Chapter 7
The Bellini gates open only after Inez collapses against me.
Two guards carry her inside while another takes my gun. No one offers me a hand. I follow them to the medical room with smoke in my hair and soot streaking my dress.
My father arrives before the doctor finishes cutting Inez’s sleeve.
Salvatore points toward Inez. “She stays.” Then he looks at me. “You come with me.”
For one weak second, those words sound like protection. My father is angry, but I am home. Inez will live. The gates opened.
I should know better by now.
Salvatore takes me into his study and closes the door. “Cesare is dead. De Luca men are gathering. If Roman names a Bellini traitor before sunrise, we will have war by noon.”
“Then help me prove who planted the communicator.”
His eyes move to the soot on my face. “There is no time.”
No time for evidence. There is always time for my confession.
He places a written statement on the desk. It says I sent the route to an unknown Bellini loyalist, acted without his permission, and fled when the attack failed.
My name is already beneath the first paragraph.
“You prepared this before I arrived.”
“I prepared what may keep our people alive.”
I read the words again because part of me still believes I must have misunderstood. “You want me to confess to killing Cesare.”
“I want one person blamed instead of two families buried.”
Not my daughter. One person.
“What happens after I sign?”
Salvatore does not answer quickly enough.
Roman will imprison me. Matteo may kill me. Vivienne will stand beside my husband and call it justice.
My father knows all of that.
“No.” I push the paper back toward him.
His face hardens. “This is larger than your marriage.”
“You made my marriage larger than me when you used it to hold the truce together.” My burned throat tears around the words. “Now it has failed, and you want to use my guilt instead.”
“Think carefully.”
“I have. That is why the answer is no.”
Salvatore reaches for the Bellini badge at his desk, then stops when he sees I am already removing mine. I place it beside his statement.
The sound is smaller than Roman’s badge striking the De Luca table.
It hurts more.
“If you leave without signing,” my father warns, “no Bellini house will shelter you. No Bellini guard will answer your call.”
He is waiting for fear to change my mind.
It almost does.
I have no access to Roman’s estate. My father is closing every Bellini door. Inez cannot travel far, and someone has already tried to kill us tonight.
But signing would give them the lie they need forever.
“Then tell the family I am no longer asking.”
I turn toward the door. Salvatore opens the bottom drawer of his desk and removes a sealed envelope.
My mother’s handwriting covers the front.
For Elena, if both families fail her.
The sight of it hurts in a place the fire never reached.
“You kept it while asking me to confess?”
“I promised your mother.” His hand remains on the envelope. “Giving you this does not change what I asked of you. I simply will not break my word to her.”
I take the envelope and return to the medical room. The doctor has stopped Inez’s bleeding, but she needs rest and clean stitches. We are allowed one hour before the guards escort us out.
Inside the envelope is a single address and one line beneath it.
If both families decide you do not deserve to survive, go to Gray House.