[Alessandro’s POV]
Finding Dante Caruso's address should be simple. It's not.
The Carusos are careful—paranoid in a way that speaks to years of hiding, surviving, rebuilding in the shadows. Their locations are secure, their digital footprint practically nonexistent.
I've spent three hours trying to track down where Sophie went, and I have exactly nothing except a growing headache and the realization that I'm going to have to ask my sister for help.
Fantastic. This day just keeps getting better.
Chiara is at the brownstone having breakfast when I find her—some elaborate avocado situation that probably cost more than most people's rent. She looks up when I enter, expression cycling through surprise, wariness, and something that might be hope.
"Alessandro." Her voice is cautious. "I didn't expect to see you."
"I need you to find out where Dante Caruso lives."
The request lands like a bomb. Chiara's eyebrows shoot up, and for once she's actually speechless.
"Why do you need—"
"Can you find out or not?"
She studies me, clearly weighing whether to push for answers or accept the opportunity. The fact that I'm asking her for anything after our last conversation must override her curiosity.
"I can probably get his address," she says finally, reaching for her phone. "Through mutual friends. Dante's not exactly social, but some of the girls in my circle have been to parties at his place."
"Do it. Today."
I turn to leave, but Chiara's voice stops me. "Alessandro? Are you okay? You look like shit."
Wow. Touching sisterly concern. Really warming my cold dead heart.
"Just get me the address, Chiara."
I spend the next few hours going over the Marchetti documents until I've memorized every damning detail. The evidence is solid—payment records, communications, the framework of a decade-long conspiracy. But it's not enough.
Word against word won't work. We need something undeniable.
My phone buzzes around three. Chiara's text contains an address in a modest neighborhood—not the kind of place you'd expect to find mafia royalty hiding out. But that's the point. Hide in plain sight.
The drive takes forty minutes. I park outside a nondescript apartment building, killing the engine but not moving. The manila folder sits on the passenger seat, full of evidence that's about to change everything.
You're really doing this. Going to help the woman who infiltrated your life and shattered your heart.
Yeah. Apparently I am.
Because Sophie Caruso deserves to know who actually killed her parents.
Don't finish that thought. Focus on the mission.
I grab the folder and head upstairs.
The hallway smells like cheap carpet cleaner and someone's attempt at Italian cooking. Third floor, apartment 3C. I knock before I can talk myself out of it.
The door opens, and Sophie's face goes white as bone.
"Alessandro—"
"I need to talk to your brother. Now."
She's frozen in the doorway, eyes huge and terrified. Behind her, footsteps, and then Dante Caruso appears—tense, protective, positioning himself between me and his sister.
"Get the fuck out of here, De Luca." His voice is pure venom.
"My family didn't kill your parents."
The words land like a grenade. Both Carusos go completely still, the hostility in Dante's posture shifting to confusion.
"What the hell are you—"
I push past them into the small apartment before either can react. It's cramped, lived-in, nothing like the brownstone's cold elegance. There's a coffee table covered in documents, and I add mine to the pile, spreading the Marchetti evidence across the surface.
"My family didn't order the hit on the Carusos," I say, keeping my voice steady. "Marchetti did. He framed us to start a war."
Dante's laugh is harsh, disbelieving. "That's awfully fucking convenient, De Luca. You find out my sister's been spying on you, and suddenly you've got proof that clears your family? How stupid do you think we are?"
"Look at the fucking evidence."
Sophie moves first. She picks up the documents, studying them with the same analytical intensity she brought to memorizing my schedule, my routines, my vulnerabilities. She knows me now—has spent months learning to read me, to recognize when I'm lying.
Use that against me. See the truth.
"He's not lying," she says quietly, looking up at her brother. "Dante, look at this. Payment records from two days before the massacre. Communications about 'the Naples situation' and 'removing the Caruso obstacle.' Marchetti's signature on everything."
Dante snatches the papers from her hands, scanning them with narrowed eyes. "This could be fabricated—"
"It's not." I keep my voice flat, factual. "I found these in my family's archives. My father didn't even know they existed. Marchetti has been playing all of us for a decade."
Sophie and Dante exchange a look—the kind of silent communication that only comes from years of shared trauma. Then Sophie turns to me, something new in her expression. Something that isn't fear or guilt.
"We found something too," she says. "About Tommy."
The name makes my jaw tighten. "Your contact? The one you were meeting in parking lots?"
"He's Marchetti's son." Her voice is steady, but I can see the pain underneath. "Planted in our organization right after the massacre. Every piece of intelligence we gathered, every plan we made—it all went straight to his father. He exposed me to you to create chaos. To keep our families at war."
Cazzo. The pieces click together with sickening clarity.
Marchetti orchestrated everything. The massacre. The frame job. The ten-year war between De Luca and Caruso. And he embedded his own son as a spy to make sure it never ended.
"Tommy sent me those photographs," I realize. "Of the real Sofia Russo."
Sophie nods, eyes bright with unshed tears. "We trusted him completely. For ten years."
Dante sets down the documents, expression shifting from skepticism to something harder. Deadlier. "So Marchetti killed our parents, framed your family, and has been manipulating both sides ever since. All while playing friendly mediator at family dinners."
"That's the picture." I look between them—rivals, enemies, people who have every reason to want me dead. "But paper evidence won't be enough. If we go to the families with just documents, Marchetti will claim forgery. We need something undeniable."
"We need Tommy to confess," Sophie says quietly. "In front of witnesses."
"We need Marchetti himself," Dante counters. "Caught in his own lies."
I look at Sophie directly for the first time since kicking her out. The pain in her eyes mirrors something in my own chest—that devastating combination of betrayal and grief and something that refuses to die.
She lied about everything. And so did Marchetti. At least her lies came from love.
"We do this together," I say, and my voice sounds steadier than I feel. "For your parents. For the truth. For everyone Marchetti has been manipulating."
Sophie holds my gaze, and something passes between us—acknowledgment, understanding, the fragile beginning of trust rebuilt from ashes.
"Together," she echoes.
Dante looks between us, clearly aware of undercurrents he's not privy to. But he's pragmatic enough to recognize when survival trumps suspicion.
"Fine," he says. "Together. But if this is some elaborate De Luca trap—"
"It's not." I meet his eyes. "I want Marchetti destroyed as much as you do. Maybe more."
The three of us stand in that cramped apartment—former enemies, current allies, bound together by a shared enemy and the devastating truth of a decade-long deception.
This is either the smartest thing I've ever done or the stupidest.
Knowing my luck with the Caruso family, probably both.