Chapter 6
The lower vault still existed.
Rafe found the key inside Lorraine’s jewelry box.
Silver.
Same one from the photograph.
She had kept it twenty years.
That told me everything about how “ended” the old council really was.
We opened the chapel basement before midnight.
No police.
No outsiders.
Valenti only.
Inside were shelves of old family records, rings, letters, cassette tapes, photographs, and locked wooden boxes.
Not bureaucracy.
Memory.
The dangerous kind.
One box carried Matteo’s initials.
My hands shook opening it.
Inside:
His watch.
A photograph of his wife.
Three letters.
And a small hospital bracelet.
BABY GIRL.
No name.
Date.
Twenty years ago.
My niece.
Alive at birth.
I sat down.
Rafe remained silent.
Good man.
The first letter was from Matteo to our father.
I will not let Mother place my daughter with Gavin’s branch merely because she thinks my marriage weakened Valenti.
My eyes closed.
Gavin’s branch.
I looked at my cousin.
He went pale.
“Your father was supposed to raise her?”
Gavin swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Matteo planned to leave.”
There.
My brother had intended to take his wife and child away from the main Valenti estate.
Lorraine considered that betrayal.
So the council decided if Matteo left, the baby stayed.
Family property.
I felt sick.
“What happened?”
Lorraine spoke from behind us.
“Matteo found out.”
I turned.
“He confronted your father.”
My father?
“He begged him to stop the council.”
“Did he?”
Lorraine cried.
“Eventually.”
That word again.
Always after damage.
Matteo took his wife and newborn daughter that night.
The council sent men after them.
Not to kill.
To bring the baby back.
The phrase sounded familiar already.
Protection through pursuit.
“What happened?”
Lorraine looked toward the floor.
“Matteo escaped.”
My heart stopped.
Escaped.
Not died.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Twenty years.
My brother might have lived.
May you like
My niece might have grown up somewhere believing Valentis were monsters in an old story.
And perhaps they were.
