Chapter 7
Adrian admitted the second council existed.
He called it temporary.
That word almost made me laugh.
“Temporary for three years?”
He stared at the table.
“It started with Matteo.”
“And continued after he died.”
Silence.
“So you inherited it.”
“I kept the family stable.”
There it was.
The noble word.
Stability.
Men use it when they want control to sound selfless.
I leaned back.
“Why keep Elena alive?”
He looked at me.
“If she died for real, Matteo believed you would eventually recover.”
My jaw tightened.
“But if she lived?”
“She was leverage.”
Elena had been right.
“Against who?”
“You.”
I almost smiled.
Finally.
Honesty.
Adrian continued.
“If you pushed too hard against the old captains, Matteo wanted the option of bringing Elena back under conditions.”
My hands became still.
“What conditions?”
“You step away from direct command.”
Silence.
“Let a council manage the organization.”
“And Elena comes home.”
“Yes.”
I stared.
They turned my wife into a future negotiation.
Then Matteo died.
“What changed after Matteo?”
Adrian looked away.
“I decided the plan was too dangerous.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You decided you preferred being the only man who knew where she was.”
His face tightened.
Correct.
With Matteo dead, Elena stopped being group leverage.
She became Adrian’s private insurance.
“What did you want?”
He did not answer.
I stepped closer.
“Say it.”
His voice came quietly.
“If you ever tried to remove me from the family…”
He stopped.
I finished.
“You would produce my wife.”
He nodded.
The rage I felt was almost clean.
Three years of Elena waking beneath locked doors.
Three years of me visiting an empty grave.
Adrian had reduced all of it to an emergency card he could play if his rank disappeared.
I looked at him.
“You kept her alive so one day you could sell her back to me.”
May you like
He flinched.
That sentence finally made his own logic sound as ugly as it was.
