Chapter 4
Grace stopped being afraid once she realized Diana already knew everything.
Fear often depends on uncertainty.
Take that away and sometimes anger finally gets room.
“My father left what?”
Diana said nothing.
Grace moved toward her.
“For years you told me he died with nothing.”
“He did.”
“Then why did you cut open his coat?”
I turned.
Diana’s face changed.
Grace kept going.
“The first month I worked here, one of the older housekeepers told me you had my father’s things burned after his funeral.”
I stared at Diana.
“I never ordered that.”
She shrugged.
“Old clothing.”
“Marcus’s belongings were supposed to go to Grace.”
Diana looked at me.
“She was a child.”
“That does not make them yours.”
Mark stepped in.
“Vittorio, none of this matters.”
I looked at him.
“It mattered enough for you to drag Marcus’s daughter out of my ballroom.”
“She works here.”
“So?”
His mouth opened.
Closed.
He had no answer that did not expose the worldview beneath it.
Grace did.
“You wanted me gone before he saw the bear.”
Mark looked at her.
“You’re imagining things.”
“No.”
She pointed toward the destroyed train display.
“You grabbed me the second he froze on the stairs.”
The room shifted.
She was right.
Mark had not attacked because I defended a servant.
He attacked because he saw me recognize the patch.
I looked at him.
“Why?”
He rubbed one hand over his mouth.
Diana finally spoke.
“Marcus heard things he should not have.”
Grace turned slowly.
“What things?”
Diana’s expression remained cold.
“Family things.”
“He was family enough to die for Vittorio.”
“But not blood.”
There it was.
I had heard versions of that sentence my whole life.
Blood first.
Loyalty second.
Service beneath both.
Marcus believed differently.
So did I.
Apparently that had become dangerous.
I held up the token.
“What did Marcus discover?”
Diana smiled faintly.
“Ask your brother.”
The room went still.
My brother Lorenzo had been dead eight years.
Killed during an internal warehouse collapse everyone believed accidental.
I stared at her.
“What does Lorenzo have to do with Marcus?”
Diana looked toward Mark.
He looked away.
Grace whispered, “My father knew him?”
I barely heard her.
Because one memory had returned.
Marcus saved my life outside the same warehouse complex where Lorenzo died six years later.
Same district.
Same old Marzano crews.
Same handful of men managing security.
And Diana had just connected both deaths with one sentence.
I looked at the token again.
VITTORIO OWES ME.
May you like
Maybe Marcus had not been asking me to protect Grace.
Maybe he had been warning me that the debt was not finished.
