Chapter 2
Lucinda recovered before anyone else.
She laughed.
Loudly.
Deliberately.
“You’re going to believe one photograph because your mother wrote a sentence on the back?”
Sebastian stared at her.
“You recognize the room.”
Her smile held.
“Every Caradonna estate has stone walls.”
“Not that wall.”
A thin white crack crossed the background behind Salvatore.
Sebastian remembered it.
East Cellar.
The oldest part of the original family estate.
Sealed for twenty years.
Lucinda lifted her chin.
“So?”
The word was almost insulting in its casualness.
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
“So my father was alive.”
“For a while.”
The gallery went silent.
Sebastian took one step toward her.
Elisa remained in his arms.
That stopped him from moving farther.
Lucinda saw it.
And weaponized it immediately.
“Careful.”
Her eyes moved toward the little girl.
“You wouldn't want your precious daughter watching Daddy become what everyone already knows he is.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
Lucinda smiled.
There.
She thought she still had control.
“You want the truth?”
Her voice lowered.
“Your father survived the fire.”
Sebastian said nothing.
“He was brought to the East Cellar.”
“By who?”
Lucinda adjusted one diamond bracelet.
“As usual, you ask the least important question first.”
Preston laughed softly.
Sebastian looked toward him.
Preston spread his hands.
“You grew up thinking Salvatore Caradonna was some murdered king.”
His eyes hardened.
“He wasn't.”
Sebastian took another slow breath.
Lucinda stepped closer.
“He was paranoid.”
“Cruel.”
“Convinced everyone around him wanted his chair.”
She smiled without warmth.
“Sound familiar?”
Several capos looked down.
Sebastian let the insult hang.
Then:
“Why were you there?”
Lucinda's fingers stopped on her bracelet.
Only for a second.
“I brought him food.”
“Why?”
“Because unlike your branch of this family, I wasn't raised to let people starve just because they embarrassed us.”
The hypocrisy was so sharp that even Preston glanced toward Elisa.
Sebastian did not.
His eyes stayed on Lucinda.
“You cut a three-year-old until she bled.”
Lucinda shrugged.
“One bad haircut doesn't make me a monster.”
Elisa looked up from Sebastian’s shoulder.
Her voice was small.
“She said she’d cut more if I cried.”
The room changed.
Lucinda’s eyes snapped toward the child.
“Liar.”
Sebastian’s face became completely still.
Lucinda realized too late what she had done.
She had called his daughter a liar in his arms.
Still, she doubled down.
“She broke the vase. She panicked. Children invent things when they want sympathy.”
Sebastian looked toward the old capos.
“Did anyone know Salvatore survived?”
No one answered.
Then one elderly capo near the back slowly raised his eyes.
Orlando Ferri.
Seventy-four.
Retired.
One of Salvatore’s former guards.
“I did.”
Sebastian turned.
Lucinda’s face changed.
Orlando stepped forward.
“He lived three days.”
Sebastian’s voice roughened.
“Who ordered him kept there?”
Orlando looked toward Lucinda.
Then Preston.
Lucinda smiled again.
“Tell him.”
Orlando’s eyes returned to Sebastian.
“Your mother.”
Everything stopped.
Sebastian stared.
“Sofia?”
Orlando nodded.
“She ordered the East Cellar sealed.”
Lucinda folded her arms.
Triumph returned to her face.
“You wanted a villain?”
She leaned closer.
“Start with Mommy.”
Sebastian looked at the note again.
His mother had written it.
His mother had known.
But Orlando had not finished.
He swallowed.
“She ordered everyone kept away from the cellar.”
A pause.
“Except Lucinda.”
Sebastian looked at her.
Lucinda’s smile disappeared.
May you like
Orlando continued.
“Every night, she went down alone.”
