Chapter 5
Lucinda laughed.
Too loudly.
“You're senile.”
Orlando did not react.
“You heard whatever you needed to hear.”
The old capo looked tired.
“No.”
Lucinda stepped closer.
“Salvatore rejected me.”
Her voice rose.
“He looked me in the face and chose Sebastian.”
Orlando shook his head.
“He chose silence.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
Sebastian watched them.
The argument was no longer about him.
It belonged to something older.
Orlando continued.
“He told Enzo he would acknowledge you after the capos were moved out of Boston.”
Lucinda’s face changed.
“What?”
“Enzo threatened to kill you if Salvatore spoke in front of the wrong men.”
Preston’s eyes sharpened.
Lucinda turned toward him.
He did not look at her.
Sebastian noticed immediately.
“So Salvatore was buying time.”
Orlando nodded.
Lucinda’s breathing became faster.
“No.”
The word came smaller than before.
Preston finally spoke.
“Don't listen to him.”
Lucinda looked at him.
Something new moved behind her eyes.
“Why?”
Preston smiled.
Gentle.
Too gentle.
“Because he’s trying to divide us.”
Sebastian heard control disguised as tenderness.
Lucinda seemed to hear it too.
Her mouth tightened.
Orlando continued.
“Salvatore asked for paper.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“What?”
“He wrote something.”
Lucinda’s eyes widened.
Preston’s jaw hardened.
Sebastian turned.
“You knew.”
Preston scoffed.
“Everyone wrote things in those days.”
Orlando looked at him.
“You took it.”
Silence.
Preston’s face emptied.
Lucinda slowly turned.
“What did you take?”
He looked at her.
Nothing.
Her voice hardened.
“What did you take?”
Preston exhaled.
“A note.”
Lucinda stared.
“To who?”
“No one.”
Sebastian stepped closer.
Preston smiled again.
The arrogance returned as armor.
“You think a twenty-one-year-old runner kept every scrap of paper old men handed him?”
Lucinda’s eyes did not leave him.
“Was it for me?”
No answer.
Her hand slowly fell away from his.
That distance was small.
Important.
Sebastian saw power shift.
Preston did too.
He snapped:
“Lucinda.”
She flinched.
Then hated herself for flinching.
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
“How long has he spoken to you like that?”
Lucinda turned.
“Don't.”
The shame became anger.
Sebastian stopped.
Not because she ordered him.
Because he recognized the look.
Preston had spent years turning Lucinda’s pain outward.
Toward Sebastian.
Toward Elisa.
Toward anyone safer than him.
Orlando looked at Sebastian.
“There’s another place.”
“What?”
“Your father hid things in the East Cellar wall.”
Preston’s face changed.
Again.
Sebastian saw it.
Lucinda saw it too.
Orlando continued.
“Behind the old saint carving.”
Preston stepped forward.
“That wall collapsed years ago.”
Sebastian slowly looked at him.
Nobody had said which wall.
Nobody had mentioned damage.
Preston realized it.
Too late.
Sebastian’s voice became quiet.
“You know exactly where it is.”
Preston smiled.
Weakly.
Sebastian turned toward the bodyguards.
“Open the East Cellar.”
Lucinda looked at Preston.
May you like
He refused her eyes.
And for the first time in the entire night, she looked afraid of her husband rather than Sebastian.
