Chapter 7 - Chloe's Brother
Chloe tried to return to normal.
Il Canto refused.
Customers recognized her from a leaked phone video someone had taken at the dinner.
WAITRESS SIGNS TO COSTELLO MATRIARCH.
Nobody knew the rest.
Good.
Marco moved Chloe off VIP rooms temporarily.
Not punishment.
Safety.
She accepted.
Then Gabriel came into the main dining room alone.
Every employee became busy at once.
Chloe approached.
"Table for one?"
"Apparently."
"Tragic."
He almost smiled.
He signed:
COFFEE.
Wrong handshape.
She corrected him.
He tried again.
Better.
Then he signed:
THANK YOU.
"For what?"
He spoke.
"For humiliating me in front of my mother."
"You're welcome."
He looked down.
Then:
"And for not making her dependent on you after."
Chloe understood.
People often treated fluency as ownership of access.
She had learned that from Leo.
"My brother hated when teachers called me his voice."
Gabriel nodded.
"What did he want them to call you?"
"Chloe."
That answer stayed with him.
He asked about Leo.
She told him only what she wanted.
Leo was twenty-two.
Funny.
Obsessed with old horror movies.
Killed by a drunk driver who ran a red light.
No conspiracy.
No Costello connection.
Sometimes tragedy was simply tragedy.
Gabriel looked almost relieved by the lack of connection.
Chloe noticed.
"You expected my brother's death to somehow involve your family?"
"I've had a strange month."
"That's not how grief works."
"No."
She poured coffee.
Then said:
"Your mother told me you stopped going to her audiology appointments."
His eyes narrowed.
"She talks about me?"
"Constantly."
"What does she say?"
"Confidential."
He sighed.
Chloe continued.
"She says after your father died, you hired more people instead of showing up."
Gabriel looked out the window.
"I thought competence was care."
"Sometimes it is."
He looked at her.
"Not always."
"No."
That evening Beatrice invited Chloe to her apartment.
Not the Costello mansion.
Her own condo overlooking the lake.
Independent.
Beatrice showed Chloe old photographs.
Salvatore cooking.
Gabriel at ten.
Gabriel at twenty.
Then one photograph of Dominic holding toddler Gabriel on his shoulders.
Chloe understood something.
Dominic was not a random traitor.
He was family without the name.
Beatrice signed:
That is why Gabriel will try to hate him.
Chloe frowned.
Wouldn't you?
Beatrice shook her head.
Hate is easy. Grief is work.
Chloe stared.
Beatrice pointed at Leo's small memorial bracelet on Chloe's wrist.
Your brother?
Chloe nodded.
Beatrice signed:
You still talk to him?
Sometimes.
Good.
Then Beatrice signed something unexpected.
Dominic loved Salvatore.
Chloe blinked.
Then why?
Beatrice's answer:
Because love without honesty becomes worship.
Dominic believed Salvatore's attempt to dismantle the organization was weakness.
He told himself he was preserving Salvatore's true legacy.
Gabriel had done something similar with Dominic's lie.
Both men turned a dead man's complexity into a command.
Then Beatrice handed Chloe a sealed envelope.
For Gabriel.
Chloe shook her head.
No.
Beatrice raised an eyebrow.
Chloe signed:
You have your own hands.
Beatrice smiled.
The next morning, she delivered it herself.
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