Chapter 51: The Wrong Choice

At sunrise, the black wolf seal on the vault gate had dried brown. The De Luca alliance cord was gone from the main-house archway. In its place, the hooks hung bare over the marble like broken teeth. Elena still had the prenatal packet. Bianca's signature still meant only that she had received it once, not that she had ordered the watching, the sample, or the years that followed. I had no right to take the packet from Elena, and no right to decide what she did with it. I knew all of that. I still walked downstairs before she woke. Luca was waiting in the old service court with the wolf marker in his open palm. Rain ticked against the glass roof. No guards, no family audience. Just him, the stone basin, and the cut across his hand from where I had stopped him the night before. "You came alone," he said. "I came without her." "That is not the same thing." He set the marker on the basin's edge. The little carved wolf looked harmless in the morning light. It was not. It was a way to turn a woman and a child into the price of men who had died before any of us were born. "The cord is gone," Luca said. "By noon, every house that wanted De Luca to keep the Morettis sheltered will ask why I stopped. By night, someone will test the vault door." "You said you would not touch Noah." "I will not." His mouth barely moved. "Other people do not need my hands to smell weakness." That was the danger. Not a threat I could punch. Not a man I could remove from a room. Elena and Noah could become targets because a secret room had made them valuable before Noah had a name. "Take me instead," I said. Luca gave one short laugh. "You have no vote. No alliance proxy. No bride. No control of the packet. What exactly do you think you still own?" "My name is enough for you to make a spectacle. Use it." The offer tasted like rust. I had spent years believing my name could solve anything. It had only ever made other people pay its bills. Luca studied me. Then he pulled the alliance cord from beneath his coat and looped it once around my wrist. The braid was wet from the rain. Heavy. "At midnight, you come to the De Luca chapel alone," he said. "You kneel before my house and say the Morettis will answer for the vault. No packet. No mother. No boy. Just you, where every person who wants your family weak can see it." It was not a solution. It would not put the cord back. It would not stop anyone from looking toward Elena. It would only buy a few hours before Luca chose whether my humiliation was enough. But it was something I could give without stealing from her. "Fine," I said. Luca tightened the knot until it bit into my skin. "You are still trying to manage the fire," he said. "That is why she will leave you." I should have heard the warning in it. Instead, I pulled my sleeve over the cord and went back upstairs. Elena was standing outside Noah's room with a small overnight bag at her feet. Marisol sat beside Noah's bed, reading quietly. He was asleep under the blue dinosaur blanket, one hand curled around its tail. Elena's burned palm rested against the doorframe. The prenatal packet made a hard line beneath her coat. She saw my wet shoes first. Then the way I held my left wrist too still. "Where were you?" she asked. I looked at Noah. That was my first mistake. Elena's face changed before I said a word. "Do not use him to avoid me," she said. "Luca wanted a response. I gave him one that did not involve you." "What response?" I could have told her. I could have shown her the cord. I could have said that at midnight I would kneel in a De Luca chapel and hand them the one thing I had left to trade—my own public ruin. But the image of her taking Noah and running before I had even bought them a night of quiet rose in my throat. "Nothing you need to carry," I said. Silence filled the doorway. Then Elena stepped closer and caught my wrist. The sleeve slid back. The black-and-gold braid cut across my skin. She did not pull it loose. She only looked at it, and I watched every old wound open behind her eyes. "You made a deal," she said. "I made myself the payment." "Without telling me." Her voice stayed low so Noah would not wake. That made it worse. "You stood in that vault and said you would not turn my life into a bargain. Then you came downstairs and built another bargain around me." "I was trying to keep them away from you." "That is what you always call it when you choose alone." There was nothing to say to that. Not because she misunderstood me. Because she understood exactly what I had done. Elena picked up the overnight bag. "Marisol," she said softly, "please wake Noah. We are leaving." I moved before I could stop myself, then caught my hand against the wall instead of reaching for her. "Elena. The De Lucas are waiting for fear. Do not walk into it blind." She turned back to me. "I will not walk anywhere you chose for me." Marisol lifted Noah carefully from the bed. He stirred against her shoulder but did not wake. Elena took him from her, settling the dinosaur blanket around his back with one practiced hand. She kept the packet under her coat. She kept Noah against her chest. She kept her eyes on the door. I had wanted one more night to fix the danger before she saw it. Instead, I had given her the only proof she needed that the danger had already reached us. Elena walked out of the penthouse without asking where she could go. The black cord burned around my wrist as the elevator doors closed between us.