CHAPTER 13
ELENA
My father ordered roast lamb for dinner as if the family had merely experienced an inconvenient week.
The dining room table had been set for seven. White china. Heavy silver. Candles placed beneath the portrait of my mother, who looked down on us with the softened hands and patient expression the painter had invented.
Carlo sat at the head.
Vittorio occupied his usual place to the right.
Sofia sat beside me. Nico was across from us, with Adrian farther down the table.
No one had objected to the armed guards outside the doors. That was how quickly abnormal things became furniture in our family.
“You look terrible,” Sofia whispered.
“So do you.”
“I made an effort.”
“It shows.”
Her mouth twitched.
The humor lasted only a second, but it reached a part of me that had been silent since the funeral.
Sofia wore a dark green dress and had twisted her hair into a loose knot. Blue pigment marked the side of one finger. She had probably come directly from the restoration studio despite my father’s instruction that she remain at home.
She touched the bruising near my collar.
I caught her wrist gently.
“Do not.”
Her eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
“You did nothing.”
“That has not protected anyone this week.”
I looked at her.
The sentence did not belong to the younger sister I had been trying to shield.
Perhaps it never had.
Across the table, Nico watched us without pretending otherwise. He had changed into a black suit, but exhaustion remained visible around his eyes. The scrape along his cheek from the funeral had begun to heal.
He had not mentioned Teresa since the storage room.
I had not asked.
We had spent the drive to my father’s house in a silence filled with things neither of us knew how to discuss without turning them into strategy.
Carlo waited until the first course was served before speaking.
“You returned to the hotel against my instructions.”
“Yes.”
“You participated in an armed confrontation beneath my property.”
“I released the fire doors.”
“You were shot at.”
“I did not arrange that part.”
“Elena.”
My name struck the table.
The staff continued serving with the practiced invisibility of people who understood wealthy families were most dangerous when they believed no one was listening.
I placed my fork down.
“Samuel Ortiz survived because we found him.”
“You should have sent security.”
“Security was already compromised.”
“You are not trained for this.”
“I am trained to understand that building.”
“Understanding service doors does not make you bulletproof.”
“No one claimed it did.”
“You behave as if competence in one area grants judgment in all of them.”
The words found an old bruise.
Marco could walk into a room with half the facts and be called decisive. I could arrive with records, names and alternatives and still be told I lacked the correct kind of judgment.
Nico spoke before I did.
“She found Samuel.”
Carlo looked at him.
Nico continued, “She identified the emergency system, separated the attackers and located the hidden dock. Without her, Samuel would be dead and the weapons would be gone.”
My father’s face tightened.
I did not know what to do with the defense.
It was easier when Nico controlled me. Harder when he saw me.
Vittorio folded his napkin.
“No one questions Elena’s ability,” he said.
I looked at him.
He smiled sadly. “We question whether grief and exhaustion are forcing her to carry responsibilities that should belong to others.”
“Which others?”
“Your family.”
“My family moved weapons through my hotels.”
Carlo struck the table with his palm.
Sofia flinched.
“Enough.”
“No,” I said. “Not enough. Twenty-three deliveries used the same vendor. Credentials were copied. Employees were placed in two locations on paper. Someone used my signature and Marco’s.”
Vittorio’s face showed concern, not surprise.
Too little surprise.
“You should not discuss this at dinner,” he said.
“Why? Does the lamb have political objections?”
Sofia looked down at her plate.
Nico’s mouth almost moved.
Carlo did not appreciate the humor.
“You will attend the Calder Foundation gala tomorrow,” he said.
The change of subject was too abrupt to be accidental.
“I will not.”
“You will.”
“What does the gala have to do with the weapons?”
“Our allies need to see stability. Investors need to see the Bellandi Grand operating normally. You and your husband will appear together.”
My husband.
The word felt different in my father’s voice. Less relationship than corporate structure.
Nico said, “The exposure creates risk.”
Carlo’s eyes narrowed. “You agreed to the marriage because public unity was necessary.”
“I agreed because war would kill people.”
“Then demonstrate unity.”
Vittorio leaned forward.
“The gala may help,” he said. “There are rumors that the marriage is already unstable.”
“It has existed for two days,” I said.
“Rumors work faster than marriages.”
“Who started them?”
He smiled faintly. “If I knew, they would no longer be rumors.”
Sofia shifted beside me.
Her knee touched mine beneath the table.
A signal from childhood.
Wait.
I stopped speaking.
Dinner continued in strained fragments. Carlo discussed donors. Vittorio asked Nico about New Jersey ports with a casualness that did not feel casual. Adrian answered only when addressed.
Sofia remained quiet.
When the staff cleared dessert, she stood.
“Elena, I need help upstairs.”
“With what?”
“My dress.”
“You are wearing it.”
“The other dress.”
Carlo looked irritated.
