Chapter 4
Matteo had been twenty-six when he vanished.
I was twenty-two.
One night he argued with my father.
The next morning he was gone.
Lorraine told me he stole money and ran.
My father never spoke his name again.
Four years later, we declared him dead inside the family.
No body.
No funeral.
Just absence becoming fact.
Now he was standing in my father’s hidden photographs.
Beside Lorraine.
Beside Gavin.
Beside the silver key.
I went through the sequence.
Matteo arguing with the six men.
Matteo pointing toward the table.
My father standing behind the camera in one reflection.
Then a photograph of Lorraine grabbing Matteo’s sleeve.
Another of Gavin’s father blocking the door.
Then nothing.
The next image had been taken weeks later.
Only Lorraine and the six elders remained.
Matteo gone.
I looked at my mother.
“What was the key?”
She said nothing.
Gavin did.
“The lower vault.”
Lorraine turned on him.
“Shut up.”
Too late.
The lower vault sat beneath the old Valenti chapel.
I had never been allowed inside as a child.
My father sealed it before his death.
Or told me he did.
“What happened there?”
Gavin answered reluctantly.
“The old council kept emergency reserves.”
Money?
Weapons?
Records?
It didn’t matter yet.
“What did Matteo discover?”
Lorraine’s jaw tightened.
“He became unstable.”
I laughed.
There it was.
The family’s favorite word for anyone asking the wrong question.
“What did he discover?”
No answer.
Adrian enlarged photograph seventeen.
On the table beside Matteo was a ledger.
Black leather.
Stamped with one word.
CHILDREN.
My stomach turned.
I looked toward the stairs where Maisie slept.
“What was that?”
Lorraine closed her eyes.
Gavin muttered:
“Old family placements.”
I went still.
“What does that mean?”
My mother finally spoke.
“Children were raised where the family needed them.”
Cold.
Simple.
Horrifying.
Not kidnapping.
Not strangers.
Worse in a quieter way.
Widowed cousins.
Orphaned nephews.
Children of imprisoned or dead captains.
The old council decided which household raised them based on alliances and loyalty.
Family strategy disguised as care.
Matteo objected.
So had my father.
Eventually.
May you like
That was why he photographed everything.
And apparently why he hid the card where only a broken portrait could reveal it.
