Chapter 6 - The Unbroken Wax and the Trembling Truth
Domenico’s thumb settled against the edge of the dark-red wax.
"Domenico... please..." Marco wheezed from the couch, his voice a pathetic, broken rattle. He tried to push himself upright, but the pain in his ribs forced him back down against the burgundy velvet. "It was... it was twelve years ago... you don't understand what happened... we had no choice..."
Domenico did not acknowledge his cousin's existence.
With a slow, deliberate movement, Domenico pressed his thumb beneath the hardened seal.
CRACK.
The crimson wax fractured with a crisp, dry snap that sounded like a breaking bone in the dead silence of the room. The seal split into three clean pieces, falling from the vellum and clattering against the marble floor.
Domenico slid his fingers inside the envelope’s pocket.
He drew out a folded sheaf of heavy, bond paper. The top sheet bore the embossed, official seal of the Saint Jude Memorial Hospital in Palermo, dated fourteen months ago—the exact week of Sofia’s birth. Beneath it lay a secondary document: a certified genetic analysis bearing the stamp of the Italian Ministry of Health.
The writing on the pages remained hidden from the room, shielded by the broad span of Domenico’s tattooed hand.
Domenico lowered his gaze. His pale gray eyes began to scan the clinical, typed lines.
He read the first paragraph.
The fury that had burned in his chest—the raw, territorial syndicate rage that had dropped Marco and cowed Camilla—did not escalate.
It vanished.
It evaporated from his body in an instant, replaced by a cold, hollow, absolute shock that drained the life from his veins. The color vanished from Domenico’s face so completely that his skin looked like wet marble beneath the chandelier light. His dark, muscular shoulders, usually squared in arrogant defiance, subtly lowered. His lips parted, dry and silent, as his breathing seized in his throat.
He read the second document.
He read the names. He read the blood types. He read the signatures of the attending obstetrician and the coroner who had supposedly certified the death of his younger brother, Leonardo, and Leonardo’s wife, Elena, in the fiery car crash on the Amalfi coast fourteen months ago.
The crash that had supposedly left Sofia an orphan.
The crash that Marco and Camilla had reported from Italy while Domenico was handling syndicate territory in New York.
Domenico’s fingers began to tremble. It was a microscopic, violent tremor that made the heavy bond paper rustle faintly in the air—the first time in thirty-nine years that anyone in the Romano family had ever witnessed Domenico Romano’s hands shake.
He lowered the document slowly, bringing it to his side.
He did not look at the shattered porcelain. He did not look at the crystal chandeliers.
Domenico slowly, deliberately, turned his head toward the velvet sofa and the floor where his cousins cowered.
His eyes were no longer gray; they were the color of an open grave.
Camilla looked up into his face. The moment she saw the deathly, bloodless pallor on Domenico’s cheeks—the moment she realized what he had just read—her jaw began to chatter with uncontrollable, bone-deep terror. She pulled her knees against her chest, pressing her back against the sofa, her hands clawing at her blonde hair.
Beside her, Marco stared at Domenico with wide, bulging eyes, the sweat pouring down his temples, unable to draw a single breath of air.
May you like
Neither of them spoke.
Because both of them knew that the secret sealed inside the Royal Vienna urn had just destroyed them.
