Chapter 13 - THE EMPTY THRONE
By midnight, word spread that Carmine Bellucci had refused Vittorio’s challenge.
That was exactly what Carmine wanted.
Weakness had a smell.
Men who spent years pretending loyalty always moved toward it.
Three captains suddenly became difficult to reach.
A Bellucci gambling room closed early.
Two cash couriers changed routes without approval.
One warehouse crew refused Anthony’s instructions until Carmine called personally.
The family did not collapse.
It revealed cracks.
Carmine watched.
He did not punish them immediately.
Helena sat in the estate library under guard.
When Carmine entered, she looked up.
“He’ll think you’re afraid.”
“I know.”
“You hate that.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Carmine almost smiled.
“Careful.”
Helena’s expression faded.
They were not friends.
They would never return to being cousins who drank wine at holidays and pretended the past was dead.
But something had changed.
Helena no longer expected forgiveness.
That made honesty possible.
“Raymond says Rosalie is alive.”
Helena stared.
“Where?”
“I’m not telling you.”
Pain crossed her face.
“You still think I would hurt her?”
“I think you hurt Leo.”
She lowered her eyes.
Fair.
Carmine continued.
“Vittorio came to Brooklyn.”
“Yes.”
“He expected me.”
“Yes.”
“He is being watched.”
Helena’s face changed.
“By who?”
“That is what I’m finding.”
Her phone had been removed when she was confined.
Carmine placed it on the table.
Helena looked at it.
“What?”
“Call your father.”
“He won’t answer.”
“Try.”
She did.
One ring.
Two.
Vittorio answered.
“Helena.”
His voice was older than Carmine remembered.
But unmistakable.
The dead man lived.
Helena looked at Carmine.
“My father.”
Carmine gestured.
Speak.
Helena swallowed.
“You shouldn’t have gone to the club.”
Vittorio laughed softly.
“And Carmine shouldn’t have stayed home.”
“He knows you’re being watched.”
Silence.
Vittorio’s voice changed.
“Does he?”
Carmine took the phone.
“Hello, Uncle.”
Long silence.
Then Vittorio laughed.
“Giancarlo would hate hearing you call me that.”
“Giancarlo is dead.”
“His habits aren’t.”
Carmine looked toward Helena.
“You used your daughter.”
Vittorio’s answer came cold.
“She volunteered.”
Helena flinched.
Carmine saw.
“She was twenty-nine when you contacted her.”
“She knew what your family did.”
“She starved my son because of what my father did.”
Silence.
Then Vittorio said:
“That was not my order.”
Helena went pale.
Carmine stared at her.
Vittorio continued.
“I told her to keep Leo away from the main house.”
Carmine’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because someone had been entering his nursery.”
Helena looked up sharply.
Carmine turned toward her.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t know.”
Vittorio laughed bitterly through the phone.
“My daughter heard what she wanted. Revenge makes people poor listeners.”
Helena looked wounded.
Not because he criticized her.
Because she realized Carmine might have been right.
Vittorio had used her hatred.
“What was someone looking for?” Carmine asked.
“Rosalie hid something with Leo.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try harder.”
“Ask your son.”
Carmine’s grip tightened.
“He’s three.”
“He was one when Rosalie disappeared.”
“What could she hide?”
“Something she thought nobody would search on a baby.”
Carmine remembered the photograph at the hunting house.
Rosalie holding Leo.
The silver bracelet.
He looked toward Helena.
“His things.”
Vittorio continued.
“The Second House wants whatever she left.”
“Why?”
“Because Rosalie found the current Grey.”
Carmine stopped.
“Who?”
“If I knew, this would be over.”
“You’ve been hunting eighteen years.”
“I was hunting your father’s structure. Rosalie found who rebuilt it.”
“And hid the name with Leo.”
“That is what I believe.”
Carmine thought of every old toy.
Every blanket.
Every baby bottle discarded.
Everything Rosalie touched.
Then Vittorio said something else.
“You should leave the estate.”
“Why?”
“They’re going to move tonight.”
Carmine’s expression hardened.
“Who?”
“The people watching me.”
“Toward?”
“Leo.”
Carmine ended the call.
Every door locked.
Every guard moved.
The nursery was searched again.
Carmine himself went through Leo’s old keepsake boxes.
Nothing.
Anthony found the silver baby bracelet Luca Moretti returned.
He examined the clasp.
“Boss.”
Carmine looked.
Inside the clasp was a tiny hollow groove.
Something thin was rolled inside.
Not paper.
A strip of magnetic tape.
Rosalie had hidden information in Leo’s bracelet.
Anthony brought an old reader from the security room.
Audio.
Faint.
Rosalie’s voice.
“One name.”
Static.
Then:
“Grey is not Vittorio.”
More static.
“Grey sits closest to the empty throne.”
Carmine frowned.
Empty throne.
Not the boss.
The chair beside him when the boss was absent.
The man who acted when Carmine left.
Anthony.
They looked at each other.
Anthony’s face went white.
Then the estate alarm sounded.
May you like
Not at the gate.
Inside the house.
