Chapter 6
David’s shock lasted seconds.
Then pride repaired it.
He straightened his jacket.
Looked toward Vittorio.
And smiled.
“So.”
His voice became quieter.
“Maybe she understood what I was capable of before I did.”
Sarah stared at him.
“Your mother planned to trade me to another family.”
David glanced at her.
“You would have been protected.”
The words were so casual that Sarah recoiled.
David saw it.
His expression hardened.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m the monster in a room full of men who built everything with fear.”
Sarah’s eyes filled.
“You pushed me to the floor.”
“You challenged me in front of my men yesterday.”
Her breathing stopped.
He stepped closer.
“You embarrassed me.”
Vittorio moved.
Sarah lifted one hand.
Her father stopped again.
David saw that too.
And mocked him.
“Look at that.”
His smile became cruel.
“She has him trained already.”
Sarah’s face hardened.
David continued.
“You spent five years making me look like the husband who married above his station.”
“I never said that.”
“You never had to.”
His voice rose.
“Every room we entered, people saw Vittorio DeLuca’s daughter before they saw my wife.”
Sarah stared.
There it was.
Not love gone bad.
Resentment.
Years of it.
David’s hands tightened.
“You kept your name.”
“Because I am a DeLuca.”
“You kept your father’s guards.”
“Because you started sending mine away.”
“You kept running to him.”
“Because you started locking doors.”
Silence.
David’s face hardened.
For one moment, the room saw the marriage clearly.
Every act of control creating the fear he later used to justify more control.
Margaret interrupted.
“Enough marital therapy.”
Her contempt returned.
“Sarah, if you had learned how to obey before turning every disagreement into a family crisis, none of this would have been necessary.”
Sarah stared at her.
Margaret leaned forward.
“You want pity because your leg hurts?”
Her smile sharpened.
“Try living forty years beside men who think their ring makes them smarter than you.”
Sarah’s voice came softly.
“So you became exactly like them.”
Margaret stopped.
Power shifted.
Sarah continued.
“You hate what was done to you.”
A pause.
“So you do it to everybody weaker.”
Margaret’s eyes flashed.
Before she could answer, Paolo entered.
He carried an old leather-bound voice recorder.
Vittorio recognized it.
So did Margaret.
Her face changed.
David noticed.
“What is that?”
Paolo looked toward Vittorio.
“Gabriel Mercer’s.”
David went completely still.
His father’s name had not been spoken yet.
Margaret’s shoulders stiffened.
Paolo continued.
“Your father gave it to Vittorio twenty-eight years ago.”
David stared at Vittorio.
“What?”
Margaret stood abruptly.
“That thing is worthless.”
Her voice was louder now.
For the first time.
Vittorio looked at her.
Interesting.
Margaret pointed at the recorder.
“Gabriel was drunk half his life and paranoid the other half.”
David’s eyes moved toward her.
She realized too late how viciously she had spoken about his dead father.
“You always told me he was honorable.”
Margaret’s face hardened.
“He was.”
“You just called him a drunk.”
“Both can be true.”
David stared.
The story he had been raised on was beginning to crack.
Vittorio took the recorder.
“Why does this frighten you?”
Margaret laughed.
“Nothing about you frightens me.”
Vittorio’s eyes stayed on hers.
“Then sit.”
She remained standing.
That answer was enough.
David looked at the recorder again.
“What did my father say?”
Vittorio did not press play.
Not yet.
He looked toward Margaret.
Her breathing was controlled.
Her hands were not.
May you like
For the first time, her fingers were shaking.
And David saw them.
