Chapter 13 - The Son Who Wanted Everything
Bradley asked to speak with Eugene before investigators removed him from the villa.
They met in the winter garden beneath a glass ceiling.
Carol waited outside.
Bradley sat across from Eugene, his coat removed and his confidence diminished but not gone.
“They are charging Martin with forgery, obstruction, weapons violations, and financial conspiracy,” Bradley said.
“What are they charging you with?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Give them time.”
Bradley smiled without humor.
“You sound like my mother.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“She did not trust anyone.”
“She trusted Carol.”
“She used Carol.”
“She protected her.”
“Did she?”
Bradley leaned forward.
“Carol spent seven months hiding in a cabin because my mother convinced her someone wanted her dead. You spent six months grieving because my mother arranged for you to believe she left you almost nothing. She moved people like pieces on a board.”
“And you opened the vault exactly as she knew you would.”
The words struck.
Bradley looked away.
“I wanted to know what my father left me.”
“Victor left you a crime.”
“My mother left me one too.”
Eugene studied him.
“Did you know Victor was alive?”
“I received messages.”
“When?”
“On my eighteenth birthday. Then once every few years.”
“Did you meet him?”
“No.”
“Did you try?”
“Of course.”
Bradley’s answer carried the desperation of a child searching for a father who controlled him from a distance.
“What did the messages say?”
“That my mother betrayed him. That she stole what belonged to our family. That one day I would inherit Belladonna and understand everything.”
“So you spent your life waiting for the villa.”
“I spent my life waiting for proof that he chose me.”
Eugene saw it then.
Victor had raised Bradley without being present. He used absence as a leash, offering approval in carefully measured fragments.
Helen knew the same weakness would bring Bradley to the vault.
“Did Victor tell you to sell the villa?”
“Yes.”
“To Marengo?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said the sale would restore what my mother destroyed.”
“Did you know Marengo belonged to him?”
“I suspected.”
“Yet you continued.”
Bradley’s expression hardened.
“You had a father who disappeared to save you. Mine disappeared to punish me. Do not pretend our choices were equal.”
“They weren’t. Your choices were still yours.”
Bradley sat back.
Eugene placed the medical report on the table.
“Is Helen alive?”
Bradley stared at the signature.
“I don’t know.”
“You sent this.”
“Martin gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“He said you would stop fighting if you believed my mother’s death was another lie.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Bradley’s answer was immediate.
Eugene believed him.
“But I saw her before she died,” Bradley continued. “She asked me whether Victor had contacted me recently.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted her to believe he trusted me.”
“Did he contact you?”
Bradley nodded.
“He said the cabin contained the name of the person who betrayed him.”
“Who?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What did you expect to find?”
“A ledger marked with a black circle.”
Carol had mentioned no such ledger.
“Did you find it in the vault?”
“No.”
“Then where is it?”
Bradley looked toward the cabin photograph displayed on Eugene’s phone.
“My mother moved it.”
“To the beach cabin?”
“Probably.”
Eugene thought of the steel compartment behind the frame.
There had been three ledgers.
They had taken them to Italy, but none carried a black circle.
“The cabin was searched after we left,” Bradley said.
“How do you know?”
“Martin sent someone.”
Eugene stood.
“What did they take?”
“I don’t know.”
He turned toward the door.
Bradley called after him.
“Eugene.”
He stopped.
“When my father contacted me last month, he said something strange.”
“What?”
“He said Helen’s greatest mistake was believing Alden Vale was the man she needed to protect.”
“Who did she need to protect?”
May you like
Bradley looked at him.
“You.”
