Chapter 4 - What Delphine Had Been Hiding for Eleven Years
Delphine moved before Casius did.
She stepped between the brothers.
Matteo laughed.
“How touching.”
Casius's voice was quiet.
“Move, Delphine.”
“No.”
Matteo raised an eyebrow.
“She has more sense than you.”
Delphine ignored him.
“Gideon knows where we are.”
Matteo smiled.
“I know.”
That smile bothered Casius.
“You wanted us here.”
“Finally.”
Matteo reached into his jacket.
Delphine tensed.
He removed no weapon.
Only a folded document.
He tossed it onto a nearby table.
Casius opened it.
A will.
Their father's.
An older version than the one Casius had seen.
It named Matteo head of the Ferraro family.
“What is this supposed to prove?”
“That everything you have belonged to me.”
“You were dead.”
“I disappeared.”
“You abandoned the family.”
“I was removed.”
“By whom?”
Matteo looked toward the ballroom.
“Ask Sterling.”
Then footsteps approached.
Matteo disappeared through another doorway.
Gideon arrived seconds later.
Casius handed him the document.
“Find him.”
Gideon left.
Delphine remained silent.
Casius looked at her.
“What aren't you telling me?”
Her expression changed.
He knew.
“You know something.”
“Casius—”
“What?”
Delphine closed her eyes.
“The warehouse fire.”
“Eleven years ago.”
“Yes.”
“What about it?”
“Matteo was there.”
Silence.
Casius felt the corridor narrow.
“You said your father was speaking with another man.”
“I never saw his face.”
“But?”
“I heard the voice tonight.”
“Matteo.”
“Yes.”
Casius stared.
“You knew before we married?”
“I suspected.”
“And didn't tell me.”
“I couldn't.”
“Stop saying that.”
His voice rose.
“You had twenty months at St. Catherine. Nine days before our wedding. Every night since. You could have told me.”
“I needed to be certain.”
“You needed me.”
“Yes!”
The word echoed.
Delphine's eyes filled.
“Yes, Casius. I needed you.”
He went silent.
She continued.
“Do you think I wanted any of this? Do you think I spent eleven years waiting for some powerful man to rescue me?”
“No.”
“I spent eleven years trying to understand why a warehouse exploded thirty seconds after I heard your family name.”
She pulled off her mask.
“I spent eleven years looking at this every morning and wondering whether someone had tried to kill me because I heard something I wasn't supposed to hear.”
Casius's anger weakened.
“Why didn't you tell me about Matteo?”
“Because if I was wrong, I would be telling a grieving man his dead brother tried to murder him.”
She stepped closer.
“And if I was right, I was telling a powerful man his brother was alive and had already tried to kill both of us.”
Casius looked away.
She was right.
He hated that she was right.
Delphine continued.
“The night of the fire, I heard them arguing about a ledger.”
“The ledger we found?”
“I think so.”
“What else?”
“Your father.”
Casius turned.
“What about him?”
“Sterling said, ‘Ferraro will never let you take his place.’”
Matteo.
The old will.
Everything began shifting.
“What happened next?”
“I ran.”
“And the explosion.”
“Yes.”
Casius understood.
Matteo had not died six years ago because something suddenly went wrong.
Whatever he was doing had begun at least eleven years earlier.
The gala continued outside the corridor as if nothing had happened.
Champagne.
Music.
Laughter.
Two families performing respectability while their foundations rotted underneath them.
Then Camille appeared.
She looked frightened.
Not arrogant.
Not polished.
Frightened.
“Delphine.”
Her sister stared.
“What?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Now?”
Camille looked toward Casius.
“Both of you.”
They entered an unused sitting room.
Camille locked the door.
“What are you doing?” Delphine asked.
Camille turned.
“Father is going to kill you.”
Casius watched her carefully.
“Why?”
“Because Matteo told him to.”
Delphine stared.
“You know Matteo?”
“I've known him for three years.”
That changed everything.
Camille began crying.
Not elegantly.
Actually crying.
Three years earlier, Sterling had introduced her to a man called Michael Ferran.
He had been charming.
Generous.
He told Camille she deserved more than being used as a bargaining piece.
They began a relationship.
Secretly.
Then six months ago, he told her who he really was.
Matteo Ferraro.
“He told me Casius stole everything from him,” Camille whispered.
Casius said nothing.
“He said if I refused the marriage, the alliance would collapse.”
Delphine understood first.
“You insulted Casius deliberately.”
Camille covered her face.
“Yes.”
The corpse that breathed.
It had not been spontaneous cruelty.
It had been planned.
Matteo had wanted the public insult.
The debt.
The thirty-day deadline.
Why?
Casius suddenly understood.
“To challenge my leadership.”
Camille nodded.
“Matteo said the table would remove you.”
“And then?”
“He would come back.”
Casius felt something colder than anger.
His brother had weaponized Camille's vanity.
Sterling's ambition.
His own disability.
But something had gone wrong.
Casius had asked for another daughter.
Delphine.
The woman Matteo had not expected to enter the arrangement.
“What does Sterling know?” Casius asked.
Camille looked at Delphine.
“Everything.”
Delphine's face changed.
“The fire?”
Camille nodded.
“Father knew?”
“Yes.”
Delphine stepped backward.
For eleven years she had lived with the possibility.
Possibility was different from confirmation.
“My mother?”
Camille shook her head.
“I don't think so.”
Delphine turned away.
Casius reached for her hand.
This time she took it.
Camille stared at their joined hands.
Then whispered:
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“Matteo has the original ledger.”
Casius frowned.
“The one in the warehouse?”
“That's a copy.”
“Where's the original?”
Camille swallowed.
“Father's study.”
Delphine looked at her.
“There is no safe in Father's study.”
“Yes, there is.”
“Where?”
“Behind Mother's portrait.”
They left the gala through a service corridor.
Sterling's study was empty.
Delphine removed Marjo's portrait.
Behind it was a safe.
Camille knew the combination.
Inside lay a leather ledger.
Casius opened it.
Eleven years of transactions.
Bribes.
Smuggling.
Payments.
Judges.
Police.
Companies.
Then Casius reached the final section.
He stopped.
A series of payments had been made from Bowmont Maritime to Matteo.
One dated the week before the warehouse explosion.
Another six years ago.
The week Matteo supposedly died.
And one twenty months ago.
Three days before Casius's crash.
But the final entry was different.
Payment received.
Not paid.
From Anthony Vescari.
Purpose:
FERRARO SUCCESSION—PHASE TWO.
Casius stared at the words.
“What is Phase Two?”
A voice answered from the doorway.
May you like
“The part where you don't leave this house.”
Sterling Bowmont stood there holding a gun.
