Chapter 26
twenty-six
Vincenzo
Iwalk down to the cellar like I’m going to confession, and the only thing that makes it almost funny is that I’m the one people confess to.
The estate is quiet above me, all polished marble and silk curtains and staff who’ve learned how to become invisible when the family turns sharp.
They’ve had five years of watching me move through these halls without raising my voice, without losing control in public, without giving anyone the satisfaction of seeing the King of the Five Families behave like a man with blood in his mouth.
They know the difference between my calm and my peace. They also know not to ask questions when the guards rotate shifts twice in one hour, and the head of security walks with his jaw locked like he’s chewing through glass.
Lucien has been locked up since I found him next to Arabella in my bed.
That sentence still reads absurd in my head, as if it belongs to another man’s life. Not because betrayal is rare in mine. Betrayal is the currency we all trade in until we find the one person we foolishly believe won’t spend it. Lucien simply wasn’t supposed to be the one holding the knife.
He was my cousin. My second. My shadow in rooms where it was useful to have another Vieri present without dividing authority.
He was the man who understood my silences without needing them translated.
He was also the only person in this world, besides Arabella by contract, who had lived close enough to me for long enough to see the shape of my loneliness and choose not to comment on it.
I always assumed that meant loyalty. But I should have known assumptions are for men who want to be surprised by their own deaths.
The cellar door is hidden behind a paneled section of the corridor wall, disguised as tasteful architecture. A little irony in that. The prettiest houses always keep their ugliest rooms behind woodwork and polite lighting.
I stop outside it and exhale once through my nose, steadying the irritation into something cleaner.
The anger has been sitting in me for days now, cold and patient.
Not because Lucien slept with Arabella. That, absurdly, barely qualifies as the wound in all this.
If anything, that was the easiest part of the truth to process.
No, what’s been gnawing at me is the rest. Nikolaj’s shipment being hit. The false flags. The subtle push of events toward conflict. The way far too many things that should’ve felt random have started lining up under one name.
His.
I take the gun from the back of my waistband and hand it to the guard before he can unlock the door. He blinks once, startled.
“If I wanted him dead immediately,” I say, “I wouldn’t have kept him breathing this long.”
The guard nods quickly, takes the weapon, and unlocks the door. The latches open one by one with dull, final clicks before the door swings inward.
Inside, the room is lit by one harsh overhead light. Lucien sits at the table with his hands cuffed to a steel ring bolted into it. He looks… less polished than he did the last time I saw him. That’s the only way to put it.
His hair is disordered. His shirt is wrinkled. There’s stubble shadowing a jaw he would normally shave before allowing anyone of importance to see him. He’s slept badly, if at all. He is trying to appear calm because he’s Lucien, and calm is one of his favorite costumes.
His eyes lift when I walk in. For one second, something flickers there that might have been relief.
Then he sees my expression, and the relief dies.
“Vincenzo,” he says carefully.
I don’t answer immediately. I set my phone on the table near the door, then take off my jacket and hang it on the chair behind me. I roll my sleeves up to the forearms because habits matter, and I like my hands free when I’m dealing with men who have disappointed me.
Lucien watches every movement like he’s reading a playscript he’s no longer certain he understands.
When I finally look at him, I keep my face mild and my eyes cold.
“Lucien,” I say.
His shoulders ease by a fraction. He thinks that’s good. He thinks the use of his name means we’re still in the realm of family rather than execution. It is almost insulting how quickly he reaches for that assumption.
“I’m sorry,” he starts.
I lift one finger, and he stops.
We stare at each other in silence long enough for him to understand that whatever apology he rehearsed on the table beside his cuffed wrists is not going to save him from the rest.
Then I sit across from him. I don’t lean forward, I don’t threaten, and I don’t play the part of the furious wronged husband because that isn’t what I am down here. I am something far simpler and far more dangerous.
I am a man who has decided.
“How long?” I ask.
Lucien swallows. “Vincenzo—”
“How long?” I repeat, voice still calm enough to be polite. “If you give me anything other than the truth, I will ask again, and the third time I ask, the room gets less comfortable.”
His gaze flicks to the door, as if he expects someone to come in and interrupt this, as if he expects the house itself to protect him. It won’t. It never has. It never will.
