Chapter 6 - THE FATHER IN THE BLACK SUIT
Enzo admitted the payment.
He had ordered Russo to bring Sofia home, not kill her. She had taken the twins to the lake house after discovering the weapons scheme and refused to tell Enzo where the evidence was. Enzo believed she intended to leave him.
“You sent an armed man after a frightened mother,” Andrea said.
“I sent my security chief to protect my family.”
“You sent someone she feared because you wanted obedience.”
Enzo had no answer.
The distinction mattered legally. It did not matter to the children who saw a Moretti vehicle arrive moments before their world exploded.
Federal agents temporarily removed Enzo’s weapons and restricted his contact with witnesses. Matteo used the order to renew his guardianship petition. He argued the twins feared Enzo because Enzo caused the attack.
For the first time, Leo’s terror when his father gave commands made sense. He did not necessarily believe Enzo lit the fire. He believed his father’s orders brought danger.
Andrea refused to teach the boys that Enzo was safe before he proved it through behavior. Enzo hated that. He also listened.
He stopped ordering Leo to stand. He sat on the playroom floor and waited. For six nights, neither child approached him.
On the seventh, Luca rolled a blue Lego across the marble. Enzo rolled it back.
Matteo’s legal team released the payment record to the press. Headlines called Enzo a wife killer. Marino Shipping’s board suspended him, leaving Matteo as acting chairman.
Within twenty-four hours, Matteo ordered the destruction of archived vehicle-maintenance logs.
Mrs. Whitaker knew one duplicate set existed in the mansion’s old boiler room. She, Andrea, and federal agents reached it first.
The records showed the security vehicle had been removed from service two days before the explosion.
The employee who signed it out was Dr. Paul Voss.
When agents searched Voss’s clinic, they found the sedative prescribed to the twins—and Sofia’s blood on an emergency medical bag.
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Voss had treated her after the explosion.
Which meant Sofia had survived long enough to leave the lake house.
