Chapter 7
For the first time since his return, Marco refused to explain further.
Not because he enjoyed mystery.
Because he wanted something.
Vera saw it.
“What do you need before you finish?”
Marco looked at her.
“You really are smarter than this room.”
Celia’s jaw tightened.
Vera ignored the compliment.
“What?”
Marco took a black velvet pouch from inside his jacket.
He emptied it onto the table.
A silver ring.
Old.
Heavy.
Bellandi crest.
Nico recognized it.
“Our father’s.”
“No.”
Marco turned it over.
Inside the band were two tiny notches.
“This was Renato’s copy.”
Jonah frowned.
“My father never wore a Bellandi head ring.”
“Publicly.”
Marco set it down.
“The Laurel marked its leader with a duplicate.”
Celia whispered:
“Where did you get that?”
“Renato gave it to me before he died.”
Jonah stared.
“You kept my father’s ring for seventeen years.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know who could be trusted.”
Jonah laughed bitterly.
“And now?”
Marco looked around the room.
“I still don’t.”
Vera understood.
“Then why come back?”
“Because someone started using the Laurel again.”
Celia’s face changed.
Nico noticed.
“Recently?”
“Six months.”
The exact period since Vera took the ninth chair.
She felt the connection.
“What happened six months ago?”
Marco looked at her.
“You joined the council.”
“That cannot be enough.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Then?”
“Someone sent me your name.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Vera’s expression hardened.
“What was the message?”
Marco recited it.
“Nico has placed a stranger in the Ninth. Celia has chosen her successor.”
Celia whispered:
“I chose no one.”
“I know that now.”
Vera stared.
“So somebody wanted you to believe I belonged to the Laurel.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To bring me home.”
Silence.
Nico leaned against the table.
Someone had used Vera as bait.
Not to remove her.
To summon Marco.
Celia’s attack had accidentally done what the unknown person wanted even more effectively.
It forced the family into open conflict before Marco arrived.
Vera looked toward Jonah.
“What happened in the council before I came in tonight?”
Jonah frowned.
“Nothing.”
“Who knew Celia planned to remove me?”
“Everyone at the table.”
“Who knew how?”
“No one.”
Vera turned toward Celia.
“Who knew you had the clippers?”
Celia hesitated.
“Jonah.”
Jonah stared.
“You told me you wanted Vera embarrassed.”
“Who else?”
Celia thought.
“My attendant.”
“Name?”
“Evelyn March.”
Vera frowned.
Celia’s longtime personal attendant was sixty.
Quiet.
Present at almost every family event.
Nobody thought of her as part of the power structure.
Marco went still.
“What?”
Celia looked at him.
“You know her?”
“No.”
Marco’s eyes narrowed.
“I know March.”
“Who?”
“Franklin Shaw’s mother was a March.”
The room darkened.
Celia whispered:
“No.”
Marco continued.
“His sister married into the March family.”
Vera understood.
“Evelyn could be related to Franklin.”
Celia shook her head.
“She has worked for me twenty-eight years.”
Marco almost laughed.
“Exactly.”
The oldest infiltrations did not look like intrusions anymore.
They looked like furniture.
Celia sat.
For the first time, she seemed old.
“I hired her after Nico was injured.”
Nico remembered.
He had been twenty.
A bar fight.
Two broken ribs.
Evelyn came first as a nurse’s assistant, then remained as Celia’s attendant.
Twenty-eight years.
Longer than Vera had been alive.
“Where is she?” Nico asked.
Celia looked toward the door.
Nobody knew.
Her room was empty.
Clothes still present.
Bed made.
No bag missing.
But one thing had been removed.
A small wooden box Celia kept beside her mirror.
Inside she stored nothing valuable.
Old photographs.
A dried flower from Nico’s wedding.
Marco’s childhood chess knight.
The item the family discovered missing was a photograph.
Not of Celia.
Of Salvatore, Renato, Franklin Shaw, and two unidentified men standing around a garden table thirty years earlier.
Celia had forgotten the photograph existed.
Marco had not.
“I saw it once.”
“When?”
“The night Father sent me away.”
“What was important about it?”
Marco looked at Nico.
“Those five men were the first Laurel.”
Vera asked:
“And Evelyn took the photograph because?”
Marco’s expression darkened.
“Because one of the two unidentified men is still alive.”
“Who?”
“I never knew his name.”
Celia suddenly stood.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
She looked terrified.
“Who?” Nico asked.
May you like
Celia whispered:
“Your godfather.”
