Chapter 2
I moved Lucy out of the memorial room first.
That mattered more than any answer.
Emma took her upstairs with two guards I trusted personally. Lucy kept looking back at the urn until the door closed behind her.
Then I turned to Victor.
“Sit.”
He laughed.
“No.”
One of my guards moved.
Victor raised both hands.
“Fine.”
He sat.
I kept Isabella on speaker.
“Can he hear me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
I had never seen him afraid of her before.
That alone told me the marriage I remembered had been surrounded by conversations I never heard.
Isabella spoke carefully.
“Two years ago, I found out Victor had been moving Ravello men without your approval.”
Victor rolled his eyes.
“Reserve teams.”
I looked at him.
“Quiet.”
Isabella continued.
“He was building loyalty under family assignments. Men thought they were serving you. They were really answering to him.”
My chest tightened.
“How many?”
“Enough.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“Very precise.”
Isabella ignored him.
“I confronted him.”
I looked toward my brother.
“When?”
“The night before the fire.”
There.
The fire.
The accident that supposedly killed her.
A country house outside Manhattan.
Burned nearly to the foundation.
The body inside was damaged beyond recognition.
Victor handled identification because I had been recovering from a gunshot wound received three days earlier.
My brother handled everything while I could barely stand.
He had brought me the urn himself.
I stared at him.
“You identified her.”
Victor did not answer.
Isabella said:
“He identified someone.”
The room went quiet.
I looked at the ashes.
“Who?”
Isabella’s voice lowered.
“I still don’t know.”
That answer hurt differently.
Someone had been burned.
May you like
Someone had become the body I mourned.
And Victor had used that death to bury a living woman.
