Chapter 12
I wanted Rachel brought home.
Claire did not.
Not yet.
That surprised me until she explained.
“She stayed away twenty-four years because everyone told her getting close would get me killed.”
Claire sat beside Sofia while Rafe rewrapped the bandage around her shoulder.
“If we send armed cars rushing toward her now, what do you think she’ll believe?”
I looked at her.
She was right.
I hated that too.
Power solves certain problems quickly.
Fear built over twenty-four years is not one of them.
So I sent one person.
Thomas Bennett.
Rachel trusted him once.
If trust survived anywhere, it might survive there.
While he traveled north, I turned back to Lucia and Marco.
Lucia had regained some of her arrogance.
“You think bringing Rachel here changes anything?”
“Yes.”
“She abandoned the family.”
“No.”
“She chose outsiders.”
“She chose her child.”
Lucia rolled her eyes.
“Same weakness.”
Claire heard.
This time she did not flinch.
She stood.
“My mother stayed away from me because you made love dangerous.”
Lucia smiled.
“And yet here you are. A waitress.”
Claire’s face hardened.
“You say that like serving people makes me smaller than threatening babies.”
The cafe staff went silent.
Lucia looked around and realized something had changed.
Those workers had spent years lowering their eyes around Bellinis.
Now they were looking directly at her.
Not because Claire had become powerful.
Because Lucia had become understandable.
Cruelty loses some of its magic when people name it accurately.
Marco sat apart from her.
That mattered too.
“You told me Rachel escaped,” he said.
Lucia did not look at him.
“You needed to believe that.”
“You made me think I helped kill her.”
“I made you useful.”
His face changed.
There it was.
Rachel’s tape had predicted him perfectly.
A man angry enough to mistake being used for being chosen.
Marco laughed once.
Then removed his Bellini family pin.
Lucia finally looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding out what I am without you telling me.”
For forty years, that sentence would have been impossible.
Tonight it landed softly.
But Lucia reacted like he had stabbed her.
Good.
An hour later Thomas called.
I answered on speaker.
Nobody breathed.
Then a woman’s voice came through.
Older.
Shaking.
Familiar from the cassette.
“Is Claire safe?”
Claire covered her mouth.
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
A long silence.
May you like
Then Rachel Bellini said:
“Put my daughter on.”
