Chapter 9 - The Wife Who Came Back from the DeadCecilia Orsini looked exactly as she did in the mansion portrait.
Only colder.
Her dark hair fell neatly over one shoulder. A pale scar crossed the side of her neck. She wore no wedding ring.
Daniel tried to rise.
“You should not have come here.”
Cecilia looked at him.
“You kept my children hidden from me.”
“I kept them alive.”
“You gave my son to another woman.”
“I gave him a mother.”
Her expression flickered.
Then it hardened again.
Damian kept the gun trained on me.
I looked at Cecilia.
“Raphael believes you died.”
“He believes many things.”
“You let him bury an empty coffin.”
“I watched from a vehicle across the cemetery.”
The cruelty of the confession stole my breath.
“He loved you.”
“He loved the version of me that obeyed him.”
“That is not what I have seen.”
“You have known him as an employer for two years. I knew him as an Orsini.”
Cecilia stepped closer.
“When I discovered Vittorio’s medical program, I planned to expose the entire family. Raphael refused.”
“Did you ask him?”
“I knew what he would choose.”
“So you decided for him.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“You sound protective.”
“I sound like someone who has spent her life paying for secrets other people claimed were necessary.”
Daniel shifted beneath the blanket.
“Cecilia, Vittorio used you.”
“I used him.”
“He murdered your driver and burned the neonatal ward.”
“And I survived.”
“Your children did not survive you.”
The words struck.
Cecilia slapped him.
The monitor beside his bed began alarming.
I moved toward him.
Damian blocked me.
“He needs medical attention.”
“He will receive it after you give us the drive.”
I held up the flash drive.
“What is on it that frightens you?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“My brother was poisoned for twelve years. That concerns me.”
Cecilia’s gaze narrowed.
“Your brother?”
“Yes.”
“He is my son.”
“He is both.”
“You believe changing his bandages makes you his family?”
“No. I believe staying when he was sick, frightened, angry, and impossible made me his family.”
Her face tightened with something close to pain.
“He was taken from me.”
“And I am sorry. But you do not get to return with a gun and demand that he erase everyone who loved him.”
For the first time, Damian looked uncomfortable.
Cecilia noticed.
“Take the drive.”
He reached for me.
I threw it toward the open bathroom.
Damian turned instinctively.
Daniel struck the emergency button beside the bed.
An alarm sounded throughout the clinic.
I shoved Damian into the wall and ran.
Cecilia caught my hair.
Pain tore across my scalp.
I twisted and drove my elbow backward. She released me with a curse.
I reached the corridor.
Raphael stood twenty feet away in a hospital gown, one shoulder bandaged, a pistol in his right hand.
His face changed when he saw Cecilia.
The weapon lowered.
“Cecilia?”
She stepped from the room.
For a moment, no one moved.
The man who ruled Chicago looked unable to understand the evidence before his eyes.
“You’re alive,” he whispered.
Cecilia’s confidence faltered.
“Yes.”
Raphael walked toward her.
I expected him to embrace her.
Instead, he stopped several feet away.
“You let me bury you.”
“I had no choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
“Not in your family.”
“You took my children.”
“I saved them from Vittorio.”
“You left Sofia in a locked ward.”
“I did not control where he moved her.”
“You knew she was alive.”
Cecilia’s eyes filled with tears.
“I was trying to gather evidence.”
“For twelve years?”
“Raphael—”
“Micah was poisoned. Sofia was imprisoned. And you watched my grief from across a cemetery.”
His voice remained quiet.
That made it devastating.
“I thought you were dead every morning for three years.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“No. You did what was easiest to justify.”
Damian raised his gun toward Raphael.
Cecilia held up one hand.
“Do not.”
Raphael looked at Damian.
“My chief adviser.”
“I protected her,” Damian said.
“You betrayed me.”
“I protected the truth.”
“The truth would have been a conversation.”
Cecilia stepped closer.
“Come with me. We can take the children and destroy Vittorio.”
Raphael looked at her as though she were a stranger.
“You still think they are possessions.”
“They are ours.”
“They are people.”
Her gaze moved to me.
Understanding entered her face.
“This is about her.”
“No,” Raphael said. “This is about every person you decided could suffer because your plan mattered more.”
Security alarms continued ringing.
Cecilia’s hand slipped inside her coat.
I saw the movement.
“Raphael!”
She drew a syringe, not a gun.
Damian seized Raphael’s injured arm.
Cecilia plunged the needle into his neck.
He staggered.
I reached him before he hit the floor.
Cecilia watched me hold him.
“Vittorio wants the council,” she said. “I want my children. Raphael is the only person who can give us both.”
Damian lifted Raphael.
I fought him, but Cecilia pressed a second syringe against my throat.
“Do not make me hurt you.”
“You already have.”
The clinic lights went dark.
Freddy’s voice came over the emergency speakers.
“Anyone loyal to Raphael, west stairwell. Anyone loyal to Vittorio, remain where you are so I know whom to poison.”
Gunfire sounded below.
Cecilia turned toward the noise.
I struck her wrist.
The syringe fell.
Damian dragged Raphael toward the elevator.
The doors opened.
Vittorio stood inside with Marco and four armed men.
He smiled at Cecilia.
“My dear niece.”
Cecilia’s face went white.
“You said you would not come here.”
“I have spent twelve years allowing everyone to believe they were using me.”
Vittorio looked down at Raphael’s unconscious body.
“Now we end the Orsini succession.”
Marco raised his weapon.
Not toward Raphael.
May you like
Toward Cecilia.
The shot echoed through the corridor.
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