Chapter 5
Camilla and I had been separated for eight months.
The official reason was simple.
We could not live in the same house without turning every dinner into a fight.
The real reason was uglier.
After my father died, the Bellandi organization almost tore itself apart. I spent eighteen months keeping it together. Too many nights away. Too many calls during breakfast. Too many times I told Camilla I would be home in an hour and arrived after Sophia was asleep.
Camilla grew tired of waiting.
She had every right to.
Then she made that pain our daughter’s responsibility.
“I wanted you to understand,” she said.
I stared at her.
“Understand what?”
“What it feels like to be the person waiting.”
Marco looked away.
Even Grant stopped moving.
Camilla continued because once resentment finally gets permission to speak, it rarely knows when to stop.
“You missed dinners. Birthdays. School things.”
“Sophia is three.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
I did.
There were things I missed.
That guilt was real.
So was the cage.
“You could have screamed at me for the next twenty years,” I said. “You could have left me. You did leave me.”
My voice lowered.
“You do not teach our daughter I abandoned her because you wanted me to understand your marriage.”
Camilla’s face twisted.
“You always make everything sound simple.”
“No.”
I looked toward the room where Sophia was sleeping.
“I’m finally making one thing simple.”
She was not leverage.
Lucia tapped one finger against the table.
“This emotional performance is exactly why the Inner Table is necessary.”
I looked at her.
There it was.
Every wound became an argument for control.
My grief.
Camilla’s resentment.
Sophia’s fear.
All of it useful if Lucia could turn it into proof that one man should not lead alone.
Marco pulled another wet family photograph from the bag.
On the back, somebody had written a date.
Tomorrow.
Below it:
HAWTHORNE — 8 PM.
Six initials followed.
Lucia looked at the photograph.
I did not need names anymore.
May you like
The six people she meant to bring back to the Inner Table were already expecting me.
And apparently they believed I would arrive without knowing my daughter had been used to get me there.
