Chapter 11 - Midnight Board Vote

Dominic had prepared for betrayal all his life.

He had not prepared for betrayal to arrive wearing his brother’s face.

The alarm split the house into motion. Guards ran. Steel doors sealed. Somewhere above us, shots were not fired, which I later learned was more frightening to Dominic than if they had been. Guns announced attack. Silence meant someone had entered with access.

Matteo Romano still had keys.

Dominic ordered Ellie and me moved to the old wine vault below the garage. I refused until he said the words no mother can ignore.

“They know her name.”

So I carried her, though she protested she could walk, and followed Paul through a narrow service corridor that smelled of stone and cold dust. Beatrice came with us, one hand on the wall, too proud to accept help until Ellie offered hers.

“Old ladies need partners,” Ellie said.

Beatrice took her hand.

“Then I am honored.”

The vault door closed behind us with a sound I felt in my teeth.

Inside, a monitor showed the main hall.

Dominic stood at the center of it, braced but upright, white shirt sleeves rolled, one crutch in his left hand like an insult to weakness. His guards flanked him. Behind them, portraits of dead Romanos watched from the walls.

The front doors opened.

Matteo entered as if arriving for dinner.

He was handsome in a softer way than Dominic, golden where Dominic was dark, smiling where Dominic was still. Three years dead had not aged him. If anything, it had made him look preserved by arrogance.

“My brother,” Matteo said.

Dominic did not answer.

Matteo glanced at the crutch.

“I expected you on the floor by now.”

“You hired poor help.”

“Family tradition.”

Even through the monitor, I felt the cruelty under the charm.

Dominic’s voice remained even.

“You killed our mother.”

Matteo sighed.

“We are opening with drama.”

“And Daniel Voss.”

At that, Matteo’s smile thinned.

“Daniel should have stayed a mechanic.”

Something inside me turned to stone.

Ellie looked at me.

“Mommy?”

I kissed her hair.

“Don’t watch.”

But I did.

Matteo walked farther into the hall.

“You don’t understand what I built. Father wasted decades threatening men one at a time. I modernized. A bad hinge. A wrong dosage. A brake line overlooked. People pay more for invisible violence.”

Dominic’s jaw flexed.

“Where is Serafina?”

Matteo smiled.

“Alive. Irritating. Negotiable.”

“You used her.”

“I used everyone.”

He spread his hands.

“Even you. The tragic injured king fighting to walk again. The board pities you. The family worries. Tonight, they vote to protect the empire from your stubborn pride.”

“I am not incapacitated.”

“No. But if the child opens Claudia’s vault and finds only what I left there, you will wish you were.”

Beatrice made a small sound beside me.

“What vault?” I whispered.

She looked ill.

“Claudia kept a legal vault beneath the chapel. I thought only she knew the sequence.”

Ellie held Bunny tighter.

“Does it have locks?”

I gathered her close.

“No.”

Beatrice did not answer.

On the monitor, Matteo turned toward a camera as if he knew exactly where we were.

“Mara Voss, if you are watching, I apologize for the inconvenience. Your husband was talented. Your daughter is better. Bring her to the chapel, and I will let you both leave with enough money to forget Daniel ever existed.”

Dominic stepped forward.

Matteo’s men raised weapons.

Dominic’s guards did the same.

The hall became a held breath.

Then Matteo said, “If she does not come, I send you pieces of Serafina until someone becomes reasonable.”

Dominic did not move.

I saw then what power costs when someone you hate still belongs to you. Serafina had tried to control him. She may have helped set the trap. But she was blood, and blood turns even disgust into responsibility.

Ellie whispered, “I can open it.”

“No.”

“If the aunt lady gets hurt—”

“No.”

She pulled back and looked at me with Daniel’s eyes.

“Daddy didn’t make locks so bad people could keep them closed.”

I wanted to be a smaller person. I wanted to choose only us and let the Romanos devour one another in their marble halls.

Then I remembered Daniel’s voice saying he was sorry.

I remembered Claudia hiding proof beneath a teacup.

I remembered Dominic telling my daughter her courage was not a price.

I pressed the intercom button.

My voice shook, but it carried.

“Dominic.”

On the monitor, he went still.

I looked at my daughter. Then at Beatrice.

“We’ll open the vault.”

Dominic turned toward the camera, and for the first time since I met him, his control broke.

“No.”

But behind him, Matteo smiled.

And I knew we had just stepped into the trap he had built for us all.