Chapter 3
The key opened a room beneath the west guesthouse.
Not Uncle Matteo’s bedroom.
His private planning room.
My father sealed it after Matteo died because nobody wanted to touch the things inside. Matteo had been the kind of man who kept grudges longer than most people kept marriages.
I had never cared enough to open it.
Javier clearly had.
We crossed the property together.
Leo and Mia stayed with two guards behind us. I wanted them away from whatever came next, but Leo refused to go inside the main house until I promised I would tell him later why he had been attacked.
Fair.
The black key turned smoothly.
That meant the lock had been maintained.
Someone had been using the room.
Inside, dust covered the shelves but not the desk.
There were four chairs.
Fresh cigar ash.
Two glasses.
And a map of Romano territory spread across the table.
Red pins marked crews loyal to me.
Blue pins marked others.
Javier looked at Clara.
She looked away.
I stepped toward the map.
“What is this?”
No answer.
I pulled one blue pin from the north district.
“That crew reports through you.”
Javier said nothing.
Another blue pin.
Clara’s brother.
Another.
One of the cousins who tried to leave the barbecue.
Faction.
Not rumor.
Structure.
I looked at Javier.
“You were planning against me.”
He laughed once.
“You call everything betrayal when you don’t control it.”
“No.”
I looked around the room.
“I call secret maps of my captains betrayal because I’m sentimental.”
Clara rubbed her arms.
“This wasn’t supposed to become a coup.”
I turned toward her.
“Supposed to?”
Javier’s face hardened.
Too late.
She had given me the shape.
Not a coup at first.
Something that became one.
I stepped closer.
“What was it supposed to be?”
Clara looked at Javier.
He gave her a warning.
I saw it.
She saw me see it.
Then something in her changed.
Maybe fear.
Maybe resentment.
Maybe she finally realized the man who assaulted my son would sacrifice her just as easily.
“A pressure group,” she whispered.
Javier shut his eyes.
I almost laughed.
“Pressure on who?”
Clara looked at me.
“You.”
“For what?”
She swallowed.
“To bring Matteo’s old rules back.”
May you like
And suddenly the attack on Leo made sense.
My son had accidentally found the key to a room where a dead man’s version of the Romano family was being rebuilt.
