Chapter 3
Victor finally spoke.
“She was going to destroy the family.”
I turned toward him.
Isabella laughed weakly through the phone.
“There it is.”
Victor leaned forward.
“She had no idea what she found. She saw security transfers and imagined betrayal.”
“You built private crews.”
“I built protection.”
“Without telling me.”
“You were getting shot every six months.”
I almost smiled.
“So you replaced my judgment.”
His face tightened.
“I compensated for it.”
That was Victor.
Always cleaner language.
Always duty wrapped around ambition.
I asked Isabella what happened the night of the fire.
She paused.
Then began.
Victor invited her to the country house under the excuse of discussing me. He told her I had become unstable after the shooting. He said the family needed a structure that could continue if I died.
Isabella refused.
Then she threatened to tell me about his hidden crews.
“She tried to leave,” Victor said.
I looked at him.
“What did you do?”
He said nothing.
Isabella answered.
“He locked the door.”
My hands tightened.
Then smoke appeared in the east hall.
Not part of Victor’s plan.
At least not according to Isabella.
Someone else had started the fire.
Victor panicked.
He got out.
Isabella did not.
Or so he thought.
“How did you survive?”
“There was a cellar stair.”
I closed my eyes.
The house had an old wine cellar.
My father used it years earlier.
“I got out through the lower service tunnel. By the time I reached the woods, the whole house was burning.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
Silence.
That question mattered most.
Finally she said:
“Because I heard Victor tell someone you already agreed I had become dangerous.”
I looked at my brother.
May you like
He stared back.
For two years, Isabella had believed I might have chosen the lie with him.
