Chapter 4 - Echoes in the Dark
The DeLuca estate in Bedford was not a home; it was a fortress disguised as an English manor.
Surrounded by eight-foot stone walls topped with razor wire and hidden seismic sensors, the property was cloaked in towering, ancient weeping willows that groaned under the damp morning fog. The interior was massive, cold, and predominantly stone—vaulted ceilings, marble floors, and winding staircases that produced horrific acoustic reverberations.
To a seeing person, it was a showcase of wealth.
To Matthew and Luke, it was an echo chamber of terror.
By our third day in the manor, I had stripped the boys' private wing of every offending piece of decor. I had rolled out thick wool runners across the marble corridors to muffle the heel strikes of Marcus’s guards. I had taken down the heavy crystal chandeliers that chimed violently whenever the HVAC system kicked in, replacing them with flush mountings.
“You’re ruining the aesthetic,” a sharp, aristocratic voice announced from the doorway of the boys' study.
I looked up from the floor, where I was laying down different textured floor tiles—slate, rubber, cork, and timber.
Standing in the frame was Donna Bianca DeLuca, Marcus’s elder sister. She was a woman cut from the same severe cloth as her brother: sharp cheekbones, raven hair pulled back into a chignon so tight it looked painful, and eyes that weighed the financial and political value of everything they touched.
“The aesthetic was giving them migraines,” I replied, not bothering to stand up. I tapped a rubber square with a rubber mallet.
Bianca stepped into the room, her designer stilettos clicking sharply against the exposed wood. Both boys, who were sitting at a low table sorting smooth river stones by weight, flinched at the sound. Luke pressed his palms against his ears.
“Marcus has lost his mind,” Bianca said smoothly, circling the room like a hawk. “Bringing a common waitress into the inner sanctum. Giving you authority over the heirs. Do you have any idea how many factions in the Five Families are laughing at us right now? The great Marcus DeLuca, turning his home into a nursery school for blind cripples.”
The word hit the air like poison.
Matthew stopped moving his stones.
I stood up slowly, dusting the cork shavings from my jeans. I was five inches shorter than Bianca DeLuca in her heels, but rage made me feel ten feet tall.
“Get out,” I said.
Bianca’s eyes widened slightly in cold disbelief. “I am a DeLuca. You are an employee on an indefinite leash. If I decide you leave, Marcus will have your bags on the driveway before sundown.”
“Try it,” a low baritone sounded from behind her.
Marcus stood in the doorway, dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, his hands in his pockets. His expression was unreadable, but the temperature in the room plummeted ten degrees.
Bianca didn't flinch, but her posture stiffened. “Marcus. You’re letting this girl dismantle the family home. Our mother designed these halls.”
“Our mother is dead,” Marcus said, stepping past his sister without looking at her. He stopped beside Matthew’s table, resting his fingers lightly on the wood. He had learned not to make sudden, heavy impacts. “And these halls belong to my sons. If Miss Vance says the rugs stay, the rugs stay.”
Bianca sneered, turning on her heel. “The Commission meets on Friday, Marcus. Don Moretti will be there. If you bring the boys—as tradition demands—and they show weakness, the other families will move on the docks. You cannot hide their defect forever.”
She swept out of the room, her heels fading down the muffled runner until the front heavy oak door slammed in the distance.
Marcus remained standing by the table, his gaze fixed on the floor.
“She’s right about one thing,” he said quietly, his voice carrying a weight that hadn't been there at the restaurant.
I knelt back down beside Luke, guiding his fingers across the cork tile. “About what?”
“The Commission meeting,” Marcus said. “Every five years, the heads of the syndicates present their successors. It is a show of continuity. Of strength. If I present Matthew and Luke as they were—silent, terrified, cowering from the noise—the Families will assume the DeLuca line is broken. A syndicate without an heir is blood in the water. They will start a war that will tear New York apart.”
I looked up at him. “Then don't take them.”
“If I don't bring them, it is an admission of failure,” he said, looking at me with eyes that were terrifyingly cold. “They have to walk into that room. They have to sit at the table. They have to face thirty men who want to tear their throats out, and they cannot flinch.”
“They’re six years old, Marcus!”
“They are DeLucas!” he snarled, the sudden violence in his voice making the boys freeze. Marcus caught himself, drawing in a long, shuddering breath. He closed his eyes, his knuckles whitening against his thighs. When he opened them, the monster had receded, replaced by an agonizingly desperate father.
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“Teach them, Ellen,” he whispered. “You have four days. Teach them how to survive that room.”
***
