Chapter 5
Victoria laughed when I told her.
At first.
Then she saw Mercer behind me and understood where the information came from.
“You coward.”
Mercer looked away.
Victoria tried to stand, but my guards pushed her back into the chair.
I remained across the room.
“Rafael planned to remove you after the wedding.”
“No.”
“He promised someone else your place.”
“No.”
“He never intended to let you stay.”
Her expression shifted from denial to rage.
“Mercer doesn’t know what Rafael promised me.”
I almost smiled.
“There.”
She stopped.
Not Rafael wasn’t involved.
What Rafael promised.
I let the silence punish her.
Finally she snapped.
“You want the truth? Isabel ruined everything.”
Upstairs, Isabel could not hear her.
That was the only reason I allowed Victoria to continue.
“She found something that wasn’t hers,” Victoria said. “She should have stayed out of family history.”
“She is family.”
“She married into it.”
My face went cold.
Victoria continued because anger had made her careless.
“Rafael said wives come and go. Blood controls what survives.”
“And you believed a man who asked you to replace my wife?”
“He said I understood power.”
“No.”
I looked at her with open contempt.
“He understood what you wanted.”
That hit.
“You think Isabel loved you better?” she snapped. “She hid the markers from you.”
“To protect the children.”
“She hid things.”
“You locked her in a room.”
“She would have destroyed everything.”
“What exactly?”
Victoria’s eyes flashed.
“Rafael’s return.”
There it was.
“When?”
She realized too late what she had given me.
I repeated the question.
“When was Rafael planning to return?”
Mercer answered from behind me.
“After the wedding.”
I looked back.
“He wanted every old captain gathered in one place,” Mercer said. “Your marriage to Victoria would do that.”
A wedding.
Family elders.
Old captains.
Every faction under one roof.
I understood.
The marriage was not merely a replacement for Isabel.
It was bait for the entire Vega organization.
Victoria turned toward Mercer.
“You stupid bastard.”
He laughed.
“No. I’m finally afraid of the right man.”
I looked toward the antique-map cabinet.
The markers Rafael feared were still missing.
May you like
If he planned to return at my wedding, then the names Isabel hid were not simply proof of old disloyalty.
They were a map of who Rafael expected to stand beside him when he came home.
