And then, he speaks.
"Maria, if you're seeing this, it means things have gone exactly the way I feared."
His voice islower than I expected.Urgent. Weighted.
Maria.
My mother.
I tighten my grip on the desk. I was meant to come to this house, but this wasn’t meant for me. He’s talking to her, not me.He never thought I would be the one watching this.
"I don’t know how much time I have or if I’ll even make it back to you.” He looks down, his shouldersslumpinglike he already knows the answer. “But listen to me carefully. Everything we thought we knew, everything we’ve been fighting for, was a lie."
Bria mutters under her breath."Always a damn lie."
I ignore her. I can’t look away from the screen.
"For years, I believed the Donati’s were our greatest threat. That every move against us came from them. I was wrong."
I stop breathing as Bria grabs my hand in surprise, hearing her last name.
No. No, no, no.
"It was never the Donati’s. Never them. We were always fighting the wrong war. And now, I see it too late."
Bria swears loudly.
The wordscrash into me like a train.
My father exhales, dragging a hand through his graying hair.His mask cracks, just for a moment.
"The Caputo family," he says. "They have been playing both sides, pitting us against each other. Manipulating, twisting, turning us into enemies while they sat back and waited for us to kill each other."
Mystomach drops as I pause it. “How was my mom supposed to get this address? From you?”
Eleanor frowns, “It was urgent, once he recorded this he left instructions for me to overnight ship it, I never saw him again.” She’s thinking, decades have passed since she saw the mailing address. “The Donati name sounds familiar. May have been them.”
Bria and I stare at each other in horror, knowing that this information should have been discovered long ago, but somehow, and I suspect the Caputo’s had something to do with it, interfered.
The truth settles into my skin like ice, spreading, freezing every inch of me.
Zeik’s familywanted the war to continue. Because the longer we fought, the weaker we both became.
And now?
They’re in theperfect positionto wipe us all out.
My father’s face isstrained, his voice rough. "I don’t know if I can stop them. But I know one thing, if anything happens to me, you cannot trust anyone. The moment you start looking for answers, they will come for you too."
My throat closes.
I want to reach through the screen.To warn him.To tell him wealready knowhow his story ends.
But then, something moves in thebackground. Awoman steps into the frame.
Briagasps so loudly that I flinch.
Iwhip my head toward her. "What?"
