Chapter 2
I had the entire estate sealed in less than ninety seconds.
No cars left.
No gates opened.
Nobody wandered away because they suddenly remembered another appointment.
There were forty-three adults at the reception.
Twelve were senior Bellandi men.
Every one of them understood what locked gates meant.
Something had happened inside the family.
Until I knew how deep it went, everyone stayed.
August was moved into the guest suite beside my private office.
A doctor from our own circle treated him.
Dehydration.
Weight loss.
Bruising.
A damaged shoulder.
Nothing immediately fatal.
That should have comforted me.
It didn't.
Mason refused to leave him.
My son sat on the edge of the bed holding August's hand as if the old man might disappear again.
August looked at him.
“You've gotten bigger.”
Mason frowned.
“Everybody said you were dead.”
My father looked at me.
That sentence hurt more than I expected.
“So did I,” I said.
August's expression hardened.
“That's what they needed you to believe.”
I closed the door.
“Who?”
His eyes moved toward the hallway.
“Julian.”
I wasn't surprised.
“Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
That hurt differently.
Vanessa and Julian were my cousins.
We had grown up inside the same house.
Shared holidays.
Fought over cars.
Buried grandparents together.
Julian had stood two places behind me when I took control of the family.
Vanessa had been holding Mason the first time I brought him home from the hospital.
“How long?”
“Seventy-eight days.”
My jaw tightened.
“You were supposed to have died four months ago.”
“I was held somewhere else first.”
“Where?”
“A hunting house north of here.”
“Who moved you?”
August stared at me.
“Men who knew your security routes.”
That narrowed the list considerably.
I sat across from him.
“Why keep you alive?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Mason had climbed under the blanket beside him.
My father's hand rested on the boy's hair.
Finally he said, “Because they needed me to say something.”
“What?”
“That you were no longer fit to lead.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because suddenly everything made sense and nothing did.
“They kept you chained for seventy-eight days because they wanted an endorsement?”
August's eyes sharpened.
“You think my endorsement matters to you?”
“No.”
“It doesn't.”
A pause.
“But it matters to men who followed me for thirty years before they followed you.”
That was true.
Older capos.
Old crews.
Men who accepted me because August had chosen me.
Not because they loved me.
Not even because they feared me.
Because in our world, old loyalties outlived reason.
“What happens after you denounce me?”
“Julian takes my place.”
“Not yours.”
August shook his head.
“Yours.”
I stared at him.
My father leaned closer.
“He wasn't planning to challenge you.”
His voice dropped.
“He was planning to have the family believe I challenged you for him.”
The door opened behind me.
One of my bodyguards entered.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We searched Vanessa.”
He placed an old brass key on the table.
The service-room key.
Beside it he placed another object.
A tiny silver whistle.
August's face changed.
I noticed.
“What is it?”
He reached for it.
Didn't touch it.
“That belonged to your uncle Cesare.”
My father's younger brother.
The man who hadn't attended a Bellandi gathering in seven years.
I looked at August.
“Cesare is retired.”
My father gave me a tired smile.
“No.”
“He isn't.”
May you like
Then he said the sentence that changed the list of suspects completely.
“Julian isn't the one who started this.”
