Chapter 6 - THE DEBT NO ONE PAID
Carmine did not believe Thomas immediately.
Hope was dangerous.
Especially after grief had lived long enough to become identity.
Thomas described the photograph.
Rosalie sitting in a wooden chair.
Long hair shorter than Carmine remembered.
A newspaper open across her lap.
No visible injury.
Behind her, a stone wall.
On the table beside her sat a black wolf.
“Who showed you?”
“A man.”
“Vittorio?”
“I’ve never met him.”
“Describe him.”
“Sixties. Maybe older. Gray beard. Scar near the ear.”
Helena’s eyes changed.
Carmine saw.
“That’s him.”
She said nothing.
“Your father.”
Helena finally nodded.
Thomas continued.
“He said if I didn’t put the wolf in Leo’s room, he’d send someone to my sister’s house.”
Carmine studied him.
“You chose my son’s room.”
Thomas started crying.
“I knew the guards had him.”
“You walked into a three-year-old’s bedroom.”
“I never touched him.”
“That is not the standard.”
Thomas lowered his head.
Carmine could have ordered something brutal.
Every man at the table expected it.
Instead he looked at Anthony.
“Move Thomas’s sister and parents somewhere secure.”
Thomas looked up.
Carmine continued.
“He stays under guard until we know what else he did.”
One captain frowned.
“That’s it?”
Carmine turned.
“Did you want blood because it would make you feel safer?”
The captain looked away.
Carmine had begun recognizing an old sickness in his family.
Violence made men feel as if something had been solved.
Often it only ended the questioning.
He looked toward Helena.
“Now.”
She remained standing.
“Tell me about your father.”
Helena’s expression changed.
“He contacted me seven years ago.”
“We know.”
“He wanted information.”
“About?”
“You.”
Carmine smiled without humor.
“Specific.”
“Your habits. Meetings. Who you trusted. Where Rosalie went. Which guards rotated.”
“You gave it.”
“Yes.”
Anthony shifted.
Carmine looked at him.
“Not yet.”
Then back to Helena.
“Why?”
“My father was alive because your father tried to murder him.”
“Leo didn’t.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep forgetting.”
Helena looked toward the ceiling.
“He said your branch had taken everything.”
“You believed him.”
“I watched my mother die without him. I watched people whisper that he was a traitor. I watched your father sit in the center of every room like justice belonged to him.”
Her voice became raw.
“And then you inherited everything.”
Carmine listened.
Not because he agreed.
Because hatred deserved to be understood before it was answered.
“You wanted revenge on me.”
“Yes.”
“Through Rosalie?”
“No.”
“Leo?”
Helena hesitated.
“Yes.”
The honesty was uglier than another lie.
“You wanted my son hurt.”
“I wanted you to feel powerless.”
Carmine’s face became still.
“He cried for food.”
Helena’s voice cracked slightly.
“I didn’t think—”
“Stop.”
She did.
“Never use that sentence with me.”
Carmine stepped close enough that the table disappeared from the space between them.
“You thought every time you took food away.”
Helena looked at him.
“You thought every time you put him downstairs.”
Her eyes filled.
“You thought when he said Daddy.”
Helena looked away.
Carmine continued.
“You made a choice.”
Silence.
Then Helena whispered:
“My father told me you would never notice.”
Carmine stopped.
“He said your empire mattered more than the boy.”
Something inside Carmine collapsed.
Because Vittorio had been right long enough for Helena to believe him.
Carmine had not noticed.
That truth belonged to him.
“He wanted you to prove it,” Carmine said.
Helena nodded.
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
The answer had no defense.
Carmine stepped back.
“Why did Vittorio want Rosalie?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Tell me what you know.”
Helena took a long breath.
“Rosalie found something your father left behind.”
“What?”
“A phrase.”
Carmine frowned.
“Phrase?”
“Three words: The Second House.”
Salvatore’s face changed.
Carmine turned.
“You know it.”
His uncle stared at Helena.
“You should not know that.”
Carmine stood.
“Then both of you know.”
Salvatore looked tired suddenly.
“The Second House was Giancarlo’s private circle.”
“Private crew?”
“More than that.”
“Who?”
“Men from Bellucci. Men from other families. No official names.”
“Purpose?”
Salvatore hesitated.
“Problems.”
Carmine laughed once.
“What kind?”
“The kind families couldn’t solve publicly.”
“Murders.”
“Sometimes.”
“Blackmail.”
“Yes.”
“Disappearances.”
“Yes.”
Carmine thought of Rosalie.
“Vittorio?”
“He discovered it.”
“And Father called him a traitor.”
Salvatore said nothing.
That silence answered.
Helena’s face twisted.
“All these years.”
She looked at Salvatore.
“My father was right.”
“Not completely.”
“What does that mean?”
“Vittorio wanted control of the Second House for himself.”
Helena stopped.
Salvatore continued.
“He didn’t expose it because it was wrong. He tried to take it.”
Carmine looked between them.
Two fathers.
Two versions.
Two children inheriting hatred.
“What happened?”
Salvatore leaned back.
“Giancarlo ordered Vittorio removed. Vittorio escaped. The Second House disappeared.”
“Until now.”
“Yes.”
Carmine picked up Rosalie’s necklace.
“What did Rosalie find?”
Salvatore looked at it.
“She found proof someone restarted it.”
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
“Vittorio?”
“Maybe.”
Helena shook her head.
“My father said he was hunting it.”
Carmine looked at her.
“Your father lies.”
“So did yours.”
That was true.
Anthony’s phone vibrated again.
He listened.
Then placed it on the table.
“We found Thomas’s photograph.”
Carmine’s pulse changed.
“Where?”
“His phone cache.”
“Show me.”
Anthony turned the screen.
Rosalie.
Alive.
A newspaper in her lap.
Three days old.
Carmine forgot the room.
Forgot Helena.
Forgot everyone.
He touched the image.
Rosalie’s face was thinner.
Older.
But hers.
Around her neck was nothing.
The necklace remained on the table.
Then Carmine noticed her left hand.
Two fingers rested against the newspaper.
The others were folded.
A gesture.
Carmine knew it.
Rosalie used it when they played cards.
Three down.
Two up.
It meant:
Don’t trust the table.
Carmine slowly looked at the men sitting around his family table.
May you like
Rosalie had not merely allowed herself to be photographed.
She had sent him a warning.
