Chapter 10 - THE BLACK ROOM
Vittorio’s hunting house stood beneath pine trees and old snow.
No lights.
No smoke.
No tire tracks recent enough to matter.
Carmine arrived with Anthony and four men shortly after noon.
The house looked smaller than the memory Michael had built.
Wood siding.
Stone chimney.
Porch leaning slightly to one side.
Inside, time had stopped.
Dust covered furniture.
Old coffee tins lined a shelf.
A calendar still hung from two years earlier.
Five days after Rosalie’s ambush, someone marked one date with a black X.
Carmine touched it.
The day Michael said Rosalie left.
Anthony found the room downstairs.
No windows.
Black-painted walls.
Steel door.
The key from Helena’s fob fit.
Inside were no stacks of paper.
No ledgers.
No legal evidence.
Only objects.
A woman’s shoe.
A broken rosary.
Three watches.
A child’s wooden block.
A bloodstained pocket square.
A wedding photograph torn in half.
Every object belonged to someone.
Every object carried memory.
The Second House did not record people with files.
It recorded them with pieces.
Carmine found Rosalie’s immediately.
A small perfume bottle.
Almost empty.
He picked it up.
Smell survived.
He closed his eyes.
For one second she was beside him again.
Laughing.
Telling him he wore too much cologne.
Leo asleep against her chest.
Anthony looked away.
On a shelf behind the perfume sat a handheld recorder.
One tape.
Carmine pressed play.
Rosalie’s voice.
Stronger than the recording from Helena’s car.
“If you found this, Carmine, then someone finally stopped protecting you from the truth.”
He froze.
Rosalie continued.
“I love you.”
Carmine lowered his head.
“But loving you became dangerous because everyone around you learned that you would believe loyalty before evidence.”
Anthony flinched.
Carmine said nothing.
“Your father trained men to hide things from you in the name of protecting the family.”
Rosalie’s recorded breathing trembled.
“You inherited that. Anthony hides things. Dominic hid things. Salvatore hides things. I hid things.”
Carmine looked toward Anthony.
“He isn’t the one I fear most.”
Anthony’s shoulders loosened slightly.
Then:
“Helena is angry enough to be used. Vittorio is wounded enough to use her. Neither of them understands who reopened the Second House.”
Carmine’s eyes narrowed.
Vittorio was not the final enemy.
Rosalie continued.
“I saw one man leave the east gate the night before the ambush.”
Static swallowed a few seconds.
Carmine leaned closer.
The voice returned.
“He had access no outsider should have.”
Another crackle.
“If Leo is ever put in danger, look at who benefits when you leave him to chase revenge.”
The tape ended.
Carmine stared at the recorder.
That sentence hurt.
Someone understood Carmine’s weakness perfectly.
Threaten family.
Carmine leaves family to hunt threat.
Repeat.
Helena had used that weakness.
Vittorio had counted on it.
The Second House might have built around it.
Anthony searched the rear shelf.
“Boss.”
Carmine turned.
A photograph.
Rosalie sitting in the black room.
Holding baby Leo.
Carmine stared.
The child could not have been older than one.
“Why is Leo here?”
Anthony turned the image over.
No writing.
Carmine remembered something.
One month before the ambush Rosalie took Leo away for a “weekend with a friend.”
She had not.
She brought him here.
Why?
A sound came from upstairs.
Every guard froze.
Footsteps.
Carmine drew his weapon.
Anthony moved toward the door.
A woman’s voice shouted:
“Carmine!”
Helena.
They ran upstairs.
She collapsed through the front entrance.
Coat torn.
Blood along one sleeve.
Bare feet bleeding.
Anthony caught her.
Carmine looked outside.
No one followed.
“Who took you?”
Helena struggled to breathe.
“Not my father.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Helena.”
“They kept asking what Vittorio told me.”
“About?”
She looked at the house.
“The black room.”
Carmine stared.
“They knew you would come here?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I never saw faces.”
“Voices?”
“One.”
“Recognize it?”
Helena began crying.
Not from pain.
Fear.
“I heard it when I was a child.”
Carmine waited.
“Who?”
Helena looked at him.
“Your father.”
Carmine’s face hardened.
“My father is dead.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
“They used an old recording.”
Carmine understood.
Psychological pressure.
A dead patriarch’s voice.
The Second House loved ghosts.
Helena grabbed his sleeve.
“They said something else.”
“What?”
“They said Vittorio doesn’t lead it.”
“We know.”
“They said he never did.”
Carmine stared.
“Then why has he been hiding eighteen years?”
May you like
Helena’s voice broke.
“Because he’s afraid of whoever does.”
