The ride back to the penthouse was filled with an uncomfortable silence. The sun was rising, casting soft pink and orange hues across the sky, a beautiful dawn for a world that had become disturbingly ugly. Dante's life had not just been cracked; it had been destroyed. The woman who had provided him with warmth and comfort throughout his life was connected to his parents' murder.
We entered the penthouse. The smell of fresh coffee and baking bread filled the air. Elara was in the kitchen, humming a familiar tune while skillfully kneading dough. The scene felt too normal, too peaceful, almost like a violent contradiction.
She turned toward us as we walked in, a gentle smile on her face. "Good morning, children. You're up early. I'm making your favorite…" Her voice trailed off. Her smile vanished as she noticed our expressions—Dante's face was a mask of cold, shattered grief, while mine reflected pity and horror. She understood immediately. After nineteen years of waiting for the worst, it had finally arrived.
The wooden rolling pin slipped from her hands and crashed onto the marble floor. She sank onto a kitchen stool, appearing smaller, weakened, as if all her strength had been drained. The fight was over.
"Mateo," Dante said, just that one word. It conveyed accusation, inquiry, and deep sorrow all at once.
A sob escaped from Elara's chest, a sound filled with pure, bottomless anguish. After nearly twenty years, her silence had finally shattered.
"He was a good boy," she wept, her words flowing with long-suppressed pain. "My Mateo. He had just started as head of security for the night shift. He was so proud to work for your father."
She gazed at Dante, her eyes pleading for understanding that he might not have. "That night… he was in the wrong place. He heard the argument in the study. He tried to intervene. He was a good boy."
She took a shaky breath, trapped in the horror of the memory. "They didn't mean to kill him. Valerius just wanted him quiet. But his men… they were like animals. They beat him until he stopped moving and then threw him in a service closet. They thought he was dead."
Dante stood motionless, his hands clenched into tight fists, absorbing the tale of horror that had unfolded in his own home.
"Valerius found me the next day," Elara continued, her voice flat. "He took me to St. Jude's. He showed me Mateo, connected to all those machines. He offered me a choice. A mother's choice. Tell the police what I knew my son had seen, and Mateo's life support would be cut off. A tragic casualty of the robbery. Or I could stay silent. I could work for Dante, watch over him and Aria, and in exchange, Valerius would pay for Mateo's care for the rest of his life."
She looked at him, her face a mess of tears and shame. "What could I do? He was my son. My only child. I chose my son. I would choose him again."
Her confession was complete. It told the story of a woman faced with an impossible decision, a story of love and fear, not greed or betrayal. Dante's simmering rage began to dissipate, replaced by a deep, hollow grief. He was mourning not only for his parents, but also for Elara, for Mateo, and for the corruption that had invaded his home.
"Did you see who did it?" Dante asked quietly, his tone neutral.
"No," she whispered. "But Mateo… in the first year, before he… before he went quiet… he had moments. He would wake up screaming, repeating the same thing over and over."
She closed her eyes tightly, recalling the words from a nightmare. "He said, 'The serpent was in the garden. The serpent was eating its own tail.'"
My heart stopped. The Ouroboros.
Elara opened her eyes. "I never understood what it meant. It was just the fevered dream of a broken boy. But I never forgot it."
It wasn't a dream. It was the key. Valerius wasn't the root of the problem. He was just a pawn. The real enemy was a shadowy organization powerful enough to silence a Moretti, and it was still out there.
Dante looked at me, a new, terrible determination hardening in his eyes. Their enemy was no longer a business rival. It was a ghost. And the only person who had seen its face was a witness who could not speak, a man kept alive by the very silence that had ruined all of their lives.