Chapter 4
There are moments when everyone in a house feels danger at the same time.
Nobody announces it.
Nobody needs to.
Waiters disappear from hallways.
Conversations shorten.
Bodyguards stop pretending to be guests.
Doors that were decorative five minutes earlier become positions.
By six fifty-two, the Bellandi estate had changed.
The pool music was off.
Mason was upstairs with August and four guards.
The guests had been moved away from the east wing.
My men controlled the main gates.
But the east camera remained dead.
I went to Julian.
He was less composed than Vanessa.
His jacket was gone.
His shirt was untucked.
He looked like a man who had spent twenty minutes discovering that confidence doesn't stop ribs from hurting.
I closed the door.
“Cesare is coming.”
Julian looked at me.
No surprise.
Another answer.
“How many men?”
He laughed.
“You think I know everything?”
“I think you're still deciding whether your uncle is worth dying for.”
“He's your uncle too.”
“No.”
I sat across from him.
“Not tonight.”
Julian stared.
I continued.
“Vanessa waited for someone to arrive.”
No reaction.
“August says you wanted the west house.”
Nothing.
“Mason heard people outside the room discussing tonight.”
His jaw tightened at my son's name.
I noticed.
“You didn't know Mason was there.”
Julian looked away.
That interested me.
“You knew August was being kept there.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Vanessa had the key.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn't know my son heard him.”
Silence.
I leaned closer.
“That's why you panicked.”
Julian said nothing.
“You didn't attack me because Mason lied.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“You attacked because he told the truth in front of the capos.”
That landed.
Now I understood.
This wasn't only about keeping August hidden.
Mason had exposed him publicly.
Seven senior men had heard a three-year-old announce that the dead patriarch was alive.
Whatever Julian planned, secrecy had already cracked.
“What was supposed to happen at eight?”
Julian smiled.
“You think Vanessa will hold out longer than me?”
“I don't care which one of you talks first.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
His smile widened.
“Because whoever talks second is the one Cesare expects to sacrifice.”
That wasn't what I expected.
I sat back.
Julian continued.
“You think we're partners.”
“Aren't you?”
“No.”
“Then what are you?”
His expression darkened.
“Useful.”
The word sounded bitter.
Finally.
A crack.
“Cesare promised you my chair.”
Julian laughed.
“He promised me more than that.”
“What?”
“He promised me I wouldn't spend the rest of my life taking orders from someone younger.”
There it was.
Not ideology.
Not justice.
Humiliation.
Julian had stood beside me for years while resentment fermented quietly behind his teeth.
“What did Vanessa get?”
He stopped smiling.
That meant the answer mattered.
“What?”
“Ask her.”
“I am asking you.”
His gaze moved toward the window.
Then he said something that made the room colder.
“She got to choose who lived.”
I stood.
“Who?”
Julian didn't answer.
I grabbed the front of his shirt.
“Who was she choosing between?”
He looked at me.
And smiled again.
“You.”
May you like
Pause.
“And your son.”
