Chapter 3
The book was blue leather.
Rafe found it in Delia’s suite.
Not hidden.
Displayed.
Confidence is often more revealing than secrecy.
Inside were dates.
Incidents.
SOFIA REFUSED FAMILY PEARLS.
SOFIA LEFT DINNER EARLY WITH LILY.
SOFIA CONTRADICTED DELIA IN FRONT OF STAFF.
SOFIA DID NOT SERVE COFFEE AFTER SUNDAY MEAL.
Then more disturbing entries.
TWO DAYS KITCHEN.
NO FAMILY TABLE.
LILY REMOVED FROM CHILDREN’S PORTRAIT.
I stopped reading.
Punishments.
Not corrections.
Delia had created a private disciplinary system around my wife.
I looked at Marcus.
“You knew.”
He nodded once.
At least honest.
“Who taught Delia this?”
He said:
“No one.”
I placed the book against his chest.
“Try again.”
He looked at the floor.
“My mother.”
Of course.
Aunt Helena Montoro.
Dead seven years.
My father’s younger sister.
Family matriarch after my mother died.
Helena believed wives who married into Montoro had to be “tempered.”
I remembered the language.
Never questioned it because I was a man and nobody had asked me to wash dishes until my hands split.
Convenient ignorance.
Delia had inherited Helena’s notebooks.
Old ones.
Decades.
Names of women.
Punishments.
Restrictions.
Who served whom.
Who ate last.
Who was excluded from photographs after “disrespect.”
Not Mafia strategy.
Domestic hierarchy pretending to be family law.
I stared at Delia.
“You revived this.”
She raised her chin.
“I preserved it.”
There.
Pride.
Not embarrassment.
“You think Mom did this?”
She smiled sadly.
“Our mother survived it.”
Different sentence.
Important.
My mother had never spoken about her first years in Montoro.
I remembered her hands.
Always rough.
Always hiding them under gloves at events.
My stomach turned.
Delia continued:
“She understood what it meant to become Montoro.”
“No.”
My voice stayed quiet.
“She understood what people did to her.”
Those were not the same.
Then Sofia appeared at the doorway.
She had heard.
She looked at Delia.
“Your mother told me one more thing.”
Delia’s face changed.
“What?”
Sofia held up an old envelope.
“She said Helena didn’t create the rules.”
May you like
The envelope carried my father’s handwriting.
Apparently the system went deeper than even Delia knew.