Sofia gave him the expression of a daughter requesting something too trivial to oppose without appearing ridiculous.
I followed her.
She did not stop at her bedroom. She continued down the corridor to Marco’s old study and closed the door behind us.
“What is it?”
“I saw them.”
“Who?”
“Marco and Nico.”
My body became still.
“When?”
“About three weeks before Marco died. At the hotel.”
“Where?”
“The service restaurant near the ballroom. I was meeting the conservator about the mural panels. Marco was arguing with someone in a private booth.”
“Nico?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“I didn’t know it mattered. I thought it was family business, which usually means I am supposed to become decorative until everyone leaves.”
The words carried no humor.
“Sofia.”
“I am tired of being protected after decisions have already been made.”
That was not directed only at Carlo.
I had accepted the marriage to prevent Sofia from being offered.
I had never asked whether she wanted to participate in the decision.
The realization was uncomfortable enough that I wanted to defend myself.
I did not.
“What did you hear?” I asked.
“Marco said Nico was moving too slowly. Nico said Marco was taking risks with information he did not understand.”
“That sounds like both of them.”
Sofia nodded.
“Then Marco said, ‘If something happens, she’ll know what I always forget.’”
The phrase moved through me.
Nico had told me Marco believed I would notice what he needed.
On the phone, one audio file remained locked behind a secondary prompt.
A line displayed beneath it:
WHAT DID SHE KEEP ALIVE WHERE NOTHING GREW?
I had read it ten times without understanding.
“What else?” I asked.
“Nico asked who she was. Marco called him an idiot.”
Despite everything, I could hear my brother saying it.
“Sofia, did Marco mention a flower?”
“No.”
“What did Mom keep alive?”
She frowned.
“Our mother killed every plant she owned.”
“Not every plant.”
We looked at each other.
The apartment before the Bellandi house.
I had been six. Marco ten. Sofia had not yet been born.
Our mother kept a chipped ceramic pot on the kitchen sill despite the window facing a brick wall. The plant should have died. She moved it from room to room, changed the soil and spoke to it in Italian whenever my father mocked her.
Gardenias.
She had forced them to bloom in a windowless apartment.
“Gardenia,” I said.
Sofia’s face changed. “Marco hated the smell.”
“He always forgot the name. He called them white roses.”
“Then corrected himself after Mom became angry.”
I took out my phone.
A message from Nico waited.
Where are you?
I typed Marco’s study.
He arrived less than a minute later with Adrian behind him.
Nico looked from me to Sofia.
“What happened?”
“She saw you with Marco three weeks before his death.”
Adrian turned toward Nico.
Nico did not deny it.
“What did she hear?”
Sofia repeated the line.
His attention sharpened.
“The secondary lock,” he said.
“Yes.”
I opened the signal case on Marco’s desk.
The audio file required a word.
I typed GARDENIA.
The lock disappeared.
The file opened.
My finger hovered above play.
“We should copy it first,” Nico said.
“I know.”
He connected a secure drive. We made two copies without opening the file, one for each family.
Sofia remained near the desk.
“You should leave,” Nico told her.
“No.”
His expression altered.
I almost enjoyed seeing him encounter another Bellandi woman who did not respond correctly to orders.
“It may contain details connected to Marco’s death,” he said.
“He was my brother too.”
“I know.”
“You don’t speak as if you do.”
Nico had no quick answer.
Good.
Sofia sat in Marco’s chair.
“We listen together,” I said.
Adrian positioned himself near the door.
I pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Marco’s voice.
“If the marriage happened, then I was right about the danger.”
My hand closed around the edge of the desk.
Sofia made a small sound.
The recording continued.
“Elena, I’m sorry. I know that is a poor opening, but if you’re hearing this, I no longer have time to make it better.”
The dead should not sound tired.
They should sound distant. Altered. Less capable of entering a room.
Marco sounded as if he had called from the hotel and would complain when I interrupted.
“Nico is not the man you should fear,” he said. “He is also not an innocent man. Do not confuse those facts.”
Nico looked down.
“Someone has been using Bellandi properties to move Orsini weapons. The route existed before I found it. Before any of us understood what it was costing.”
A sharp noise interrupted the recording.
Marco looked away from whatever device had captured him.
“When the time comes, ask Nico about the promise.”
The audio crackled.
“If he tells you he is protecting you by refusing to answer, remind him that—”
The file cut.
Not paused.
Ended.
I stared at the silent screen.
Sofia covered her mouth.
Adrian looked at Nico.
I did too.
“What promise?” I asked.
Nico’s face had gone pale beneath the controlled expression.
He did not answer.
Vittorio knocked once and entered before anyone invited him.
His gaze moved across the room—the phone, the drive, Sofia’s tears.
“What happened?”
I closed the signal case.
“Nothing.”
It was the first deliberate lie I had told my uncle.
The ease of it frightened me.