Chapter 8
Lucia called me herself.
Not to apologize.
To warn me.
“You opened the door too early.”
I stood alone in my study.
“Too early for what?”
“Understanding.”
I almost laughed.
“You helped Rafael imprison my wife.”
“I helped preserve the family from a woman who found something she did not understand.”
“Isabel understood enough to scare all of you.”
Silence.
Good.
“Victoria was your choice.”
“She was convenient.”
“And when she stopped being convenient?”
Lucia did not answer.
Mercer had been right.
Victoria had never been family to them.
Only placement.
“What happens at the wedding?”
That caught her.
I heard the pause.
“Ask Victoria.”
“I’m asking you.”
Lucia’s voice cooled.
“Rafael wanted to see whether you had become as sentimental as your father feared.”
“My father distrusted Rafael.”
“Your father distrusted everyone by the end.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
Lucia sighed.
“He made one mistake.”
“What?”
“He thought warning you would be enough.”
I looked toward the loyalty markers on my desk.
“Those weren’t just names.”
Silence again.
“What else do they mean?”
“They mark debts.”
I looked at the black slashes differently.
Not allies.
Obligations.
Families Rafael believed owed him.
“Some will never stand with him,” Lucia said. “Some will because their fathers promised something thirty years ago. Some won’t know why until an old story is placed in front of them.”
That was more dangerous than bribery.
Mafia families remembered debt longer than fact.
“What does Rafael want?”
“You.”
My hand stopped.
“Explain.”
“He doesn’t want your chair.”
That surprised me.
“He wants you to keep it.”
Silence.
Lucia almost sounded sad.
“Rafael learned something outside. Being boss makes you visible. Owning the boss is safer.”
The same pattern.
Victoria wanted marriage.
Lucia wanted access.
Rafael wanted influence without the target.
I stared toward the bedroom wing where Isabel and the children slept.
“How does he plan to own me?”
Lucia answered with one sentence.
“By making you choose which member of your family gets to stay alive.”
Then the line went dead.
I did not move.
May you like
Because for the first time since opening the gray door, I understood Isabel’s imprisonment had not been the final cruelty.
It had been preparation for a choice Rafael still intended to force.
