Vincent’s face changed.

She had planned to take Matteo.

Leave him.

“You were going to disappear,” Vincent whispered.

On the recording, Sofia seemed almost to answer.

“I know what you’re thinking. I wasn’t leaving because I stopped loving you.”

Tears appeared in her eyes.

“I was leaving because I didn’t know whether you would choose your family over your empire.”

Vincent flinched.

“And I couldn’t gamble Matteo’s life on the answer.”

Clara covered her mouth.

Sofia continued.

“The night before we were supposed to leave, Aaron called me. Luca had changed the charge.”

Vincent stopped breathing.

“It wasn’t a tracker anymore.”

Sofia looked directly at the camera.

“It was a bomb.”

Clara began to sob.

“Aaron tried to disable it. If he failed, Luca will blame him.”

She paused.

“And Vincent…”

Her voice broke.

“The bomb is not meant for you.”

Vincent stared.

“It is meant for Matteo and me.”

Clara whispered, “Why Matteo?”

The video answered.

“My father’s will contains a clause Luca doesn’t know I discovered. If I die without a living child, my shares in Marino Shipping transfer to Luca.”

Sofia swallowed.

“But if Matteo survives me, everything transfers to him.”

Vincent leaned back.

The truth was suddenly clear.

Luca had needed Sofia dead.

And Matteo dead.

The armored protection had ruined half his plan.

Sofia continued.

“If Matteo survived, Luca would spend the rest of his life trying to find this evidence.”

Her eyes hardened.

“So I hid it in the one thing Matteo never lets anyone throw away.”

Mr. Blue.

Then Sofia said something Vincent would remember until the end of his life.

“If I die, don’t teach our son to become you.”

Vincent closed his eyes.

“Teach him to become better than both of us.”

The video ended.

Nobody spoke.

Finally Clara whispered:

“Aaron wasn’t the bomber.”

“No.”

Vincent looked at her.

“He tried to save them.”

Clara’s shoulders began shaking.

For two years she had lived beneath the weight of strangers believing her husband was a murderer.

Vincent stood.

He crossed the room.

And the most powerful crime boss on the East Coast lowered himself to his knees in front of a caretaker wearing beige trousers and a blue blouse.

Clara stared at him.

Vincent bowed his head.

“I’m sorry.”

Dominic looked away.

Vincent Rossi did not apologize.

He barely knew how.

But Clara reached out and touched his shoulder.

“Find Luca.”

Vincent looked up.

Her grief had become steel.

“Then make sure everyone knows what Aaron really did.”

Vincent stood.

“You have my word.”

Clara’s expression didn’t change.

“I’ve learned not to trust men’s words.”

For the first time, Vincent almost smiled.

“Then watch what I do.”

They found Luca before dawn.

Not because Vincent’s men were better.

Not because Dominic finally traced his phone.

They found him because Matteo remembered something.

“He said Mom was stupid to trust the lighthouse.”

The old Marino lighthouse stood on an abandoned stretch of coast twenty miles north.