The Lullaby in the Dark
Chapter 13 - The Lullaby in the Dark
The darkness lasted only nine seconds.
I counted them because panic needed something to hold.
One.
Sofia screamed.
Two.
Matteo moved toward the sound.
Three.
A chair overturned.
Four.
Someone grabbed my arm, and I nearly swung at them until Valentina whispered, “It’s me.”
Five.
The singing drifted through the hall.
Soft.
Female.
Old-fashioned.
Six.
Alessia began praying under her breath.
Seven.
Matteo’s men shouted from the corridor.
Eight.
The lights flickered.
Nine.
The mansion came back to life.
Sofia was safe in Lucia’s arms, trembling violently. Alessia stood beside them with a fireplace poker in both hands, which made me like her much more.
Matteo was already at the door.
“Lock the wing.”
His security chief spoke into his radio.
“Already done.”
But the singing continued.
It came from the house speakers.
A lullaby piped through a system designed for dinner music and polite intimidation.
Lucia’s face had gone white.
“What is it?” I asked.
“That song.”
Alessia answered for her.
“Our mother sang it to Marco when he was small.”
Not to Matteo.
The words hung there, cruel as thrown glass.
Matteo heard them.
He said nothing.
The song ended.
Then a woman spoke through the speakers.
“My son.”
Alessia gasped.
Matteo’s expression closed.
Francesca.
The dead mother in the alley.
“I know what they have told you,” the voice continued. “I know how easily hungry women and frightened girls rewrite history. You were mine because I raised you. Marco was mine because I bore him. Both of you were stolen differently.”
Matteo looked at the ceiling as if he might tear the voice out of the walls.
Francesca laughed softly.
“Do not let the baker make you sentimental. Bellini women destroy Vescari men. Ask your father. Ask your brother. Ask the child’s mother.”
Lucia held Sofia tighter.
“Rossi says you want truth,” Francesca said. “Truth is simple. If Emily claims the trust, every man who ever obeyed you will ask why he should kneel to a stolen heir. If you protect her, you lose the family. If you marry Valentina, you keep enough power to bury all of this.”
Valentina’s jaw tightened.
“Charming proposal.”
The speakers crackled.
“Saint Catherine’s. Midnight. Bring the tin, the baker, and my granddaughter. No guards inside the cemetery.”
Matteo’s hand curled into a fist.
“If you refuse, I will release the recording of Marco begging you for mercy before he died.”
The voice cut out.
Alessia stared at Matteo.
“Marco begged?”
Matteo’s face looked carved from stone.
“He betrayed us.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
The room was suddenly not about inheritance.
It was about the one death Matteo had never explained because powerful men often mistake silence for protection.
Sofia looked between the adults.
“What happened to Marco?”
Lucia kissed her hair.
“Not now.”
“Yes now,” Alessia said.
Matteo closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, the tiredness in him was older than I expected.
“Marco sold dock routes to Rossi. Men died because of it.”
“And you killed him?” Alessia whispered.
“No.”
She searched his face.
“Then who did?”
Matteo looked at Lucia.
Lucia looked back with horror dawning slowly.
“My husband,” she said.
Matteo nodded once.
“Sofia’s father killed Marco to save himself. I buried the truth because Sofia had already lost one parent to shame.”
Lucia staggered.
“No. He told me—”
“He lied.”
Sofia pulled away from her mother.
“My dad killed Uncle Marco?”
Nobody had a gentle answer ready.
Francesca had known exactly which wound to open.
I knelt near Sofia.
“Your father made choices. Those choices are not yours.”
She stared at me.
“How do you know?”
“Because if children had to carry everything adults did, none of us would ever learn to stand upright.”
Tears finally spilled down her face.
Lucia reached for her, and this time Sofia let herself be held.
Matteo looked toward the dark windows.
“We’re not taking Sofia to the cemetery.”
“No,” Lucia said. “We take me.”
He turned.
“I know Francesca,” she continued. “She doesn’t want Sofia. Not really. She wants an audience for revenge.”
Valentina picked up the blue tin.
“Then we give her one.”
I looked at her.
“What are you thinking?”
She smiled, and for the first time I saw how frightening a woman raised among dangerous men could be when she stopped seeking permission.
“That we let the dead woman confess to the living.”
May you like
At midnight, we entered Saint Catherine’s Cemetery with a blue tin, a hidden recorder, and one secret Matteo had not told even me.
Francesca was already waiting beside the grave with the broken wheel.
