The Price of a Mother
Chapter 06 - The Price of a Mother
My hand tightened around the phone until the edges hurt my palm.
Vincent saw my face change.
He moved toward me, but I stepped back.
That single step stopped him more effectively than a locked door.
“Claire,” he said.
I could not answer. If I opened my mouth, I might vomit, cry, or beg. None of those options would save my mother.
Another message arrived.
Room 214. She thinks the nurse is you.
The care center was sixteen minutes away with no traffic. Twenty-eight in gala congestion. Seven if Vincent drove the way his men drove when laws became decorative.
Carlo Vitelli watched me with mild curiosity.
He did not know yet. Or maybe he did. That was the thing about rooms full of dangerous people. Every face could be the face that had chosen your weakness from a menu.
“What is it?” Vincent asked.
“Nothing.”
He did not believe me.
Camilla did.
A little smile curved her mouth, quick and satisfied.
I understood then.
Not everything. Enough.
She had known my last name when she pretended not to. She had known my mother mattered. She had known I would protect my mother even from the truth.
“You disgusting woman,” I whispered.
Camilla’s eyebrows lifted. “Grief makes people emotional.”
Vincent turned toward his sister.
“Did you touch her mother?”
“No.”
“Did you arrange it?”
“Vincent, really.”
His eyes sharpened. “Answer carefully.”
Camilla’s control slipped only around the mouth. “I did what our father should have taught you to do. I identified leverage.”
Evan stared at her as if seeing an aunt become a stranger in real time.
“My God,” he said. “Aunt Camilla.”
She looked at him coldly. “Do not perform morality while bleeding over your mother’s ring.”
I turned and ran.
Not away from Vincent.
Toward the side hall.
Marco moved to follow. Vincent stopped him with one hand.
“I’ll go,” he said.
“No.” Camilla’s voice cracked through the ballroom. “If you leave now, the Vitellis will take the vote tonight.”
Vincent looked back at her.
For the first time since I had known him, he seemed torn between empire and something alive.
I hated that I noticed.
I hated that I cared which he chose.
“Stay,” I said.
He did not move.
“Vincent, stay. If you follow me and lose everything, I become the reason. I won’t carry that.”
“You are not leaving alone.”
“I am not asking.”
Evan stepped forward. “I’ll take her.”
Everyone looked at him.
His face was pale. His hand was wrapped badly. His heart had been broken in front of half of Boston and his family’s enemies. Yet there he stood, offering to help the woman who had refused him.
Vincent studied his son.
Something passed between them. Not forgiveness. Not yet. Something older and more complicated.
“Take Marco,” Vincent said.
Evan shook his head. “If Marco leaves you, Carlo knows the room is thin.”
“He already knows.”
“Then don’t prove it.”
I looked at Evan. “You don’t have to do this.”
His smile was tired, hurt, human. “I know. That’s what makes it useful.”
He turned to Vincent. “Give me two men nobody recognizes.”
Vincent nodded once to a woman standing near the service entrance. I had seen her before, usually silent, usually invisible. Tonight, she removed her earrings and handed them to a waiter as if preparing for church.
“Marisa,” Vincent said, “with Evan.”
She nodded.
I did not ask who she was. In Vincent’s world, the quietest people were often the ones who kept the roof from falling.
As we reached the side corridor, Carlo’s voice followed us.
“Running from your own party, Miss Bell?”
I stopped.
Then I turned.
“My mother is ill,” I said. “What’s your excuse for being cruel?”
No one laughed.
Evan opened the door for me, and for one breath I saw Vincent across the ballroom—still, contained, watching me leave with a look I could not bear to name.
The elevator doors closed.
Evan pressed the basement button.
Then he looked down at the blood seeping through the napkin on his hand.
“I need to tell you something before we reach your mother,” he said.
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
May you like
He met my eyes.
“My mother didn’t die in an accident.”
