Chapter 14
I gathered the senior capos that afternoon.
Genevieve demanded privacy.
I refused.
Secrets had protected her long enough.
I did not tell them every intimate detail about Elena.
That belonged to Ethan someday.
But I told them enough.
Genevieve used Anthony Rusk to frighten my wife off a mountain road.
Three years later, she used the same man to tamper with my son’s birthday cake.
Julian knowingly participated in the second plan, though not the first.
No one spoke for a long time.
Then one old capo asked:
“Why?”
Genevieve answered before I could.
“Because Dominic was destroying what his father built.”
There she was.
No apology.
No grief.
Ideology.
She looked around the room.
“He removed traditions. Promoted younger men. Let his wife question how Ethan should be raised. He made sentiment equal to blood.”
I stared at her.
“You mean I stopped asking you.”
Her face hardened.
“I kept this family together before you could tie your shoes.”
“And you thought that gave you ownership.”
“It gave me responsibility.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“It gave you influence.”
She stared.
“You confused losing influence with the family dying.”
Silence.
Julian sat several chairs away.
His capo pin was on the table.
He had removed it himself.
Good.
I looked at him.
“Did you know Rusk was involved in Elena’s death?”
“No.”
“Did you knowingly help use Ethan to weaken me?”
“Yes.”
The room shifted.
No excuse.
That mattered.
Genevieve turned toward him.
“You spineless—”
Julian looked at her.
“No.”
First time I had heard him use that word with her.
“You told me nobody would be seriously hurt.”
She laughed bitterly.
“And you believed me because it suited you.”
Julian lowered his eyes.
True.
I looked around the table.
“This family does not call cruelty tradition anymore.”
Nobody moved.
“If loyalty requires laughing while someone weaker suffers, it is not loyalty.”
Then I thought of Lily.
Three years old.
No rank.
No blood connection to us.
May you like
The only person who saw the danger and acted.
“She understood that before all of us.”
