Chapter 63
“Non sapevo, Antonio, te lo giuro. Pensavo fosse una delle nostre… una risorsa della Confraternit.” The Senator’s voice is slick with sweat, even over the encrypted line as I hold the phone to my ear. I don’t know, Antonio, I swear. I thought she was one of ours, a Brethren asset.
I let the silence stretch, a cruelty I can afford to enjoy and he cannot. I lean back in my chair, the black leather sighing in sympathy.
“Bullshit,” I say, the English word a hard, alien artifact in our Italian argument. It has more bite. “è una cazzata e tu lo sai.”
“Antonio, per l’amor di Dio…”
“No,” I interrupt, my voice dropping to a low, controlled simmer.
“Do not invoke God. God has abandoned you to my judgment, and I am telling you that is bullshit. I would know. I. Would. Know.” Each word is a nail tapped gently, precisely against the lid of a coffin.
“If she were ours, it would have been abundantly clear. Besides, why would we ever have need for such action with you?”
He mutters something unintelligible, a prayer or a curse. The sound grates. My patience, a finite resource I hoard more carefully than gold or uranium is thinning, stretching into transparency.
“You have been trying to contact me for weeks, you say? Wailing like a lost child, and what did you expect? That I would pat your head and tell you everything would be alright? That I would clean up your mess with a smile?” I let out a short, derisive laugh.
“You are a grown man, Giulio. A Senator of the Republic. Do you call your mummy to hold your hand before every big meeting, too? Should I send a nanny to wipe your arse?”
There is a sharp intake of breath on the other end, and I realise that I’ve hit a nerve. Good.
“Vaffanculo.” he spits. Fuck you.
The words hang in the pristine air of my study. Ah, there it is. The little spark of defiance from a cornered rodent. A smile, thin and cold, touches my lips. This is more like it. This is a language I understand far better than pathetic pleading.
“That,” I say softly, “is a very bold line to take from the safety of Rome. I would be impressed if it weren’t so pathetically transparent. You should say it to my face.”
A beat of silence. I can almost hear the blood draining from his face, the sudden, chilling realization of what his fear has just provoked. “What, what does that mean?”
I let the smirk bleed into my voice. “You wanted to see me so badly? To unburden your guilty conscience? Then you shall. Consider your wish granted. I’m flying out today. I’ll be in your office by tonight.”
“Tonight? What time?”
“Late,” I purr, savouring the word. “But you’ll be there. You will cancel your dinners, your mistresses, your votes. You will sit in your ornate little office, and you will wait for the entire day like a good little boy.”
I don’t wait for a reply. I terminate the call, the screen of the phone going dark.
I place it gently on the vast, empty surface of the desk.
The silence rushes back in, but now it is charged, pregnant with purpose.
Some people, I think, staring at the immaculate lawn out the window, should be careful what they wish for. They might just get me.
The argument has left a metallic taste in my mouth.
Incompetence is one thing; it can be managed, disciplined, or excised.
But this, this sentimental panic, this desperate attempt to shift blame is a contagion.
Giulio has become a liability. The meeting tonight will not be about damage control; it will be about termination.
As if summoned by the violence of my thoughts, the study door opens without a knock.
Only one person has that privilege. My brother stands there, a mountain of a man in a suit that seems barely capable of containing him.
He doesn’t speak, he simply enters and stands patiently before the desk, his hands clasped in front of him, his expression neutral.
I don’t look at him immediately. I swivel my chair back to the window, giving him my profile. “We need to go to Italy,” I say, my voice flat, all traces of the previous venom gone, replaced by the cool efficiency of command. “Urgently. Get the Jet ready.”
“I’ll have everything prepped for wheels-up in an hour,” he replies instantly. His voice is a low rumble, like distant thunder. There are no questions, no hesitations. This is why he is invaluable.
The image of Giulio’s panicked face is replaced by another, unbidden: Grace sitting in the garden this morning, her head tilted towards the weak sun, a book open but unread on her lap.
It’s been almost a week since our Grand Master visited, since his friends had their fun with her.
She’s all but recovered, but I’ve been careful to not cross any lines, to give her the space she needs to heal.
Her obedience of late has been remarkable. Finally, it feels like I’m making progress.
