Lucien has been locked up since I found him next to Arabella in my bed.
That sentence still reads absurd in my head, as if it belongs to another man’s life. Not because betrayal is rare in mine. Betrayalis the currency we all trade in until we find the one person we foolishly believe won’t spend it. Lucien simply wasn’t supposed to be the one holding the knife.
He was my cousin. My second. My shadow in rooms where it was useful to have another Vieri present without dividing authority. He was the man who understood my silences without needing them translated. He was also the only person in this world, besides Arabella by contract, who had lived close enough to me for long enough to see the shape of my loneliness and choose not to comment on it.
I always assumed that meant loyalty. But I should have known assumptions are for men who want to be surprised by their own deaths.
The cellar door is hidden behind a paneled section of the corridor wall, disguised as tasteful architecture. A little irony in that. The prettiest houses always keep their ugliest rooms behind woodwork and polite lighting.
I stop outside it and exhale once through my nose, steadying the irritation into something cleaner. The anger has been sitting in me for days now, cold and patient. Not because Lucien slept with Arabella. That, absurdly, barely qualifies as the wound in all this. If anything, that was the easiest part of the truth to process.
No, what’s been gnawing at me is the rest. Nikolaj’s shipment being hit. The false flags. The subtle push of events toward conflict. The way far too many things that should’ve felt random have started lining up under one name.
His.
I take the gun from the back of my waistband and hand it to the guard before he can unlock the door. He blinks once, startled.
“If I wanted him dead immediately,” I say, “I wouldn’t have kept him breathing this long.”
The guard nods quickly, takes the weapon, and unlocks the door. The latches open one by one with dull, final clicks before the door swings inward.
Inside, the room is lit by one harsh overhead light. Lucien sits at the table with his hands cuffed to a steel ring bolted into it. He looks… less polished than he did the last time I saw him. That’s the only way to put it.
His hair is disordered. His shirt is wrinkled. There’s stubble shadowing a jaw he would normally shave before allowing anyone of importance to see him. He’s slept badly, if at all. He is trying to appear calm because he’s Lucien, and calm is one of his favorite costumes.
His eyes lift when I walk in. For one second, something flickers there that might have been relief.
Then he sees my expression, and the relief dies.
“Vincenzo,” he says carefully.
I don’t answer immediately. I set my phone on the table near the door, then take off my jacket and hang it on the chair behind me. I roll my sleeves up to the forearms because habits matter, and I like my hands free when I’m dealing with men who have disappointed me.
Lucien watches every movement like he’s reading a playscript he’s no longer certain he understands.
When I finally look at him, I keep my face mild and my eyes cold.
“Lucien,” I say.
His shoulders ease by a fraction. He thinks that’s good. He thinks the use of his name means we’re still in the realm of family rather than execution. It is almost insulting how quickly he reaches for that assumption.
“I’m sorry,” he starts.
I lift one finger, and he stops.
We stare at each other in silence long enough for him to understand that whatever apology he rehearsed on the table beside his cuffed wrists is not going to save him from the rest.
Then I sit across from him. I don’t lean forward, I don’t threaten, and I don’t play the part of the furious wronged husband because that isn’t what I am down here. I am something far simpler and far more dangerous.
I am a man who has decided.
“How long?” I ask.
Lucien swallows. “Vincenzo—”
“How long?” I repeat, voice still calm enough to be polite. “If you give me anything other than the truth, I will ask again, and the third time I ask, the room gets less comfortable.”
His gaze flicks to the door, as if he expects someone to come in and interrupt this, as if he expects the house itself to protect him. It won’t. It never has. It never will.
