Chapter 6
I summoned Damian without telling him why.
He arrived smiling.
That almost made me sick.
“Rough morning?”
I stared.
He noticed.
The smile disappeared.
I placed Evelyn’s veil on the table.
He stopped breathing.
There.
Not proof.
Reaction.
Enough to begin.
“Where is Thomas Vale?”
Damian frowned.
“Arizona.”
“Wrong.”
His eyes hardened.
“What is this?”
I pressed the voice recorder onto the table.
Not my father’s.
A blank one.
Damian did not know that.
His face went pale.
That was the second reaction.
I leaned back.
“How much did Matteo tell you?”
Silence.
“Damian.”
He looked toward the door.
Same instinct as Bianca.
Same fear.
Matteo was dead.
So who were they still afraid of?
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No.”
I let the pause stretch.
“You made one three years ago.”
His jaw tightened.
Then:
“She would have destabilized everything.”
There.
Confession hidden inside justification.
“What did Evelyn destabilize?”
“She was close to you.”
“Correct.”
“She questioned things.”
“Good.”
“She made you doubt people who had served Castellano for decades.”
There it was.
The real crime.
Influence outside the old structure.
Evelyn was not born into the family.
Not trained to respect certain men automatically.
She asked why.
Why Matteo controlled reserve crews.
Why Damian opened my private mail.
Why Bianca chose household staff without my approval.
Questions looked like chaos to people benefiting from silence.
“You helped keep her.”
Damian looked at me.
“I helped contain a crisis.”
I almost smiled.
“Try again.”
He slammed one hand onto the table.
“If she gave you that recorder, you would have torn the organization apart.”
“Maybe it needed tearing.”
His expression changed.
That answer scared him.
Good.
Then he said something useful.
“Matteo wasn’t the end of it.”
I leaned forward.
“Who?”
Damian looked away.
“The old council.”
Three men.
May you like
Two still alive.
And suddenly Evelyn’s prison became much larger than a family betrayal.
