Chapter 7
The old oath room was beneath the chapel.
We opened it before dawn.
Not because Garrett demanded it.
Because I wanted every myth dragged into light.
The black seal fit into a brass plate behind the altar.
Stone shifted.
A narrow stair descended.
Garrett watched with something close to hunger.
That disgusted me.
Miriam came beside me.
Marco followed.
Evelyn insisted too.
I let her.
Some truths work better with witnesses.
The room below contained a round table, twelve chairs, and one locked wooden cabinet.
Inside—
the succession ledger.
Thick.
Red leather.
Old.
Garrett reached.
I stopped his hand.
“My family book.”
He stared.
“I’m your husband.”
“For now.”
His face hardened.
I opened it.
The earliest pages went back almost eighty years.
Names.
Emergency successors.
Marriage alliances.
Captains considered trustworthy.
Branches to avoid.
It was history.
Ugly.
Useful.
Not law.
Then I found my father’s section.
ALESSIA CARBONE — FIRST SUCCESSOR.
No surprise.
Below:
If Alessia dies without adult heir, Miriam holds family seal until council names temporary head.
I looked at my mother.
She had never told me.
Then another line.
Marriage confers no succession right.
I laughed.
Could not help it.
Garrett went pale.
Evelyn stepped closer.
“That cannot be authentic.”
Marco winced.
I turned toward her.
“My father’s handwriting.”
Garrett stared at the page.
Everything he built on the seal collapsed in one sentence.
Marriage confers no succession right.
I continued reading.
Garrett Lawson — strategic spouse only. Capable. Ambitious. Watch whether ambition learns patience.
Silence.
My father had met Garrett five times before dying.
Five.
And understood him.
Garrett looked furious.
“He hated me.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“He barely knew you.”
That was worse.
“He noticed you.”
The next line surprised me.
Do not humiliate him. Men who feel small often chase symbols.
I closed the ledger.
Too late for my father’s advice.
Garrett had spent years beside me feeling increasingly smaller.
May you like
Then chased the oldest symbol in the family.
And tonight, when my mother refused to give it to him, he finally showed what that hunger had become.
