He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His eyes locked onto mine with the intensity that had broken countless men in interrogation. "Your life is exactly what's at stake."
The grandfather clock ticked in the silence between us. My throat felt dry. "What does that mean?"
He set his coffee cup down with deliberate care. The sound of porcelain against wood seemed to echo through the room.
"I know it was you, Domenica." His voice dropped lower, intimate, the way he used to tell me secrets when we were children. "Lorenzo knows. Pa knows."
"Knows what?" I asked, but the bluff felt hollow even as the words left my lips. I could read the truth on his face, in the slight downturn of his mouth, the same expression he'd worn at Ma's funeral.
Arturo stood, straightening his jacket with a practiced tug at the cuffs. Sunlight caught on his wedding ring as his hands moved. "I came because I wanted to see your face."
He took three steps toward the door, then turned back to me. I remained seated, afraid my legs wouldn't hold me if I tried to stand.
"The next time I see it," he said softly, "I expect it will be in a casket."
The words hung in the air between us, a death sentence delivered with the same tone he might use to comment on the weather.
My brother moved toward the door with the measured steps of a man who'd made his decision long before arriving. His hand settled on the knob.
"Arturo." My voice sounded small in the room where we'd once played as children while Ma watched from her favorite chair.
He turned, his face a mask I'd seen him perfect over decades. The Bellante business face. But his eyes—they held something else entirely.
I stood in the center of the living room, the floorboards creaking beneath me just as they had twenty years ago. "How long do I have?"
A muscle twitched in his jaw. Grief flickered across his features, then anger, then something that looked like resignation. "That I couldn't tell you."
I swallowed hard. "A day? Less?"
"I wish you had not done this, sister." The formal phrasing told me everything. He was already separating himself, already mourning.
He opened the door and stepped onto the porch. His driver stood at attention beside the Rolls-Royce, already opening the rear door. Arturo paused with one foot in the car, then turned back to look at me. The sunlight caught his profile exactly as it had caught Pa's at countless Sunday dinners.
"Give my love to Ma when you see her."
The words hit me like ice water. I wanted to run to him, to grab his sleeve like I had as a child, to beg him to choose me over the family just this once. But I remained rooted to the spot, watching as he slid into the backseat with the same grace he did everything.
Through the tinted window, I saw his hand rise in a small wave. A goodbye. The last one.
I stood in the doorway as the car pulled away, gravel crunching beneath its tires. Dust billowed behind it, golden in the late morning light, then settled back to earth as the car disappeared around the bend.
The door remained open. Cold air rushed in, raising goosebumps along my arms. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. I listened as the engine's purr faded into the distance, leaving nothing but silence.
And then, from the hallway, the steady tick of the grandfather clock. Counting down.
32
Sabine
I huddled in theback corner of Alex's walk-in closet, knees pulled to my chest, trying to make myself smaller as Cam stood guard at the door. Her broad shoulders blocked most of my view, but I could see her hand resting on her holstered weapon.
Muffled voices filtered up from downstairs. A deep male voice, then Alex’s higher tones. I couldn't make out words, but just the sounds made my pulse hammer in my throat.
A car engine rumbled to life outside. Tires crunched on gravel, the sound growing fainter until silence settled over the house again.
"I think he's gone," Cam said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Stay here. I'll check. Don't move."
She slipped out, leaving me alone with nothing but the soft click of the door.
