Chapter 5 - House of Wolves
The police arrived at 3:08 a.m.
So did three attorneys.
Two private investigators.
And a woman from the district attorney’s office who looked furious at being awakened.
Nobody called the shooting random.
The bullet had passed through one pane of glass and struck exactly where my head had been thirty seconds earlier.
Carlo wanted to move Vivian.
Vincent refused.
Vivian objected.
I ignored all of them.
I sat in the kitchen while a paramedic cleaned my forearm.
The wound from the riding crop was superficial.
The humiliation wasn’t.
A detective named Mara Sloan sat opposite me.
She was forty-something.
Calm.
Direct.
“Did Vivian DeMarco threaten you before striking you?”
“Yes.”
“Exact words?”
“She said temporary staff were replaceable.”
“Anything else?”
“She said she could make sure I never worked in the city again.”
“Did she mention your necklace?”
I hesitated.
Vivian had looked at it.
I remembered now.
Before the first strike.
When I bent to pick up a broken glass, the locket slipped outside my uniform.
Vivian had frozen.
Only for a second.
Then she had become much angrier.
“Yes.”
Mara noticed the delay.
“What?”
“She saw it.”
“When?”
“Before she got the crop.”
“What happened after she saw it?”
“She told me to take it off.”
Vincent, standing near the doorway, turned sharply.
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
“It matters.”
Mara lifted one hand.
“I’m interviewing her.”
Vincent actually stepped back.
I almost liked Mara too.
“What did Vivian say?” she asked.
“She asked where I got it.”
“And you answered?”
“My mother.”
“Then?”
“She said it was ugly.”
I laughed once.
“There was a lot happening.”
“Did she touch it?”
“She tried.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“I moved away.”
“Then the wine spilled?”
“Yes.”
Everything rearranged itself in my head.
This had not begun with the wine.
The wine had given Vivian permission to do what she already wanted.
Mara interviewed Vivian next.
An hour later, she returned.
“She claims she has never seen the locket before tonight.”
“She’s lying,” I said.
“Probably.”
“You can prove it,” Vincent said.
Mara looked at him.
“How?”
Vincent held up Vivian’s phone.
“She sent a message at 9:42.”
Mara stared.
“You searched her phone?”
“She gave it to her father.”
Carlo entered behind him.
“I gave it to the police.”
He handed Mara a printed extraction report supplied by Vivian’s attorney with consent.
There was one message.
Sent twelve minutes before the first strike.
To a contact listed only as R.M.
SHE IS HERE. SHE HAS THE LOCKET.
The reply:
DO NOT LET HER LEAVE WITH IT.
I stopped breathing.
Mara looked at Vivian through the glass doors.
“Who is R.M.?”
Carlo answered.
“Renato Moretti.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You’re certain?”
“I know his number.”
“You’ve been speaking to him?”
“No.”
“How do you know it?”
“He called me three months ago.”
Vincent crossed the room.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Carlo didn’t move.
“He told me if I interfered, Vivian would die.”
Vivian heard that.
She entered the kitchen.
“What?”
Carlo closed his eyes.
“I was protecting you.”
“From whom?”
“Yourself, apparently.”
Vivian looked between us.
Something cracked inside her arrogance.
“You said Renato was an old family story.”
“I lied.”
“You said the messages were from a business associate.”
“I lied.”
“You told me if I saw the necklace—”
“I told you to call me.”
“You told me it could destroy our family.”
Carlo stared at her.
“It can.”
I looked at my locket.
“A piece of jewelry?”
“No.”
He pointed toward the green stone.
“What is under it can.”
Nobody moved.
My mother’s letter returned to me.
Never let anyone remove the green stone.
I touched the edge.
Vincent stopped me.
“Not here.”
For once, I agreed.
Mara took custody of Vivian’s phone and the riding crop.
Vivian was not arrested that night.
Not yet.
But when she left Belladonna House at sunrise, she was no longer wearing Vincent’s engagement ring.
She placed it on the marble table herself.
Neither of them said goodbye.
At the door, she looked at me.
“You think you won.”
“I didn’t know we were competing.”
“We are now.”
“For what?”
She smiled without warmth.
“Everything.”
Then she left.
I turned toward Vincent.
“You were going to marry her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I thought I knew her.”
“That seems to be a problem in your family.”
He accepted the hit.
Good.
Marco entered.
“We traced the ring from the shooting.”
Vincent’s attention shifted.
“And?”
“It belonged to your uncle.”
“Renato?”
“No.”
Marco looked uncomfortable.
“Your father.”
Vincent went still.
“Impossible.”
“Salvatore’s signet disappeared after his funeral.”
“Who had access?”
Marco hesitated.
“Family.”
I almost laughed.
Of course.
Family.
The most dangerous word in the house.
Vincent looked at me.
Then at the locket.
“My mother built Belladonna to keep the family together.”
“Did it work?”
May you like
He stared toward the shattered window.
“No.”
