Chapter 4 - The Man Inside the House
Santiago did not confront Matteo.
That was the hardest thing he had done in years.
Every instinct told him to drive straight back to the mansion, lock his uncle in the basement office, and demand answers.
Ruby stopped him with one sentence.
“If Sophia was afraid enough to stay silent for seven years, maybe stop proving she was right to be afraid.”
He hated the sentence.
Mostly because it was fair.
They returned through the service entrance after midnight.
Santiago dismissed everyone from the west hall except Tomas.
Ruby followed him upstairs.
Sophia was waiting on the floor of her room.
The blue curtains were gone.
Green ones lay folded on the bed.
Santiago noticed and said nothing.
Sophia looked at Ruby first.
Then him.
Her hands moved.
Ruby translated.
“She says lock the door.”
Santiago did.
Sophia signed again.
“Turn off the camera.”
Santiago looked toward the ceiling corner.
“There is no camera in here.”
Sophia stared at him.
Then pointed toward the smoke detector.
Tomas climbed onto a chair.
He twisted the detector free.
Behind it sat a lens no larger than a shirt button.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Santiago’s face became unreadable.
Tomas whispered, “That’s not ours.”
Ruby looked at Sophia.
“How long?”
Sophia held up seven fingers.
Santiago’s stomach turned.
Seven years.
He crouched in front of her.
“Who installed it?”
She signed one name.
Matteo.
Santiago looked at Ruby.
“Ask her why.”
Ruby did not need to.
Sophia was already signing.
“She says after our father died, Matteo told her she was sick.”
Santiago’s jaw tightened.
“He told her people would believe him because she was twelve and terrified.”
Sophia stopped.
Her hands began to shake.
Ruby reached toward her, then paused.
Sophia nodded.
Ruby took her hand.
Santiago watched the permission pass between them.
Such a small thing.
Ask before touching.
He had forgotten how much of Sophia’s life had been decided without asking.
“What happened the night Dad died?” he asked.
Sophia froze.
Ruby looked at Santiago.
“Too fast.”
“I need to know.”
“She needs to choose.”
Santiago closed his eyes.
Then nodded.
Sophia studied him.
Finally, she signed.
Not the story.
A question.
Ruby’s voice softened.
“She wants to know whether you’ll believe her if the truth makes you hate someone you love.”
Santiago thought of Matteo.
The uncle who had taught him to shoot.
The man who sat beside him at their father’s funeral.
The man who had held Sophia when she shook so badly she could not stand.
“Yes,” Santiago said.
Sophia stared into his eyes.
Then she signed.
Ruby translated slowly.
“She says Matteo killed your father.”
Santiago did not move.
The room became perfectly silent.
Their father, Antonio Moretti, had died in a car bombing seven years earlier.
The official story blamed the Bellini crew.
Santiago had spent two years destroying everything the Bellinis owned.
He had built his reputation on revenge for a murder that might have been ordered from inside his own family.
“No.”
The word escaped him before he could stop it.
Sophia recoiled.
Ruby’s head snapped toward him.
Santiago saw the damage immediately.
He dropped to one knee.
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I mean—no, I don’t want it to be true.”
He forced himself to keep looking at Sophia.
“But I believe you.”
Her eyes filled.
He repeated it.
“I believe you.”
She signed again.
Ruby translated.
“She saw Matteo in the garage with Dad.”
“They were arguing.”
“Matteo told him you had been shot on the South Side.”
“My father left the house because he thought I was hurt.”
Sophia nodded.
“She followed because she was scared.”
“She saw Matteo give the driver a black phone.”
“Then Matteo found her.”
Santiago’s pulse hammered.
“What did he say?”
Sophia’s hands stopped.
She could not continue.
Ruby answered from memory.
“Three years ago, at Lakeview, she told me he knelt down and said, ‘Your father chose one son over the rest of us. If you ever tell Santiago what you saw, I’ll make sure he joins him.’”
Santiago looked at his sister.
She had been twelve.
Twelve years old and carrying a threat against his life.
“What did Voss do?”
Sophia signed.
Ruby’s expression hardened.
“He gave her medication.”
“For what?”
“Panic, sleep, agitation.”
“Too much?”
Ruby nodded.
“The records I saw three years ago showed escalating doses, sometimes without documented symptoms.”
Santiago felt sick.
“The medicine didn’t cause her silence,” Ruby said. “The fear came first. But the sedation made her slower, tired, easier to describe as unreachable.”
Sophia pointed toward Santiago’s desk downstairs.
Then mimed writing.
Ruby frowned.
“You wrote something?”
Sophia nodded.
“When?”
She held up twelve fingers.
The year their father died.
Santiago leaned closer.
“What did you write?”
Sophia signed four words.
Ruby translated.
“Matteo killed our father.”
“Where is it?”
Sophia’s hands moved once more.
Ruby went pale.
May you like
“Dr. Voss took it.”
