Chapter 9 - The Boathouse
By sunrise, half the Bellandi boathouse had collapsed into the lake.
Nico stood on the shore watching firefighters pull smoking timber from the water.
Rafe came beside him.
“This wasn't random.”
Nico said nothing.
“They knew exactly where to look.”
Nico finally turned.
“Only people in the ballroom saw the microfilm.”
Rafe nodded.
“That means Sofia still has someone inside our group.”
Nico looked toward Marcella.
She stood beside Dante beneath the trees.
“Her?”
“Maybe.”
Nico hated that he still couldn't dismiss the possibility.
Rafe continued.
“Or Isabella.”
Nico looked toward his mother.
Isabella was speaking quietly to an investigator.
“Or you.”
Rafe's face hardened.
Nico stared at him.
“I don't want to suspect you.”
“But?”
“Elena apparently trusted no one.”
Rafe nodded.
“She was right.”
Nico looked toward the ruins.
“Did you love her?”
Rafe did not answer immediately.
Nico looked at him.
“It's a simple question.”
“No.”
Rafe's voice remained calm.
“I loved what she did for you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You were unbearable before Elena.”
Despite everything, Nico almost smiled.
Rafe continued.
“She made you human.”
“I respected her.”
“I protected her when I could.”
Nico studied him.
“And when you couldn't?”
Rafe looked toward the lake.
“I failed.”
The word echoed Marcella.
Nico was tired of people failing Elena.
He walked toward the burned structure.
A firefighter stopped him.
“Unsafe.”
Nico looked through the wreckage.
The far wall remained intact.
He remembered where he had proposed.
Not inside the boathouse.
Under it.
The old pier.
He turned toward Rafe.
“Get divers.”
Thirty minutes later, a diver surfaced holding a rusted metal cylinder.
Nico recognized it.
He had hidden the engagement ring inside that cylinder twelve years earlier.
Elena had teased him for weeks because his proposal had involved a container that looked like plumbing equipment.
The cylinder was sealed.
Nico opened it.
Inside was a waterproof envelope.
The original clinic documentation remained intact.
So did a handwritten letter from Elena.
Nico sat on the dock.
He read.
Nico, if you have reached this place, then you already know our daughter is in danger because of something neither of us chose for her.
Nico blinked hard.
Vivia is yours.
She has always been yours.
I hid the original records because your father asked me to protect the trust until he could dismantle the council.
I hated lying to you.
I believed it would be temporary.
Nico closed his eyes.
Elena had kept something enormous from him.
He felt betrayed.
Then immediately ashamed for feeling betrayed by a woman who had died trying to protect their child.
He continued.
There is one thing I never told Salvatore.
Nico stopped.
Rafe watched him.
“What?”
Nico kept reading.
The trust was not the reason I kept investigating.
I discovered someone had been changing your medication.
Nico frowned.
The headaches.
The memory gaps.
The nights you woke exhausted.
Those were not stress.
Nico looked at Rafe.
“Medication?”
Rafe frowned.
“You weren't on medication.”
“I took tablets for migraines.”
“Elena made you stop.”
Nico remembered.
Three months before she died, Elena had suddenly thrown an entire bottle into the trash.
They had argued.
She refused to explain.
Nico continued reading.
I tested two tablets.
They contained a sedative not listed on the prescription.
Someone wanted you confused and dependent.
I believed Marcella was responsible.
I was wrong.
Nico's stomach tightened.
Your mother arranged the prescription.
Nico looked toward Isabella.
She was still speaking with investigators.
He kept reading.
But Isabella was not trying to remove you from Bellandi Industries.
She was trying to protect you from something Salvatore wrote into the original council charter.
Nico frowned.
If the Bellandi heir discovered the illegal network and attempted to expose it, the council had authority to declare him medically unstable and transfer control.
Nico remembered the documents he had signed while drugged.
Everything connected.
Your mother drugged you because she wanted the council to believe she could control you.
I confronted her.
She begged me to stop investigating.
I refused.
Then came the final paragraph.
If Isabella tells you she was protecting you, believe half of it.
She loves you.
But she loves the Bellandi name more.
Nico folded the letter.
He walked directly toward Isabella.
His mother saw his expression.
“You found it.”
“You drugged me.”
Isabella did not deny it.
Marcella turned.
“What?”
Nico handed her Elena's letter.
Isabella did not read it.
“She understood eventually.”
“You poisoned your own son.”
“I sedated you.”
“Don't clean the word.”
Isabella's face hardened.
“I kept you alive.”
“You helped them declare me unstable.”
“I prevented Sofia from ordering something permanent.”
Nico stared.
“You want gratitude?”
“No.”
“For once, I want you to understand the world your father created.”
“He created it with Sofia.”
“Yes.”
“And you helped protect it.”
“Yes.”
Nico shook his head.
“Then maybe it deserves to burn.”
Isabella's expression changed.
“You cannot destroy Bellandi Industries.”
“I can.”
“Thousands of people depend on it.”
“Then we rebuild what is legitimate.”
“You sound exactly like Elena.”
“Good.”
Isabella slapped him.
The entire shore went silent.
Nico slowly turned his face back.
He did not retaliate.
Vivia's words echoed in him.
Hitting people makes lies louder.
Nico looked at his mother.
“You just answered every question I still had about you.”
Isabella's hand began trembling.
Nico turned away.
Then an investigator shouted.
“Mr. Bellandi.”
Nico looked back.
The investigator held a laptop.
“We found something inside the cylinder.”
“A memory card?”
“No.”
“A tracker.”
Rafe frowned.
“Active?”
“It transmitted the moment the cylinder opened.”
Nico looked around.
“Who received the signal?”
The investigator typed.
His face changed.
“That's strange.”
“What?”
“The receiver is nearby.”
“How nearby?”
The investigator looked toward the lake.
“Less than two hundred meters.”
Everyone turned.
A white motorboat floated offshore.
A man stood at the wheel.
Nico recognized him.
Adrian Voss.
The supposed ally Elena trusted.
Voss raised a phone.
Nico's phone rang.
He answered.
Voss spoke.
“Now I know you found the certificate.”
Nico stared across the water.
“You helped Elena.”
“I helped myself.”
Nico's expression hardened.
“What do you want?”
Voss laughed softly.
“The same thing everyone in your family wants.”
“Control.”
The motorboat accelerated away.
May you like
Voss shouted his final words through the phone.
“And before you decide who the villain is, Nico, ask Isabella who actually gave Corrado the order to kill Elena.”
