His daughter’s stuffed rabbit.
But after his disappearance, Elena donated many of Sofia’s old toys.
The rabbit vanished.
The evidence vanished with it.
Or so everyone believed.
Until Sofia found the yellow pill beneath Matteo’s jacket.
That accident changed everything.
Gabriel, secretly monitoring the estate through old maintenance systems he had installed years earlier, learned that Luca was being poisoned.
He began watching Sofia’s movements, hoping the child might unknowingly lead him to something Vittorio had left behind.
Then, two months earlier, Sofia had found a small silver object behind a radiator in the servants’ apartment.
She thought it belonged to her broken chain.
It was the saint’s medal.
Her mother had apparently removed it from the rabbit before donating the toy and forgotten it.
Sofia put it back into her treasure box.
Gabriel saw it through a hidden camera.
And suddenly the most dangerous archive in Europe was sitting inside an eight-year-old girl’s bedroom.
“That’s why I took her,” Gabriel said.
“To protect the chip.”
“To protect Sofia.”
“From whom?”
A pause.
Then Gabriel said something Luca would remember for the rest of his life.
“From your brother.”
Luca looked at Matteo.
Matteo stared back.
“No.”
Gabriel continued.
“The shell companies are not fake. They belong to Matteo.”
Matteo shook his head.
“I’ve never seen—”
“But Matteo isn’t paying Bellini.”
Luca frowned.
“Then who is?”
“You are.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Luca laughed once.
“What?”
“Every payment financing your poisoning originates from an account carrying your biometric authorization.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Gabriel’s voice softened.
“It means someone can imitate your authorization perfectly.”
Luca slowly turned toward the wall.
Toward a family portrait painted fifteen years earlier.
Vittorio in the center.
Luca beside him.
Matteo.
And behind them, smiling with one hand on Luca’s shoulder—
their mother.
Isabella Rinaldi.
Dead for twelve years.
Or supposedly dead.
Luca’s chest tightened.
“No.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“No.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Matteo whispered, “Mother died in France.”
“We buried her.”
Gabriel’s voice came quietly through the phone.
“You buried someone.”
The woman who arrived at Villa Rinaldi twenty minutes later was seventy-two years old.
She stepped from the center armored vehicle wearing white.
Not mourning white.
Ivory.
Elegant.
Untouchable.
Her hair was silver now, but her face had barely changed.
Matteo dropped his gun.
Luca forgot how to breathe.
Isabella Rinaldi entered her own house like a queen returning from exile.
“My boys.”
Matteo whispered, “Mama?”
She smiled.
And Luca finally understood the White Table.
His mother had never married into the Rinaldi empire.
She had owned it.
Vittorio had discovered that his wife served as one of the Tavola’s senior members.
When he tried to expose the organization, Isabella staged her death and disappeared.
Four years later, she ordered Vittorio poisoned.
Then she turned her attention to Luca.
“The crash was never supposed to kill you,” Isabella said.
They stood in the great hall surrounded by armed men.
Luca remained in his wheelchair.
Matteo looked shattered.
“You poisoned him?”
“I contained him.”
“He almost died!”
“He became reckless.”
Luca’s voice was low.
“So you destroyed my spine.”
“No.”
Isabella glanced at Bellini.
“The crash caused injury. Pietro merely ensured your recovery remained… limited.”
Luca wanted to kill her.
But he needed the whole truth.
“Why?”
“Because while you sat in that chair, Matteo ran the legitimate companies.”
Matteo stared.
“You used me.”
Isabella smiled almost tenderly.
“You were always easier to guide.”
Matteo recoiled.
“And when Luca transferred permanent control to me?”
“Then your usefulness would have ended.”
Matteo understood.
“You planned to kill me.”
“Eventually.”
Luca looked at Bellini.
“The aconitine pill Sofia found.”
Isabella answered.
“It was intended for Matteo.”
Matteo went pale.
