Chapter 5
David stared at Margaret.
“What half-sister?”
She remained silent.
He stepped closer.
“What half-sister?”
Margaret finally looked up.
Her voice was cold.
“Lower your voice.”
David laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
“You've spent all night helping me control my wife.”
His hand shook.
“And now I find out you hid a sister from me?”
Margaret’s expression hardened.
“Elise was none of your concern.”
“She was my sister.”
“She was a mistake your father made before we married.”
The contempt came easily.
Too easily.
Sarah looked at her.
Even now Margaret could turn another woman’s existence into an insult.
David’s breathing grew heavier.
“Why did Noah call you Grandma?”
Margaret's mouth tightened.
“Because I was the only Mercer relative who visited him after Elise died.”
“You said she was none of my concern.”
“She wasn't.”
David stared.
The contradiction was obvious.
Margaret had erased Elise from her son’s life while privately maintaining contact with Elise’s child.
Why?
Vittorio looked at her.
“You needed Calder.”
Margaret’s eyes moved toward him.
There.
He had touched the right nerve.
Noah’s father was Lucian Calder’s son.
That made the boy a bridge between Mercer and Calder blood.
Margaret had spent three years cultivating that bridge.
David turned toward her.
“You've been meeting Calder through Noah.”
She finally smiled.
Proudly.
“You say that as though I needed a child to get invited into a room.”
Her arrogance returned fully.
“I’ve sat across from men more dangerous than your precious Vittorio since before you learned to knot a tie.”
David’s face tightened.
Margaret continued.
“You boys love calling yourselves capos.”
She glanced toward the council room.
“Men with pins and expensive watches pretending the women pouring wine haven't heard every weakness you've ever confessed.”
Vittorio listened.
There was no fear in her now.
Only forty years of resentment.
Sarah asked:
“What did Calder want?”
Margaret looked at her.
“You.”
Sarah went still.
David’s eyes snapped toward his mother.
“What?”
Margaret ignored him.
“Lucian needed assurance that DeLuca blood would never move against him while he reorganized the north routes.”
Sarah’s face paled.
“So you offered me?”
Margaret laughed softly.
“Don't make yourself sound important.”
Her eyes dragged over Sarah.
“You were a bridge.”
David stepped forward.
“You never told me this.”
Margaret looked at him.
“I told you what you needed.”
His jaw tightened.
“And Emma?”
Margaret’s smile thinned.
“Insurance.”
Sarah stopped breathing.
Vittorio’s eyes became cold.
David stared at his mother.
“You said Emma was only coming with Sarah because Sarah wouldn't leave without her.”
“She wouldn't.”
“You said no one would touch them.”
“No one was supposed to.”
The wording mattered.
Supposed to.
Vittorio heard it.
Sarah heard it.
“Where were you taking us?”
Margaret lifted her chin.
“Calder’s north house.”
David’s face changed.
“No.”
Margaret looked toward him.
“You wanted Vittorio isolated.”
“I wanted Sarah out of the way for one night.”
Margaret’s eyes narrowed.
“Grow up.”
Her voice became brutal.
“You don't remove a Mafia Boss’s daughter from a board for one night.”
David stared.
“You make sure she has nowhere else to go.”
Sarah’s hand tightened around the chair.
Margaret continued.
“Once Vittorio fell, Sarah became useful as proof that the DeLucas accepted the transition.”
David’s voice dropped.
“What transition?”
Margaret looked at him.
For the first time, she smiled like someone looking at a child who had finally asked the question she had been waiting years to hear.
“Yours.”
David froze.
Vittorio narrowed his eyes.
Margaret had not merely been helping David weaken Vittorio.
May you like
She had been building David as Vittorio’s replacement.
And apparently she had never bothered telling him how far she intended to go.
