He Chose Another Heir, Now He Wants Me Back novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: My Brother's Son

Alessio's men took Livia out of the hall by the side door, and Nico went with her, still asleep.

Ruggero walked out alone.

Nobody stopped him, and nobody said goodnight.

I found Alessio an hour later in the clinic garden, sitting on the stone bench under my mother's window with his bandaged hand on his knee.

"All of it," I said. "Tonight. Start with the boy."

He did not make me ask twice.

"Nico is my brother's son."

The wind moved the roses.

I sat down on the far end of the bench.

"Your brother died on the coast road," I said slowly. "The autumn before I left."

"Ruggero's driver ran his car off the cliff. The police called it a bad tire."

"And Livia?"

"Livia was twenty and four months pregnant. She and my brother had been together a year in secret. Nobody knew but me." Alessio stared at the dark window. "I found out at his funeral. She came to me crying in the sacristy and begged me to say nothing."

"Why would you say nothing?"

"Because of what my uncle was waiting for."

He turned his bandaged hand over.

"I had no son and no wife yet. If the seat fell empty, Ruggero's vote was ready. And a child with my brother's blood and no protection would have gone off a cliff within a year."

I was cold, and I pulled my coat tighter.

"So you wrote him in as yours."

"As the Don's heir. Ruggero will not kill a child the Don has named in the registry, not before a hundred witnesses." His voice was flat. "He inked the line himself and thought it was his win. A boy he could raise and steer."

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