Chapter 2
I let Javier breathe.
Not because he deserved mercy.
Because I needed him alive enough to answer.
Sofia pulled Leo into her arms.
My son was shaking so hard his teeth clicked.
I wanted to run to him.
I wanted to kneel and hold his face and tell him no one would ever touch him again.
But Javier had just crossed a line that men in my world did not cross by accident.
And my dead wife had left me a warning.
“Who gave Leo that notebook?” I asked.
No one answered.
The garden was full of men who suddenly found the ground interesting.
I looked at my head guard, Marco.
“Lock the gates.”
Marco moved immediately.
Javier tried to lift his head.
“Dante, listen to me.”
I crouched beside him.
“Speak carefully.”
“Elena was sick before she died,” he said. “She wrote strange things.”
Sofia snapped, “Don’t you dare.”
Javier ignored her.
“She was paranoid. Everyone knew it.”
I looked at Leo.
His small hand was wrapped around the notebook like it was alive.
“Leo,” I said softly. “Where did you find it?”
He looked at Javier and flinched.
That flinch told me more than words.
“Son,” I said. “Look at me.”
Leo’s eyes found mine.
“In the old greenhouse,” he whispered. “Behind Mom’s lemon tree.”
Javier closed his eyes.
The old greenhouse had been Elena’s place.
After she died, I locked it.
I could not bear to smell her herbs, see her gloves, touch the soil she had loved.
Someone had opened it.
Someone had searched it.
Someone had missed the notebook until my son found it.
I stood.
“Take Javier inside.”
Two guards lifted him.
He fought then.
Not like a proud man.
Like a trapped one.
“You don’t understand!” he shouted. “She was going to destroy everything!”
I turned slowly.
“What did Elena know?”
Javier stopped.
The silence around us tightened.
Then Leo whispered, “Dad.”
I went to him.
His knees were green from grass. His cheek was dirty. His eyes were wet.
He opened the notebook to the last page.
There was a photograph tucked inside.
Elena standing beside Javier.
Behind them, a man I had buried two years ago.
My father.
And on the back, Elena had written:
They are planning to replace Dante before Leo turns nine.
May you like
My son looked up at me.
“My birthday is next week.”
