Chapter 3
The doors locked.
Rocco did not order them locked.
Leonard did.
That earned his attention.
His cousin stood near the entrance.
“Until we know who’s with August.”
August laughed.
“You children have lost your minds.”
Leonard was fifty.
Rocco almost smiled.
“Still calls us children.”
“Because you are acting like them.”
August stood.
“Thomas Hayes betrayed this family.”
Rocco looked at him.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Then Bianca’s revenge changes nothing.”
“No.”
“Why are you nervous?”
“I am insulted.”
“Different pulse.”
August’s face hardened.
He had taught Rocco that too.
Watch the throat.
The fingers.
Breathing.
People lied with language.
Bodies often forgot.
Rocco turned toward the capos.
“Who knew Bianca planned to move Noah?”
No hands.
“No one?”
Silence.
“Who knew Clara was dismissed?”
Leonard raised one hand.
“Maria told me this morning.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to.”
Rocco stared.
Leonard did not retreat.
“That answer is weak.”
“Yes.”
“Better.”
Victor Dane shifted.
Rocco noticed.
“You.”
Victor looked up.
“What?”
“You knew.”
“No.”
“Again.”
Victor’s face tightened.
“I heard Bianca complain that the nanny resisted her.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
“And?”
“I thought it was household nonsense.”
Rocco looked around.
“A woman about to marry me dismisses the person responsible for my three-year-old son and nobody thinks it matters.”
Nobody answered.
That was the deeper disease.
Not conspiracy.
Complacency.
Rocco’s authority had become so absolute that everyone assumed anything occurring near him must already have his permission.
August had used that.
Bianca had used that.
Rocco had created it.
He looked toward Victor.
“Who was supposed to stop answering to me after the wedding?”
Victor went pale.
Bianca answered.
“Not Victor.”
Rocco looked at her.
“Then?”
“Three men.”
“Names.”
August moved.
Fast for seventy-three.
His hand went inside his jacket.
Leonard drew first.
So did two bodyguards.
August froze.
Rocco looked at his uncle’s hand.
“Slow.”
August removed a handkerchief.
Nothing else.
He smiled.
“You see enemies because a bitter woman tells a story.”
Bianca laughed.
“You told me never to underestimate how badly he needed your approval.”
August’s smile disappeared.
Rocco absorbed that.
Even now, part of him wanted August’s accusation to be wrong.
Because August had stood beside his father.
Beside Rocco after Matteo died.
Beside Elena’s coffin three years earlier.
He had held Noah at the baptism.
That was why betrayal worked.
It did not enter through locked doors.
It sat at the family table.
Rocco looked at Bianca.
“Three names.”
She gave the first.
“Victor Dane.”
Victor shouted:
“Liar.”
The second.
“Frank Bellacorte.”
A distant cousin.
He had already left the reception.
The third:
“August.”
Silence.
Rocco looked at Victor.
The capo’s face was wrong.
Not merely accused.
Caught.
Leonard moved behind him.
Victor stepped away.
“Rocco.”
“Did you agree to remove me?”
“No.”
“Did you agree to support August after the wedding?”
Victor hesitated.
Rocco nodded.
“There.”
Victor exhaled.
“I agreed to listen.”
“Men say that before treason because ‘betray’ sounds ugly.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like?”
Victor looked toward August.
The older man gave him nothing.
Victor understood he was alone.
“August said you were becoming weak.”
Rocco almost laughed.
“Because?”
“You married outside the old families.”
“Bianca is the woman he selected.”
Victor stopped.
That contradiction had never occurred to him.
Rocco continued.
“He tells you I’m weak because I marry her.”
“He tells her I’m a monster so she marries me.”
“And both of you call that thinking.”
Victor lowered his head.
Rocco turned toward August.
“Why?”
The old man’s composure finally changed.
“Because you were going to hand this family to a child.”
“Noah is three.”
“You already call him heir.”
“He is my son.”
“He is not ready.”
“He cannot tie his shoes.”
“That is exactly the problem.”
Rocco stared.
August stood.
“For fifty years this family passed leadership through men who were prepared.”
“No.”
Rocco’s voice became cold.
“It passed leadership through whichever men survived.”
August ignored him.
“You have no adult son. No brother. You refuse to name a successor.”
“So you decided to become one.”
“I already was.”
There it was.
The grievance.
August had advised three Bellacorte bosses.
Never become boss himself.
Rocco finally saw it.
“You served my father.”
“Yes.”
“You believed the chair should have been yours after he died.”
August smiled faintly.
“It should have.”
“And Matteo?”
Silence.
Rocco’s breathing changed.
His younger brother.
Dead at Black Harbor.
Thomas Hayes blamed.
Rocco looked toward Bianca.
She watched him.
Then Rocco asked:
“Was Thomas innocent?”
August said nothing.
“Uncle.”
“You gave the order.”
“I know.”
“That blood belongs to you.”
“I know.”
The answer surprised him.
August had expected denial.
Rocco continued.
“But I am asking who placed the knife in my hand.”
August stared.
Maria’s voice came from the doorway.
“I know.”
Everyone turned.
She had returned alone.
Rocco frowned.
“Noah?”
“With Clara.”
The room froze.
Rocco crossed toward her.
“You found her?”
Maria nodded.
“She came back through the kitchen tunnel.”
“Where was she?”
“Hiding.”
“From who?”
Maria looked directly at August.
“Him.”
August closed his eyes.
Maria had spent twenty-six years serving Bellacortes.
She rarely raised her voice.
She did not now.
“I was nineteen when Thomas Hayes died.”
Bianca stood.
Maria looked at her.
“I knew your father.”
Bianca’s face changed.
Maria continued.
“And the night Matteo Bellacorte died, Thomas came through the kitchen bleeding.”
Rocco stopped breathing.
“He came here?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After the harbor ambush.”
Rocco stared.
Thomas had supposedly fled.
“He said someone had changed the route.”
Maria nodded.
“He said August did it.”
The room became silent.
Bianca looked at Rocco.
May you like
Rocco looked at his uncle.
And twenty-two years after ordering Thomas Hayes killed, Rocco finally understood that the condemned man had tried to warn him before dawn.
