Chapter 2
Nico’s older brother had been dead since Nico was twenty-seven.
That was the story.
Marco Bellandi was thirty-one when he disappeared.
Nico remembered the last dinner.
Marco arriving late.
Their father Salvatore angry before Marco even sat down.
Celia barely eating.
Jonah’s father Renato standing near the fireplace.
Then Marco leaning toward Nico after dinner and whispering:
“If they ever tell you I betrayed the family, ask who benefits from the grave.”
Nico thought his brother was drunk.
Three days later Marco’s car was found burning near the river.
Blood inside.
His watch.
One shoe.
No body.
The Bellandis did not need a body to begin revenge.
Salvatore blamed the D’Amato family.
Four months of violence followed.
By spring, three D’Amato operations had collapsed, six men were dead, and the surviving leadership abandoned the city.
Marco was declared lost.
Nico inherited his place beside Salvatore.
Nobody said Marco’s name afterward.
Until Celia spoke it in the council room.
Nico stared at her.
“Marco is dead.”
Celia’s eyes were tired.
“No.”
The word entered him slowly.
Vera stood near the end of the table with one hand resting against her shaved hair.
Jonah looked like he wanted the floor to open.
Nico turned toward him.
“You knew?”
Jonah immediately shook his head.
“Not everything.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I knew there were messages.”
“From Marco?”
“I didn’t know who sent them.”
Celia interrupted.
“He knows enough.”
Jonah looked at her.
“Celia.”
“You helped me.”
“You said we were protecting the council.”
“We were.”
Vera finally spoke.
“By shaving my head?”
Celia looked at her.
“Yes.”
Vera’s expression did not change.
“That answer should frighten you more than me.”
For one second, something like shame appeared in Celia’s eyes.
Then disappeared.
Nico pulled out the chair opposite his mother.
“Start.”
Celia did not.
Nico sat.
“Twenty-one years.”
“Nico—”
“Start.”
Celia looked toward Vera.
Vera walked to her original council chair.
The one Jonah had tried to remove.
She sat.
Celia’s face tightened.
“Do not sit there.”
Vera leaned back.
“Then tell me why.”
“That chair belonged to Marco.”
Silence.
Vera looked down.
The council had nine permanent positions.
For years, one remained empty.
When Nico’s father died and Nico became head of the family, he refused to fill Marco’s old place.
Six months ago, after two senior members died and the family began reorganizing, Nico finally changed that.
He placed Vera in the ninth chair.
Not because she was blood.
Because she was the only person in the room who regularly told him when he was wrong.
Celia hated the decision.
Vera assumed it was because Celia did not want an outsider in family business.
Now she understood something deeper.
The chair had never been merely empty.
It had been waiting.
“For him,” Vera said.
Celia nodded.
Nico’s expression darkened.
“You expected Marco to return.”
“Not until three days ago.”
“What happened?”
“A message.”
“No paper.”
Celia’s gaze sharpened.
“A voice.”
That fit the family better.
No records.
No signatures.
A voice delivered through an old line used only by the Bellandi elders.
Celia had answered shortly after three in the morning.
No greeting.
No name.
Only:
“Mother.”
Celia knew immediately.
Twenty-one years could roughen a voice.
Not erase it.
Marco told her he was returning at midnight after the next full council meeting.
Then one instruction:
Remove the wife from my chair.
Nico stared.
“Why Vera?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“What did you say?”
“That the chair belonged to the current council.”
“And?”
“He laughed.”
Celia looked at Vera.
“Then he said, ‘If she is still sitting there when I arrive, I will assume Nico has chosen her side.’”
Vera frowned.
“My side against what?”
“I don’t know.”
Nico stood.
“You expect me to believe you assaulted my wife because Marco threatened a chair?”
“No.”
Celia’s voice strengthened.
“I did it because I know your brother.”
“So do I.”
“No.”
Her eyes darkened.
“You knew him before we buried the truth.”
Nico went still.
“What truth?”
Celia looked toward Jonah.
He looked away.
Vera saw it.
Another layer.
Nico did too.
“Jonah.”
Jonah’s voice was low.
“Marco wasn’t running from the D’Amatos.”
Celia closed her eyes.
Nico stared at his cousin.
“Then who?”
May you like
Jonah looked at him.
“The Bellandis.”
