Chapter 3 - THE BROTHER BURIED WITHOUT A BODY
Julian Russo had been declared dead six months earlier.
His car went through the guardrail north of Worcester during an ice storm. The vehicle burned in a ravine. Investigators found blood, one broken watch, and enough dental fragments for Dominic’s private physician to confirm identity.
Maximilian never saw a body.
Dominic said there was nothing left to see.
At the memorial, Maximilian delivered a speech about loyalty while Julian’s empty coffin rested beneath white flowers. He called his brother reckless, brilliant, and lost. He did not say traitor, but everyone heard the omission. For six months, that silence allowed Dominic’s accusation to become the family’s official memory.
Now Maximilian wondered whether Julian had survived long enough to hear what his brother refused to defend.
Julian had also been accused of stealing fourteen million dollars from Russo Maritime and feeding shipping records to federal investigators. His death allowed the family to call him both traitor and tragedy without answering either charge.
The silver ring was the problem.
Their father commissioned two matching signets when the brothers turned twenty-one. Maximilian wore his on his right hand. Julian never removed his—not while swimming, fighting, or sleeping. Yet police never recovered it from the wreck.
At dawn, Maximilian entered Clara’s guarded room with family attorney Leah Morgan. Clara had changed into dry clothes but still wore the ring under her collar.
Leah placed a recorder on the table. “This conversation is privileged only if Mr. Russo chooses to make it so.”
Clara almost laughed. “Then it isn’t privileged.”
“Fair,” Leah said, and put the recorder away.
Maximilian showed Clara a photograph of Julian. Her face betrayed her before words could.
“You knew him.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“How?”
“He came into the diner where I worked.”
“When?”
“Last spring.”
“That is not enough to explain his ring.”
Clara pressed a palm against her belly as the baby moved. “I promised him I would not tell your family anything unless he came with me.”
“He is dead.”
“That is what they told you.”
Maximilian leaned forward. “Did you see him after the crash?”
She closed her eyes.
The answer was yes.
Before she could say it, alarms sounded below. Smoke rose from the servants’ wing.
Someone had set fire to Clara’s room.
Security extinguished it quickly, but her suitcase, papers, and only winter coat were destroyed. The fire began inside a locked trunk.
Dominic called it an electrical fault.
Leah called it evidence destruction.
In the ashes, Maximilian found a half-melted photograph showing Clara beside a dark-haired man. The man’s face was burned away. His hand rested on her waist, and the Russo ring gleamed on his finger.
On the back, one handwritten line survived:
If anything happens, trust Max only after he asks who signed the harbor order.
Maximilian recognized Julian’s handwriting.
May you like
He also recognized the phrase.
Six months earlier, Maximilian himself had signed the harbor order that sent Julian into the trap where he supposedly died.
