Chapter 13 - Lorenzo refused to call private punishment justice
Geneva was cold.
Enzo disliked cold.
He disliked neutral hotels more.
Nobody saluted him.
Nobody closed restaurants when he entered.
Lorenzo arrived alone except for his attorney.
Enzo stood.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Lorenzo held out his hand.
Enzo looked at it.
Shook.
No hug.
Good.
Adelina watched from another chair.
Lorenzo had asked her to attend.
Why?
“You are the only person in this story who did not inherit either family.”
Fair.
They sat.
First hour:
birth.
Carlo Bellaforte.
Enzo’s father.
The ring.
Then inheritance.
Enzo stiffened immediately.
“Sophia is my heir.”
Lorenzo raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t ask.”
“She is my legal daughter.”
“I heard you.”
“Twenty percent is already protected for her.”
“Good.”
“You have no—”
Adelina touched Enzo’s sleeve.
He stopped.
Lorenzo smiled faintly.
“You expected me to demand your empire?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Family tradition.”
“Then your family needs better traditions.”
Adelina liked him.
Dangerous.
Lorenzo’s position was simple.
He wanted access to accurate birth records.
Medical history.
Information about his biological parents.
If a personal inheritance legally belonged to him from their father, attorneys could handle it.
He did not want a syndicate seat.
No territory.
No title.
No challenge to Sophia.
Then:
“I want Julian transferred to lawful custody.”
Enzo leaned back.
“Not your decision.”
“No.”
“But if you want a relationship with me, it matters.”
Enzo’s face hardened.
“That sounds like a condition.”
“It is.”
Silence.
Lorenzo continued:
“You say family took me.”
“Your father hid the truth.”
“Julian apparently interfered when I searched.”
“Then when Julian commits murder, your answer is another hidden room?”
“He would have corrupted court.”
“Maybe.”
“Then document evidence and protect the process.”
“You’re a lawyer.”
“Yes.”
“That is not insult.”
“Today it is.”
Adelina nearly laughed.
Then Lorenzo said:
“If Julian dies inside your custody, what does history say?”
“That Enzo Castellano punished his brother?”
“Or that Enzo Castellano silenced the one person who knew how much of your family system was corrupt?”
That landed.
Enzo went still.
He had never considered how private justice looked outside the room.
Then Adelina spoke.
“Matteo deserves a public record.”
Enzo turned.
She continued:
“Your council cleared his name.”
“To you.”
“To us.”
“But official records still say highway accident.”
“The pension record still says administrative termination.”
“Sophia will someday ask what happened to her father.”
“I don’t want to tell her the people responsible disappeared into Castellano rooms.”
Enzo looked away.
There.
Sophia again.
But this time not as savior.
As future adult who deserved a history that could survive independent scrutiny.
Enzo asked Lorenzo:
“You think courts are clean?”
“No.”
“You think police are clean?”
“No.”
“Then why trust them?”
“I don’t.”
“I trust procedures that do not depend entirely on one man’s anger.”
Enzo hated how reasonable that sounded.
Back in Rome, he met with outside criminal counsel.
Not council elders.
Actual counsel.
They reviewed:
Matteo’s drive.
Bank evidence.
Toxin-9 purchase records.
Marco’s statements.
Delphine’s confession.
Julian’s conduct.
Possible witness safety.
Then law enforcement was contacted through a controlled surrender arrangement.
No surprise raid.
No shootout.
Julian was transferred alive.
Marco too.
Delphine had already been cooperating under separate guard and was transferred as well.
The council hated it.
One elder said:
“We handle our own.”
Enzo replied:
“That sentence created Julian.”
Silence.
Not total reform.
Yet.
But something had moved.
Then the prosecutor asked a question Enzo did not expect.
“The toxin exposure began eight to ten months before Delphine started work.”
“Yes.”
“Who administered the earlier doses?”
Enzo froze.
Everyone had treated Delphine as the poisoner.
She had poisoned the final cup.
But she had been in the house three weeks.
Someone else had been feeding Enzo poison long before she arrived.
The prosecutor opened a procurement record.
Eight months of medical supplements delivered to Enzo’s private suite.
Supplier:
Vanguard Wellness Services.
Same Vanguard network that paid Delphine.
Enzo looked at Adelina.
Julian’s plot had one final operational layer still inside the estate.
And unlike Julian—
May you like
that person had never been removed.
👉 Moving Julian into lawful custody finally gave Matteo’s case a public path forward—but investigators immediately exposed the gap everyone had missed: Delphine could not have administered the first eight months of poison.
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