Chapter 8 - BLOOD DOES NOT STAY BURIED
Gabriel had always been the charming DeLuca.
Antonio was hard.
Margaret was disciplined.
Gabriel smiled.
He remembered birthdays.
He gave waiters money larger than the meal.
He once walked into a room where two men were preparing to kill each other and had them drinking together twenty minutes later.
Lorenzo loved him.
That was why his betrayal cut deeper than Victor Vale’s.
Five years earlier, Gabriel’s boat exploded off the coast.
Pieces of hull washed ashore.
No body.
Another empty grave.
The DeLucas had accepted it because men like Gabriel collected enemies.
Now Lorenzo understood the family had developed a habit of burying questions whenever grief made answers inconvenient.
“Why fake his death?” Sarah asked.
Margaret sat beneath the library windows.
“I don’t know.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Try again.”
“I don’t.”
“You served on the Circle with him.”
“He stopped coming to meetings a year before he died.”
“Why?”
“He disagreed with Antonio.”
“About?”
“Succession.”
Lorenzo leaned back.
“My succession.”
“Yes.”
Margaret looked toward Noah playing outside.
“Gabriel believed Antonio should choose you openly.”
“And Antonio?”
“Wanted you tested.”
Lorenzo laughed quietly.
His father had turned his life into a trial he never knew he was taking.
“What did Gabriel vote when the Circle exiled me?”
Margaret lowered her gaze.
“For.”
Lorenzo’s smile disappeared.
“Why?”
“He changed.”
“People don’t change that much without reason.”
“I know.”
“Then what did he want?”
Margaret stared at her hands.
“I think he wanted the Black Bell.”
There it was again.
The object everyone wanted and nobody could find.
Lorenzo walked toward the fireplace.
“What exactly is it?”
Margaret answered carefully.
“It is not actually a bell.”
Malcolm had told them that much before leaving.
The name came from an old DeLuca custom.
Antonio kept a black bronze bell in his study.
When he rang it, every conversation stopped.
No matter who was speaking.
No matter what argument was underway.
The Bell meant the room belonged to truth.
Later, Antonio began calling his hidden collection of family secrets the Black Bell.
Nobody knew its form.
Could be recordings.
Could be objects.
Could be names memorized by someone.
Antonio designed the uncertainty deliberately.
Power grew when everyone believed the secret might contain something about them.
“Maybe it never existed,” Sarah said.
Margaret looked at her.
“It existed.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Antonio showed me one piece.”
“What?”
Margaret hesitated.
Lorenzo turned.
“Enough hesitation.”
She looked at him.
“Proof that Victor Vale ordered the death of his own brother.”
Adrian froze.
“Malcolm?”
Margaret nodded.
“Antonio showed me a recording. Victor believed Malcolm had betrayed the Vale family.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“But Malcolm survived.”
“Yes.”
“So Victor failed.”
“Yes.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Apparently family tradition.”
Lorenzo ignored the remark.
“If Antonio had proof against Victor, he had proof against others.”
“Yes.”
“Gabriel wanted it.”
“Yes.”
“Victor wanted it.”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
Margaret looked at him.
“Everyone who knew it existed.”
That was not useful.
Then Sarah spoke.
“Lorenzo.”
He looked at her.
“The photograph.”
She had been studying the torn picture again.
Lorenzo stood beside the black car.
Behind him, the man with the wolf pin.
But Sarah was not looking at the man.
She pointed toward Lorenzo’s hand.
“You’re holding something.”
He looked.
A dark object.
Small.
Barely visible beside the car door.
Lorenzo frowned.
“I don’t remember.”
“Where was this photo taken?”
He looked at the background.
Brick wall.
Old loading bay.
A faded white number.
His memory returned.
“Warehouse Seventeen.”
Margaret’s face changed.
“What?”
“It belonged to my father.”
Antonio used it decades earlier.
After his death, Lorenzo emptied it.
Or believed he had.
He looked at Anthony, one of the bodyguards waiting nearby.
“Who owns Seventeen now?”
Anthony answered.
“Technically nobody in the family. The site was abandoned after the fire.”
“What fire?”
Anthony looked confused.
“Six months after you disappeared.”
Lorenzo had never known.
“Who ordered it burned?”
Margaret whispered:
“Gabriel.”
The dead man.
Again.
They reached Warehouse Seventeen after dark.
The building had been hollowed by fire.
Steel beams remained.
Brick walls blackened.
Lorenzo walked toward the faded number.
He stood where the photograph had been taken.
The angle matched.
Sarah moved beside him.
“What were you doing that night?”
Lorenzo searched his memory.
It had been the week after Antonio’s funeral.
Gabriel had asked him to meet.
They drank.
Argued about the family.
Then Gabriel gave Lorenzo something.
Not a box.
Not a key.
A coin.
Black metal.
Lorenzo suddenly touched his signet ring.
“No.”
Sarah looked at him.
“What?”
The DeLuca signet ring had been returned to Sarah after Lorenzo disappeared.
It was supposedly found inside the burned car.
She had kept it for three years.
At the wedding, Lorenzo wore another ring made during his exile.
Sarah understood.
“The old ring.”
“Where is it?”
“In my bedroom.”
Margaret inhaled sharply.
“What?”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“Gabriel gave me a black coin that night.”
“What happened to it?”
“I hid it inside my signet ring.”
Margaret stood.
“You had it?”
“I forgot.”
Sarah stared.
“How do you forget something like that?”
“Because Gabriel told me it was sentimental.”
Lorenzo’s face darkened.
“He told me it belonged to my father.”
The ring was at the estate.
The same ring Margaret had used to prove Lorenzo was dead.
If Gabriel wanted the Black Bell and gave Lorenzo the coin, then the signet ring may have been more than proof.
It may have been the reason the entire disappearance began.
Lorenzo reached for his phone.
No signal inside the warehouse.
Anthony ran outside.
Seconds later he returned.
“The estate isn’t answering.”
Lorenzo’s expression changed.
Every line.
Every guard.
Nothing.
May you like
Sarah whispered, “Noah.”
Lorenzo was already moving.
