Chapter 9 - The Black Stone Ring
Cassian brought Gabriel to the mansion.
Rosalind did not faint.
She did something far more revealing.
She whispered his name before anyone introduced him.
Gabriel smiled bitterly.
“There she is.”
Cassian closed the library doors.
“You knew.”
Rosalind’s hand tightened around her cane.
“Yes.”
Adeline stood near the fireplace.
Ezra remained across the room.
Four people.
Thirty years of lies.
Cassian looked at his grandmother.
“Start at the beginning.”
Rosalind sat.
“When you and Gabriel were born, your father was becoming reckless.”
“Vittorio?”
“Yes.”
“He wanted both sons raised inside the organization. I believed that would create two targets.”
“So you gave one away?”
“No.”
Rosalind’s voice broke.
“I asked Ezra Cain Sr. to hide Gabriel temporarily.”
Gabriel laughed.
“Thirty-seven years is ambitious for temporary.”
Rosalind lowered her eyes.
“Your father discovered what I had done. He demanded Gabriel back.”
“And?”
“Ezra Sr. refused.”
Cassian understood.
“That started the conflict.”
“Yes.”
Rosalind continued.
“Ezra believed he had been treated as a servant while your father received everything.”
Ezra Cain stared at the floor.
His father’s shadow filled the room.
“Vittorio threatened him,” Rosalind said. “Weeks later, Vittorio’s car exploded.”
Cassian looked at his scarred hands.
“My father was murdered because of Gabriel?”
“Because of power.”
Rosalind looked at Gabriel.
“Afterward, Ezra Sr. disappeared and staged his death.”
“He raised me,” Gabriel said, “to believe the Raldis abandoned me.”
Rosalind closed her eyes.
“I tried to find you.”
“No.”
Gabriel placed a stack of letters on the table.
“You wrote him.”
Cassian picked one up.
Rosalind’s handwriting.
Keep the boy hidden. Cassian must remain the sole visible heir.
He looked at her.
Rosalind whispered, “I was afraid.”
“You chose for both of us.”
“Yes.”
Adeline watched Cassian.
His anger was frightening precisely because it remained quiet.
Then Ezra placed the black stone ring on the table.
“My father used this ring as a seal.”
Gabriel looked at it.
“He wore it until he became ill.”
Ezra nodded.
“Then he gave it to me.”
Adeline thought of Maryanne.
The man beside him.
The black stone.
“Your father visited Henry.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
Three days before Henry died.
Ezra looked at Adeline.
“I didn’t know until later.”
“Did your father kill mine?”
Ezra’s answer came slowly.
“Yes.”
Adeline looked away.
Cassian moved beside her.
No words.
Just presence.
Ezra continued.
“My father discovered Henry was tracing Gabriel and the falsified medical reports. He ordered the accident.”
“And you did nothing?” Adeline asked.
“I didn’t know until after.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
Tears stood in Ezra’s eyes.
“I spent half my life discovering crimes after they happened and then hiding them because I was afraid the next person would be my mother, or Cassian, or someone else.”
Cassian said quietly, “Fear becomes complicity after enough years.”
Ezra nodded.
“I know.”
Gabriel leaned against the bookcase.
“Our father’s murderer died four years ago.”
Adeline looked at him.
“How?”
“Cancer.”
“So who is killing the doctors now?”
No one answered.
Then Odette entered.
“There’s something you need to see.”
Security footage.
A hooded figure had approached the mansion service entrance the previous evening.
The face was hidden.
But the hand was visible.
Black stone ring.
Everyone looked toward the ring on the table.
Ezra frowned.
“That’s impossible.”
Cassian paused the footage.
The ring looked identical.
Gabriel stepped closer.
“My father made two.”
Ezra turned.
“What?”
“One for himself.”
Gabriel’s face went cold.
“And one for the person who helped him.”
“Who?”
Gabriel looked toward Rosalind.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
But Odette did.
The housekeeper had become pale.
Cassian noticed.
“Odette.”
She looked at him.
“Who had the second ring?”
Her lips trembled.
“Your uncle.”
Cassian stared.
“I don’t have an uncle.”
“Yes,” Rosalind whispered.
Everyone turned.
Rosalind closed her eyes.
“Vittorio had a younger half-brother.”
Cassian’s patience finally snapped.
“How many relatives have you erased?”
Rosalind flinched.
“His name was Lucien Raldi.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
He knew the name.
Cassian saw it.
“You know him.”
Gabriel nodded.
“He visited Ezra Sr. for years.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Adeline looked at Cassian.
“What did Lucien want?”
Rosalind answered.
“The family.”
Cassian understood.
If Cassian believed he was infertile and Gabriel remained hidden, succession after Cassian’s death would become uncertain.
Into uncertainty, Lucien could emerge.
Or control Gabriel.
Or install someone else.
But Adeline’s pregnancy destroyed decades of planning.
A direct heir changed everything.
Cassian looked at her.
The child had become dangerous before taking its first breath.
His phone rang.
A photograph arrived.
Dr. Grant.
Alive.
Holding that morning’s newspaper.
Behind him stood a man whose face remained outside the frame.
A black stone ring was visible.
Text beneath:
YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO ME.
Cassian typed one question.
WHAT?
The response:
THE CHILD.
Adeline’s hand instinctively covered her stomach.
Cassian’s face became ice.
Another message followed.
MIDNIGHT. FREIGHT WAREHOUSE 17. COME WITHOUT YOUR BROTHER.
Gabriel read it.
“He expects you.”
Cassian nodded.
“And he expects me to obey.”
“You won’t.”
“No.”
Adeline looked at him.
“What are you going to do?”
Cassian picked up both black stone rings.
He placed one in his pocket.
Then gave the other to Gabriel.
“For thirty-seven years,” Cassian said, “someone decided which brother deserved a life.”
Gabriel stared.
Cassian continued.
May you like
“Tonight we stop letting them decide.”
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