss was on the left.
Older than Alessandro remembered.
Gray at the temples.
Beside him stood another man.
Lean.
Dark-haired.
Smiling.
Alessandro stopped breathing.
Genevieve whispered, “Is that—?”
“Yes.”
Mateo nodded.
“Nico.”
Alessandro stared at the photograph.
His brother was alive.
Older.
Different.
But unmistakably alive.
On the back was a handwritten date.
Three months ago.
Beneath it, one sentence.
Alessandro read it twice before he could speak.
Genevieve touched his arm.
“What does it say?”
He turned the photograph over.
Mateo had already read it.
His face remained solemn.
Genevieve took the picture.
The handwriting was neat.
If Alessandro is finally ready to hear why I left, tell him to ask who changed the beneficiary documents after our mother died.
Genevieve looked up.
“What beneficiary documents?”
Alessandro’s face had gone pale.
Mateo said nothing.
Genevieve looked between them.
“What is it?”
Alessandro slowly sat down.
“My mother created a trust before she died.”
“For you and Nico?”
“For both of us.”
“What happened to it?”
Alessandro stared at the photograph of his brother.
“I inherited everything.”
Genevieve frowned.
“And Nico?”
“Nothing.”
The apartment seemed suddenly very quiet.
Lucia slept peacefully in the next room.
Outside, someone laughed on the sidewalk below.
Genevieve sat across from Alessandro.
“You thought your mother cut him out?”
“Yes.”
“Did Nico believe that?”
Alessandro looked at the message again.
“I don’t know.”
Mateo stepped toward the window.
“I think we may have been asking the wrong question.”
Genevieve looked at him.
“What question?”
Mateo turned.
“We’ve been asking why Nico disappeared.”
His eyes moved to the photograph.
“Maybe we should be asking what he discovered before he left.”
Alessandro stared at his brother’s face.
For five years, he had carried anger toward Nico because anger had been easier than admitting he missed him.
For seven months, he had searched for Genevieve while refusing to consider that she might have chosen distance for reasons he did not understand.
Now both absences seemed connected by the same uncomfortable possibility.
People had not left because Alessandro meant nothing to them.
They might have left because something inside his family had made staying impossible.
He looked toward the nursery.
Genevieve followed his gaze.
Then he said quietly, “Tomorrow, I want to hear everything.”
She studied him.
“Even if you don’t like what you hear?”
Alessandro looked at the photograph one last time.
“Yes.”
For once, the answer required no force.
No plan.
No control.
May you like
Only the willingness to discover that the story he had lived inside for years might not have been the truth.
And somewhere in New Haven, a man Alessandro had once called brother was finally waiting to tell him why.