Has she ever been to Rome? Has she ever seen the Colosseum? Would this make a nice little reward, a nice distraction for her?
“Tell the maids to pack a bag for Grace as well,” I say.
The silence from Mateus is different this time. It is heavy, questioning. I finally turn to look at him. His neutral mask is still in place, but I see the minute tightening around his eyes.
“Why is she coming?” he asks. It’s not quite a challenge, but it’s more than a simple request for clarification. It is a line, and he is stepping over it.
My own eyes narrow slightly. I don’t owe him an explanation. He knows this. The fact that he asked signifies a depth of concern that I find irritating. “Does my instruction require a rationale?”
He holds my gaze for a moment, a testament to his tenure and his courage. “With respect,” he says, choosing his words with the care of a bomb disposal expert. “I think you’re getting attached. This obsession with the Ratcliffe girl is going too far. It’s a concern.”
The word hits a mark I didn’t know was exposed. Obsession. It’s such a melodramatic, weak word. It implies a loss of control. It suggests the pursuer is as beholden to the pursued as the other way around.
Is that what this is?
This constant, grinding need to bend her will, to see my reflection finally staring back from the depths of her eyes? Is it domination, or is it dependency?
“You have no idea what you are talking about,” I reply, my voice dropping to a whisper that is far more dangerous than a shout. “Your concern is logistics, security, the application of force. Not my state of mind. Do not confuse your roles.”
“I am your brother…”
“And I am more than yours.” I retort. Like he doesn’t know I carry the very weight of the world on my shoulders right now. Like he doesn’t know as well as I do that the Esau are still very much interested in Grace, despite my attempts to prove how much I’ve ruined her.
A flicker of something-- not hurt, Mateus is beyond that-- but acknowledgment, passes over his face. He dips his head a fraction of an inch. “Understood.”
“Then get on with it.”
He turns and leaves, closing the door softly behind him. The silence returns, but now it is agitated, buzzing with his accusation.
Attached. Obsession.
I rise from my chair and move to the window, pressing my palms against the cool pane as I look out over the vast sweep of lawn.
The land stretches for miles, quiet, orderly, obedient.
A fitting backdrop for a man who shapes presidents, more fitting than an isolated medieval castle.
Every alliance I forge, every leader I elevate is another piece placed exactly where I choose on the global chessboard I command.
But Grace is not a piece on that board.
She is a spoil of a war still being fought, a trophy I’ve yet to fully claim.
Deep down, I know the line between conquest and desire is blurring in ways I can no longer ignore.
But Mateus is wrong about one thing, it’s not an obsession.
It’s a project. A critical, delicate project at its most volatile stage.
She has been so beautifully pliant recently.
The fire in her eyes, that defiant spark I so enjoyed quashing, has been banked to embers.
She eats what is put in front of her. She reads the books I leave for her.
She meets my gaze when I ask for it without the searing hatred, instead replaced by a weary, watchful acceptance.
It is a victory, hard fucking won.
And victories are the most fragile moments.
A single misstep, a week of absence could be the gust of wind that fans those embers back into a blaze again.
It would be like leaving a sculpture of wet clay to harden on its own, unpredictably.
I need to be there, my hands shaping her, applying gentle, constant pressure.
I cannot give her breathing space. Thinking space.
In silence, her own thoughts are her only companion, and they are a treacherous ally. She might start remembering who she was, and I can’t have that. I can’t allow that.
The low, constant hum of the Gulfstream’s engines is a soothing mantra. I am seated in a deep, cream-colored leather armchair, a crystal tumbler of Macallum Rare Cask resting on the table beside me. Out the window, the Alps are a jagged sea of whitecaps far below.
Grace is beside me, curled up in her own chair, pretending to read a magazine. She’s playing her part beautifully, the picture of docile contentment. The perfect, beautiful pet. I can feel the other presence in the cabin, though.
Mateus is seated several rows back, near the galley, a laptop open in front of him. He’s pretending to work, but the set of his shoulders is rigid. I know he is watching, and he is judging. Let him. Let him see what true control looks like.
I reach over and trace a finger along the line of Grace’s jaw. She looks up, her brown eyes wide and seemingly guileless.