Chapter 10 – The Blood We Share

Silence suffocated the room.

Siblings.

I looked at Roman. The man I had admired. The man I had started to fall in love with.

He was my brother.

Roman fell back into his leather chair. He covered his mouth with his hand, staring blindly at the desk.

“She’s alive,” Roman whispered. “My mother is alive.”

“Yes,” Elias said softly. “Patrick raised you as his own, Megan. Clara took the name Claire. They lived a quiet, humble life to stay off the radar. The debt, the struggles… it was all a cover to keep you safe.”

I couldn’t process it. My brain simply stopped working.

“Why didn’t she ever tell me?” I sobbed. “Why did she let me believe Patrick was my father?”

“Because if you knew you were a DeLuca, you would be a target,” Roman said, his voice returning to that cold, logical tone. He looked up at me.

But this time, the look wasn’t romantic. It was fiercely, violently protective.

“You’re my sister,” he said.

Tears spilled over my cheeks. “I have a brother.”

Roman stood up. He walked around the desk and wrapped his arms around me.

It wasn’t the embrace of a lover. It was the fierce, desperate grip of family. Of a man who had been alone his entire life and suddenly found his blood.

I hugged him back, sobbing into his shoulder.

“We have to go see her,” Roman whispered fiercely into my hair. “We have to go to Milwaukee.”

I pulled back, nodding rapidly. “I’ll call Sarah. She can watch Lily.”

“No,” Roman said. “Lily comes with us. She’s a DeLuca. She belongs with her family.”

Elias smiled through his tears. “I’ll prep the jet.”

Two hours later, we were in the sky.

Lily was asleep in the wide leather seat of the private plane.

Roman and I sat across from each other. The tension that had existed between us for months was gone, replaced by a profound, unbreakable trust.

“She’s going to be shocked,” I warned him, holding my cup of tea.

Roman smiled softly. “I don’t care. I just want to see her.”

He reached into his pocket.

He pulled out the tarnished, broken silver bracelet. The one Lily had lost.

He handed it to me.

“I had a jeweler fix it,” Roman said.

I looked at the bracelet. The crushed silver charms were perfectly restored.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“Answer one,” Roman mused, looking out the window at the clouds. “We know why Patrick Cole died protecting us.”

I looked at him. “Open two?”

Roman turned back to me, his dark eyes serious.

“Your ex-husband,” Roman said. “Greg.”

I frowned. “What about him?”

“He said he bought the shop for the people he owed money to,” Roman said. “The Morettis.”

“Right. And they’re in jail now.”

Roman shook his head slowly.

“The feds raided the Moretti compound this morning,” Roman said quietly. “They were all dead, Megan.”

My blood ran cold. “Dead? Who killed them?”

Roman reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, heavy object.

He set it on the table between us.

It was a perfectly clean, brand new cork.

“They were poisoned,” Roman said. “With cyanide. Slipped into their private wine reserves.”

I stared at the cork.

There was a brand on the side.

RINALDI FINE AUCTIONS.

TITLE: The Final Vintage

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