“Arabella—”
“Arabella wanted closeness,” I interject, because this isn’t just about my wife, but he doesn’t know that yet. “You wanted access. You thought you could have both without consequence because you’ve stood beside me for years and you’ve learned exactly which parts of my life are empty.”
Lucien’s eyes narrow a fraction, and I look at him with quiet interest.
“How long?” I ask again, and this time I let my tone sharpen enough to cut.
Lucien exhales. “Five years.”
The number lands like weight, confirming everything and nothing. Five years is not a mistake; five years is a choice. Five years is a campaign.
I keep my face calm anyway. “Five years of sleeping with my wife.”
“No,” he says quickly. “Not… consistently. Not like that. That part—”
“Was recent,” I say. “I know.”
He looks at me again, warier now. “You’ve been… investigating.”
“I’ve been living,” I correct. “And finally paying attention.”
His jaw flexes. “Then why are we down here?”
Because this is not about sex, cousin, I think. Because I don’t particularly care what my wife does in a bed that was never sacred. Because you didn’t just cross my marriage, you crossed my structure, my trust, and my empire.
I don’t give him any of that yet. Instead, I ask the next question.
“What else?”
Lucien’s expression doesn’t change much, but there’s a faint tightening around his eyes that tells me I’ve found the real door.
“What else?” I repeat.
He laughs once, but it’s thin and wrong. “You’re acting like I’m a traitor.”
I tilt my head. “I found you in my wife’s bed.”
“That isn’t treason.”
“In my world, anything that makes you careless is treason.”
His eyes flash. “So, you’re here because you’re offended.”
I hold his gaze. “No. I’m here because I’m curious whether you’ve been careless in other ways, too.”
Lucien shifts again, shoulders squaring. I recognize the posture. It’s the one he wears when he’s trying to reclaim ground by turning pride into armor.
“You always did assume I existed for your convenience,” he says.
There’s the resentment. Not new, apparently. Only finally loud enough to show its face.
I let the words sit between us. “If you were unhappy in my service, you could have left.”
He scoffs. “And go where?”
“You’re a Vieri. You have resources. Connections. A name.”
“A name attached to you,” he snaps. “A name that only holds weight because I stood at your right hand and played the loyal cousin while you turned into a man no one could approach without permission.”
My pulse remains steady, but my interest sharpens. “So, this is about being seen.”
His stare is vicious now. “It’s about being erased.”
I nod slowly, like I’m indulging a child. “Alright.”
That seems to throw him off. He expected outrage or denial. He expected me to defend myself with ego. Instead, I remain calm, and I know that calm irritates him more than anger ever would.
“Say something,” he says.
“I’m listening.”
His nostrils flare. “No, you’re not. You’re waiting for me to incriminate myself.”
I smile slightly. “If the shoe fits.”
Lucien’s mouth twists. He leans forward against the cuffs as far as they allow.
“You didn’t even notice,” he says, and the sentence comes out with real venom now, finally stripping off the last of the polite performance. “Five years, Vincenzo. Five years, and you didn’t notice a damn thing until it blew up in your bed. Do you know what that proves?”
I look at him. “Tell me.”
“It proves you’re not as capable as you think you are,” he says, voice low, triumphant in the ugliest way.
“It proves you’ve been sleepwalking through your own empire while everyone else carries the weight.
It proves you’re too busy being a king in public and a ghost in private to keep your eyes open. ”
The words are designed to hurt, but they don’t—not in the way he wants.
Because I know why he’s saying them. He wants to be the one holding power in this room. He wants to be the one inflicting damage. If he can make me react, he can make me sloppy. I watch him in silence until he starts to look uncertain, then I stand.
The chair scrapes softly against stone. Lucien’s tense gaze tracks me as I walk around the table slowly. No sudden moves, no drama. Just a king crossing his own cellar.
Lucien’s eyes follow me with increasing unease. “What are you doing?”
I stop behind him. He can’t see my face now, and that’s deliberate.
I lean down slightly, close enough for him to feel my presence at his shoulder without being able to read my expression.
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” I say quietly. “And if you give me anything other than the truth, I’m going to make the rest of your evening very unpleasant.”
His breath catches.
“What. Else.” He doesn’t answer, and I let the silence stretch just long enough to make him feel how alone he is.