Beside her stood an old man in a wheelchair, his face gaunt, his eyes sunken, but his jaw still carrying the recognizable line of the Bellini family.
Matteo.
Vivien was handing him a thick, yellowed paper envelope sealed with red wax.
I turned the photograph over.
En la parte posterior, escrito con tinta negra afilada y pesada, había una sola frase:
EL HEREDERO DE LA DUCA NUNCA DEBE APRENDER LO QUE PASÓ ESA NOCHE.
Miré esas ocho palabras durante un largo y silencioso minuto.
My mind raced back to the night my father died.
Tenía catorce años.
I remembered the sudden phone calls in the middle of the night, the smell of burning rubber that seemed to hang in the air for weeks, the hushed conversations between my mother and senior lieutenants behind closed doors.
My mother had taken control of the household with an iron fist, steering me toward adulthood, shielding me from the internal politics until I was old enough to take the throne myself.
She had always told me, “Your father was a great man, Lorenzo. But great men attract envy. Never dig into the past. Look only to the future of the Duca name.”
Yo la había obedecido.
