Chapter 12
Cassandro gathered the Moretti captains that evening.
No outsiders.
No elaborate ceremony.
Just the men whose loyalty mattered when doors closed and family names stopped being decorative.
Gideon sat at one end of the table.
Damian at the other.
Vivienne stood because she refused the chair Cassandro offered, saying she would not sit “like a prisoner.”
No one argued with her.
Mrs. Keller stayed near Audrey upstairs.
Cassandro placed Natalie’s recorder on the table.
He played everything.
Her warning.
The forced farewell.
The hidden recording afterward.
Then Gideon spoke.
Not to defend himself.
To confirm it.
Three captains had been approached years ago. Two accepted Damian’s money. One backed away after Natalie disappeared. Gideon stayed.
One of the older capos looked at Vivienne.
“And you married Cassandro knowing his wife was alive.”
Vivienne crossed her arms.
“Natalie had been gone years.”
“You knew why.”
“She chose hiding.”
Cassandro stared at her.
“After you imprisoned her.”
Vivienne rolled her eyes.
“She survived.”
That word again.
As if survival erased the person who created the danger.
Another captain looked at Damian.
“What was the endgame?”
Damian finally stopped pretending.
“Cassandro had become sentimental.”
Audrey.
Natalie.
Family.
The words he did not say hung between them.
“We needed a Moretti head who understood the organization comes first.”
Cassandro almost smiled.
“And who did you have in mind?”
Damian glanced at Vivienne.
No one missed it.
Vivienne’s marriage was the bridge.
Damian was the destination.
Several captains shifted.
One laughed quietly.
Not because the plan was funny.
Because Damian had apparently believed marrying his sister to Cassandro made him the natural heir to a family that was not his.
Then Cassandro placed Audrey’s blue bracelet beside Natalie’s matching one.
“You all built this around a child,” he said.
No one answered.
“You held her mother. You frightened her. You tried to teach her that Vivienne was safer than Natalie.”
His voice stayed quiet.
“And yesterday she still chose the bracelet Natalie gave her.”
That was when one of the compromised captains removed his family pin and placed it on the table.
“I’m done.”
A second followed.
May you like
Not because Cassandro demanded it.
Because the conspiracy had finally become too ugly to call strategy.
