Chapter 10
I brought everyone back to the resort.
Not for revenge.
For witnesses.
Every senior captain Lucia contacted sat around the terrace where Sophia had been locked. The metal enclosure remained exactly as I found it. I wanted them to see the bars.
Lucia hated that.
“You’re using the child now,” she said.
I looked at her.
“No.”
Sophia was not there.
That mattered.
I was not going to drag my daughter in front of grown men to prove adults had failed her.
I placed the recorder on the table.
Then I played it.
Lucia’s voice filled the terrace.
The harbor.
The Inner Table.
My chair.
Camilla’s protest.
Grant’s question.
Sophia asking what chair meant.
Nobody moved.
When the recording ended, one older captain looked at Lucia with open disgust.
“You told us Raffaele had agreed to negotiate.”
Lucia lifted her chin.
“He would have.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Another man spoke.
“You said Camilla was taking the girl away voluntarily.”
Camilla closed her eyes.
Lucia shrugged.
“Camilla did participate.”
True.
Camilla did not defend herself.
That mattered too.
The oldest captain looked toward the enclosure.
“You locked the child in there?”
Lucia’s voice remained calm.
“She needed to learn she could not run to Raffaele every time she was frightened.”
I watched the room change.
Lucia still did not see it.
She thought toughness would rescue her.
Instead, it exposed the distance between her and everyone else.
Marco leaned against the stone wall beside me.
One by one, the old captains removed the Inner Table pins Lucia had given them.
No speeches.
They placed them on the refreshments counter.
Lucia stared.
“Cowards.”
The oldest man shook his head.
“No.”
He looked toward the bars.
“We’re old enough to remember where this kind of family ends.”
That sentence hit harder than accusation.
Because these men had served my father.
They knew.
May you like
Lucia had tried to resurrect the old Bellandi order.
Instead, she reminded the men who survived it why I destroyed it in the first place.
