Chapter 4
Sebastian did not speak for several seconds.
Lucinda watched him.
Then smiled again.
“Poor Sebastian.”
Her voice dripped contempt.
“Fifty-one years old and still shocked to discover Daddy had secrets.”
Several guests shifted uncomfortably.
Lucinda enjoyed it.
“He protected you.”
She tilted her head.
“How touching.”
Sebastian’s eyes hardened.
“From what?”
Lucinda looked at Preston.
Then back.
“Me.”
No one moved.
She walked toward one of the surviving heritage portraits.
Salvatore.
Young.
Powerful.
One hand resting on Sebastian’s shoulder when Sebastian was a teenager.
Lucinda stared at it.
Her expression changed.
Not soft.
Bitter.
“He never put me in photographs like that.”
Sebastian frowned.
“You were his niece.”
Lucinda laughed.
Preston closed his eyes.
Sebastian heard the meaning before the words came.
Lucinda turned.
“No.”
The room went silent.
She touched her own chest.
“I was his daughter.”
Sebastian stared.
No reaction came immediately.
Lucinda’s smile widened.
“Look at you.”
Her voice became crueler.
“All that power and nobody ever told you Daddy had another child.”
Sebastian looked toward Orlando.
The old capo could not meet his eyes.
“Is it true?”
Orlando’s silence answered before his nod.
Sebastian’s chest rose once.
Lucinda continued.
“My mother was married to Enzo Caradonna.”
Sebastian’s uncle.
Salvatore’s younger brother.
“But she slept with Salvatore before I was born.”
Her voice remained hard.
“Enzo raised me.”
“Salvatore ignored me.”
Sebastian looked at her.
“You knew?”
“Not until I was twenty-three.”
“Who told you?”
“Preston.”
Sebastian’s gaze moved.
Preston’s chin lifted.
Proud.
As though revealing a man’s paternity to his wife was another victory.
Lucinda continued.
“When Salvatore survived the warehouse fire, Enzo brought him to the East Cellar.”
“Why?”
Her eyes became cold.
“Because Enzo finally learned why his own daughter never looked like him.”
Sebastian understood.
Brothers.
A wife.
A hidden child.
Twenty-three years of humiliation condensed into one cellar.
Lucinda smiled bitterly.
“Enzo wanted Salvatore to admit it.”
“Publicly.”
“Before the capos.”
Sebastian asked:
“And Salvatore refused?”
Lucinda’s face hardened.
“He looked at me and said acknowledgment would destroy the family.”
There it was.
The wound.
She had carried it ever since.
“He called me a mistake.”
Preston stepped beside her.
His hand settled on her waist.
“He humiliated her.”
Lucinda stared at Sebastian.
“And you?”
Her eyes raked over his suit.
His ring.
His place at the head of the room.
“You got everything.”
“A name.”
“A father.”
“A chair.”
“People who jumped when you breathed.”
She pointed toward the staircase where Elisa had disappeared.
“And now your spoiled little girl gets worshipped because she scraped a knee and lost some hair.”
Sebastian’s expression became lethal.
“It wasn't a knee.”
Lucinda shrugged.
“That makes it worse?”
Her arrogance had become almost unbelievable.
“Yes.”
Sebastian’s voice was quiet.
“It makes you stupid enough to hurt a child for something my father did to you.”
Lucinda’s eyes flashed.
“He taught me what blood was worth.”
Sebastian stared at her.
Then Orlando spoke.
“Lucinda.”
She turned.
The old man’s face looked pained.
“Salvatore never called you a mistake.”
Everything stopped.
Lucinda’s lips parted.
Preston’s hand tightened against her waist.
Orlando looked directly at Sebastian.
“I was outside the door.”
A pause.
“He said the opposite.”
Lucinda stared.
Orlando continued.
“He told her, ‘You are mine.’”
Preston’s grip on Lucinda tightened.
Sebastian saw it.
Lucinda did too.
May you like
The first crack appeared in her certainty.
Because the memory she had built her hatred around had just been challenged by the one man who heard the conversation.
