Chapter 7 - The Lock of the Weeping Angel
The revelation hung in the air, thick and suffocating as incense.
Mara’s breath caught in her throat. Her arms tightened around Nico, whose thumb had found its way into his mouth, his blue eyes watching Dominic with calm, solemn curiosity.
"My... my mother ran from you?" Mara asked, the words tasting like copper.
"Not from me," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a harsh, sorrowful murmur as he straightened his posture, wiping the tear from his cheek with the back of his tattooed hand. "From our father. Don Bernardo was a madman in his final years. He believed bloodlines were commodities to be bartered. When he discovered Julianna was carrying a child out of wedlock—a child fathered by a civilian, an architect—he ordered the man killed. Julianna knew that once the baby was born, Bernardo would take the child and bury her in the cellar."
Dominic stepped closer, his dark eyes fixed entirely on Mara’s face. The terrifying predator was gone; in his place stood an uncle looking upon the living, breathing ghost of the sister who had raised him.
"She faked her own abduction during the Castellano raid," Dominic whispered, piecing together the tragedy that had haunted his entire adult life. "She burned the north wing herself. She left her coat in the river. She made me believe she was dead so I wouldn't search for her—so our father wouldn't track her down and destroy you."
"She told me my family was dangerous," Mara murmured, her fingers unconsciously tracing the edge of the silver medallion. "She told me that if anyone ever found out who she was, men with black suits would come and take me away. She worked two jobs as a seamstress. She lived in a basement apartment in Astoria. When she got sick... she made me swear on a crucifix that I would never sell this necklace, no matter how hungry I got."
"Show it to me," Dominic commanded softly. It was no longer an ultimatum; it was a plea.
Mara hesitated for a single second, then slowly unfolded her hand, letting the silver pendant hang free beneath the warm light of the chandelier.
Dominic reached out. His large, tattooed fingers, calloused from firearms and street warfare, gently cupped the cold silver. He did not tug on the chain. Instead, with a practiced dexterity that sent a chill down Mara’s spine, his thumb moved to the weeping angel’s right wing.
He pressed down on a microscopic seam concealed within the feather carvings, sliding his thumbnail along the rim until a faint, metallic click echoed through the room.
Mara gasped. In all her twenty-five years, she had never known the pendant opened.
The front face of the medallion swung open on a hidden pin-sized hinge, revealing a hollow inner compartment lined with dark blue velvet. Inside, preserved behind a thin layer of crystal, were two miniature black-and-white portraits.
On the left was a young woman with radiant chestnut curls and a brilliant, rebellious smile—Julianna Moretti at seventeen.
On the right was a fourteen-year-old boy with a bruised eye, messy dark hair, and an unsmiling, protective glare directed at the camera—Dominic Moretti.
Beneath the portraits, etched into the interior silver plate, was an inscription in their mother's handwriting: Dominic & Julianna. Protectors of the Blood.
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Dominic closed his eyes as a ragged, shuddering breath escaped his chest. He pressed the open locket against his lips, his shoulders trembling as he kissed the likeness of the sister he had lost, before looking back up at the young woman holding his son.
"You have her eyes, Mara," Dominic whispered, his voice thick with unvarnished devotion. "You have your mother's eyes."
