My Fiancée Claimed My Sister Ran Away Years Ago—Then I Found Her Bracelet Beside a Hidden Trapdoor in My Own Mansion.

Victor stared at the signature. The loops of the 'H' and the sharp cross of the 't' were identical to the letters his mother used to leave on his bedside table before she passed away.

"This is impossible," Victor said, his voice flat and dangerous. "My mother died in a car crash on Route 9. I identified the body. I stood over her casket."

"Did you look inside the casket, Victor?" Dr. Marcus asked in a broken whisper. "Or did Salvatore tell you it was closed-casket because the fire damaged her remains too badly?"

Victor’s memory flashed back twelve years. The heavy mahogany coffin. The scent of white lilies. Salvatore's hand gripping his shoulder with crushing force, saying: *A boss does not look upon ruin, Victor. Remember her as she was.*

"What did you do, Paul?" Victor demanded, stepping around the desk and gripping the collar of the doctor’s lab coat.

"Salvatore ordered it!" Marcus cried, squeezing his eyes shut. "He paid the mortician half a million dollars to seal an empty vault. Your mother was put on a private medical jet to Europe that very night."

Victor pulled the doctor up until the man was on his tiptoes. "Why would my father fake his own wife’s death?"

"Because she tried to run away with your sister!" Marcus gasped. "Helena found out who you really were. She knew that once Salvatore died, the syndicate would devour you if the bloodline truth came out. Salvatore couldn't kill her—he loved her too much, in his own twisted way—so he erased her. He put her under twenty-four-hour guard in a private facility overseas."

"And Father Thomas?" Victor growled.

"Father Thomas was the only outside witness who knew the trust account was still active in Helena’s name," Marcus said. "Someone found out Thomas was going to talk to you. They didn't push him down the stairs to hide a secret from thirty years ago, Victor. They did it because Thomas received a letter from Boston last week. A letter signed by Helena."

Victor let go of the doctor’s coat. Marcus collapsed back into his chair, gasping for breath.

Victor pulled out his phone and dialed Luca. "Bring the car around to the front. We’re going to the cemetery."

"Boss? It's pouring rain—"

"Now, Luca."

Victor left the clinic without another word. Twenty minutes later, headlights cut through the torrential rain outside the Bellandi family mausoleum at Holy Cross Cemetery. Victor took a heavy iron pry bar from the trunk of the sedan, stepped into the marble tomb, and walked up to Helena Bellandi's crypt.

With three brutal strikes, he jammed the bar into the seal and hauled back.

The heavy marble slab cracked loose and crashed onto the floor with a hollow boom.

Victor reached inside with his flashlight.