Chapter 6
Elena refused to return to the main house that morning.
I did not argue.
We moved her to the old garden cottage instead.
Windows on every wall.
No underground rooms.
Two women from my household she personally remembered.
Emma stayed because Elena asked.
I remained outside until she called for me.
That was new.
Waiting for permission inside my own estate.
Necessary.
When I entered, Elena was holding the pendant.
“How did you record the message?”
She looked at Emma.
“Thomas helped me hide a tiny recorder inside it before the fire.”
I frowned.
“Before?”
She nodded.
“I already knew Matteo was planning something.”
My chest tightened.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
Silence.
“You were in Chicago.”
I remembered.
Three days before the fire.
She called six times during a meeting.
Adrian took my phone.
Said she was worried about a charity event.
I looked toward the window.
“I never heard your messages.”
“I know.”
“How?”
She stared at me.
“Because Adrian played one back to me.”
My hands curled.
Another betrayal.
Not only imprisonment.
Isolation before the attack.
“What did Matteo want?”
Elena looked tired.
“Your captains.”
I frowned.
“He thought if I disappeared, you would become reckless.”
She knew me.
That could have happened.
“He expected grief to make you dependent on older men.”
“Did it?”
She looked at me.
“For a while.”
Painful.
True.
After Elena’s “death,” I leaned heavily on Matteo.
Then Adrian.
Exactly what they planned.
Elena continued.
“Matteo started changing things around you. Which crews reported directly. Which relatives sat closest. Which families heard your decisions first.”
I remembered.
At the time it felt like relatives protecting me while I recovered.
Maybe it was restructuring.
“What did you discover?”
“A second council.”
My expression hardened.
“What?”
“A private one.”
Elena nodded.
“Matteo, Adrian, three old captains.”
I knew the names before she said them.
Men who became unusually loyal after the fire.
Not to me.
To the idea of me.
A younger boss they could shape.
Elena looked at me.
“I wasn’t hidden because Matteo hated me.”
May you like
She squeezed the pendant.
“I was hidden because I knew which men were already ruling through your grief.”
