Chapter 14
Lucian asked to see Helena before he died.
Everyone expected her to refuse.
She agreed.
Roman asked:
“Why?”
“I need to hear him say it.”
“What?”
“That Vittorio killed my mother.”
Roman nodded.
Not closure.
Need.
They went together.
Lucian looked smaller.
Michael sat near the window, recovering.
Celeste remained by the fireplace.
Family ghosts assembled in one room.
Helena approached Lucian.
“My mother.”
He looked at her.
“Catherine.”
“Vittorio killed her.”
“Yes.”
Helena’s hand trembled.
“Why?”
“She tried to expose him.”
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
“Did you stop him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Lucian looked away.
“Because I thought her death would turn you against Vittorio.”
Helena stared.
Another manipulation.
“You let my mother die to recruit me.”
“Yes.”
“And when I married him?”
“I hated you.”
“Because I survived differently than you wanted.”
“Yes.”
Roman saw Helena’s face empty.
Not rage.
Disillusionment.
Lucian had not been avenger.
He had been another man using women’s pain.
Helena looked toward Celeste.
“You knew?”
Celeste whispered:
“Later.”
“And stayed.”
“Yes.”
Helena almost smiled.
“All of us.”
Lucian coughed.
Blood on cloth.
Roman looked at him.
“What did you want Sophie to become?”
Lucian’s eyes sharpened despite weakness.
“Truth.”
Roman shook his head.
“A child cannot become your truth.”
“She carries both lines.”
“She carries crayons.”
Lucian stared.
Roman continued:
“She likes strawberries.”
“She’s afraid of loud doors.”
“She thinks my mother is a ghostmaker because Helena told her I died.”
“That is Sophie.”
“Not crown.”
“Not revenge.”
“Not proof.”
Lucian’s eyes filled with contempt.
“Weak.”
Roman nodded.
“Maybe.”
Michael almost smiled.
Lucian looked toward Helena.
“You failed.”
Helena answered:
“No.”
“For the first time, I think I stopped.”
Silence.
Lucian’s face twisted.
He had spent his life needing enemies to continue.
Now one by one they were stepping away.
He died the following morning.
No gun.
No grand revenge.
Old age and illness finished what decades of war could not.
Roman felt nothing clean.
No triumph.
No forgiveness.
Michael stood beside the body.
“That’s it.”
Roman looked at him.
“No.”
“What?”
“The man dies.”
“The consequences stay.”
Celeste nodded.
She knew.
Michael asked:
“What happens to Circle?”
Celeste looked at him.
“Nothing.”
Roman frowned.
She continued:
“I’m dissolving my people.”
“You can?”
“No.”
“I can stop leading.”
That was more honest.
Some would leave.
Some would create new grudges.
Some men required conflict to know themselves.
Roman could not end human nature.
Only his participation.
Helena asked Celeste:
“And us?”
Celeste looked at her half-brother’s widow.
“We were enemies longer than we were family.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
Good.
No artificial reconciliation.
Nora later met Isabella again.
Without Roman.
Without Sophie.
Mother and daughter had years to decide whether anything remained.
Michael met Sophie once.
At distance.
He did not introduce himself as uncle.
He told her:
“My name is Michael.”
Sophie gave him a cookie.
That was enough.
Helena was allowed one supervised meeting.
Sophie stared at her.
“Grandma.”
Helena began crying.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
“You said Daddy dead.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Helena swallowed.
“Because Grandma was scared.”
Sophie thought.
“That was bad.”
“Yes.”
Then Sophie returned to Nora.
No hug.
Helena accepted it.
Roman watched from the doorway.
Consequences.
Not revenge.
That night Nora stood beside him on the balcony.
“What happens now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always have an answer.”
“Trying a new hobby.”
She almost smiled.
“Do you want Sophie here?”
“Yes.”
“Me?”
Roman looked at her.
“Yes.”
Nora’s expression changed.
“But?”
“But wanting is not deciding.”
She stared.
“You really did change.”
Roman looked toward the garden.
“Ask me in ten years.”
Then a bodyguard approached.
“Boss.”
Roman turned.
“What?”
“We found something in Sophie’s old clothes.”
The torn ones.
The clothes Helena had hated seeing at the gala.
Inside the hem was a black thread.
Tied around a tiny silver key.
Roman stared.
“Another key.”
Nora almost laughed.
“Your family needs fewer locks.”
The bodyguard handed him a note.
Not paper.
A strip of fabric embroidered:
FOR ROMAN WHEN HE FINALLY LISTENS.
Helena recognized the stitching.
Her face changed.
“Catherine.”
Roman stared.
His grandmother.
Dead twenty years.
The message had been sewn long before Sophie wore the clothes.
How did it reach her?
Helena whispered:
“Those clothes…”
“What?”
“They came from one of the safe houses.”
“Whose?”
“My mother’s old house.”
Roman looked at the key.
“What does it open?”
May you like
Helena’s face went white.
“The room Vittorio sealed after he killed her.”
