Chapter 2 - THREE YEARS IN THE DARK
Sarah followed Lorenzo into the private reception room because she could not imagine doing anything else.
Noah stayed in her arms.
Adrian was brought in by two bodyguards.
Margaret entered last.
The doors closed.
For several seconds no one spoke.
Sarah stared at Lorenzo.
Alive.
The word refused to fit inside her mind.
She had touched his ring at the funeral.
She had slept holding one of his shirts for six months.
She had screamed into a pillow the night Noah was born because the nurse asked whether the father was coming.
She had hated Lorenzo for dying.
Then hated herself for hating him.
And now he stood ten feet away.
“You’re alive.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
A pause.
“Not somewhere I could leave.”
“What does that mean?”
He looked at Margaret.
“It means someone arranged for me to disappear.”
Margaret folded her hands.
“You don’t know that.”
Lorenzo’s expression almost became a smile.
“Three years in a locked room gives a man time to think.”
Noah looked between them.
Sarah held him tighter.
“What room?”
Lorenzo removed his jacket.
A line of old scars ran around one wrist.
Sarah stopped breathing.
Adrian looked away.
Lorenzo noticed.
“You’ve seen marks like these before?”
Adrian said nothing.
Lorenzo moved toward him.
Margaret stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“You’ve been saying that since I was sixteen.”
“And you ignored me then too.”
“Difference is, back then I thought you were protecting me.”
Margaret’s face hardened.
Lorenzo continued.
“Three years ago, I left the DeLuca estate at eleven forty at night.”
Sarah remembered.
He had kissed her forehead.
Told her he would be back before morning.
She was six months pregnant.
“What happened?” she whispered.
Lorenzo looked toward the dark window.
“My driver changed routes.”
Sarah frowned.
“Why?”
“He said a bridge was blocked.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
Lorenzo remembered headlights disappearing behind them.
A warehouse district.
Rain.
The driver taking a turn Lorenzo had not ordered.
Then the car stopped.
Four men emerged from the shadows.
His driver never reached for his gun.
That was how Lorenzo knew.
Betrayal had been sitting three feet from him the entire time.
“They knew my security phrase.”
Margaret’s eyes shifted.
Sarah noticed.
“What phrase?”
Lorenzo answered without looking away from his aunt.
“Family before blood.”
Margaret went still.
Only six people knew the phrase.
Lorenzo.
Sarah.
Margaret.
Two senior men in his inner circle.
And Lorenzo’s uncle Gabriel, dead five years.
“One of my own gave them access.”
Sarah whispered, “They shot you?”
“No.”
“What did they do?”
“They wanted me alive.”
That was worse.
He woke beneath concrete.
No windows.
No clock.
A steel door.
Food arrived through a slot.
Sometimes days passed without anyone entering.
Sometimes men came at night.
Always masked.
Always asking the same thing.
Where is the Black Bell?
Sarah frowned.
“What is that?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“And now?”
“I still don’t.”
Margaret’s hand tightened around her pearl bracelet.
Lorenzo saw it.
“So you do.”
Margaret said nothing.
Adrian spoke.
“You expect us to believe someone held you for three years and then you simply walked out?”
Lorenzo turned.
“I didn’t walk out.”
Adrian’s expression changed slightly.
Lorenzo moved closer.
“I killed the man who opened the wrong door.”
No one spoke.
He did not describe it.
He did not need to.
“After that, I spent four months moving without a name.”
Sarah stared.
“Four months?”
“I escaped four months ago.”
Her face changed.
“You waited four months to come home?”
That question hurt him.
He let it.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I did not know who home belonged to anymore.”
Sarah’s eyes filled.
He continued before she could answer.
“Someone told you I was dead.”
She looked at Margaret.
“Yes.”
“Someone took over my men.”
Margaret did not move.
“Someone put another man beside my wife.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“And someone knew enough about my prison to make sure I did not return.”
Margaret finally spoke.
“I believed you were gone.”
Lorenzo’s voice became quiet.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“You believed I was somewhere I could not return from.”
Margaret did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Sarah stepped backward.
“You knew?”
Margaret looked at her.
“I knew what I had to know.”
Sarah’s face went white.
“You told me he was dead.”
“I told you what kept you alive.”
Lorenzo’s eyes turned cold.
There it was.
Not denial.
Justification.
The oldest language in the DeLuca family.
I hurt you because danger gave me permission.
Noah began fidgeting.
Lorenzo looked at him.
The fury left his face for one second.
Then Noah pointed toward Adrian.
“He ripped Daddy.”
Everyone went silent.
Lorenzo understood.
The photograph.
He held out his hand.
Noah hesitated, then reached toward him.
Lorenzo took the boy’s tiny fingers carefully.
“Did anyone ever try to take the picture from you before tonight?”
Sarah started to answer.
Noah beat her to it.
“The old man.”
Lorenzo looked at Sarah.
“What old man?”
She frowned.
“What are you talking about, sweetheart?”
Noah looked toward Margaret.
“The man at Grandma Margaret’s house.”
Margaret’s face changed.
Lorenzo saw it immediately.
“Who?”
May you like
Noah whispered:
“The man with the wolf.”
