Chapter 6 - WHAT HAPPENED AT 8:17
“No.”
Salvatore’s answer came instantly.
Elena looked at him.
“You raised it.”
“I did not shoot Gabriel.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
The room changed.
Vincent turned toward her.
“Then who did?”
Elena couldn’t speak.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
Grace knew before he admitted it.
“My father.”
Elena’s voice broke.
Sebastian stared at his daughter.
“I was trying to stop him.”
“You shot my uncle?”
Grace asked.
Sebastian’s face seemed to age ten years.
“Yes.”
Grace stood.
Vincent moved instinctively toward her.
She lifted a hand.
He stopped.
Good.
She needed space more than comfort.
“Why?”
“Gabriel reached for Salvatore’s gun.”
“No,” Elena said.
Sebastian looked at her.
“He did.”
“He was reaching for Antonio.”
“You were behind him.”
“And you were angry.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
“I thought he was armed.”
“He wasn’t.”
Grace looked at Elena.
“You saw?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian said nothing.
Grace turned back.
“You killed my father.”
“Yes.”
“You killed my uncle.”
He swallowed.
“Yes.”
The simple answer nearly destroyed her.
No excuses could make that symmetry less monstrous.
Twenty-three years apart.
Two Bellini men.
One Sebastian Marconi.
Grace placed both hands on the desk to steady herself.
Vincent’s face had gone cold.
“You said Salvatore killed Antonio.”
“I believe he did.”
Salvatore finally moved.
He stepped into the center of the library.
“Antonio and I argued.”
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“Your version should be impressive.”
“It won’t be.”
Salvatore looked at him.
“I begged him not to go to federal investigators.”
“Why?”
“Because he was going to hand them everything.”
“What does everything mean?”
“Financial records. Political payments. Shipping arrangements. People we protected. People who protected us.”
Vincent’s expression tightened.
“My name?”
“Yes.”
Grace looked at him.
Vincent did not ask whether he was innocent.
That told her enough.
“How much prison?” Vincent asked.
Salvatore’s voice softened.
“At the time? Maybe fifteen years.”
Vincent looked away.
Salvatore continued.
“Antonio believed you could make a deal.”
“And you didn’t.”
“I believed they would use him, take us all apart, and leave you carrying crimes you inherited before you were old enough to understand them.”
Vincent looked at his uncle.
“So you stopped him.”
“I tried.”
“With a gun?”
“I carried one every day.”
Elena whispered, “You pointed it.”
Salvatore nodded.
“Yes.”
“At Antonio?”
“Yes.”
Vincent’s mouth tightened.
“Did you fire?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Grace heard Elena inhale.
Sebastian stared at Salvatore.
Vincent did not move.
“Where did the bullet hit?”
“The stone fountain.”
“The watch.”
“Yes.”
There it was.
The watch had not stopped because Antonio was shot.
He had fallen backward during the struggle.
The gold case struck stone at 8:17.
Answer one.
Open two.
Grace looked at Salvatore.
“So the watch proves the fight began at 8:17.”
“Yes.”
“Not when Antonio died.”
“No.”
Elena wiped her face.
“I heard that first shot outside.”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
“So my father was alive after 8:17.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
Salvatore looked at Sebastian.
“Several minutes.”
Grace caught the exchange.
“What happened?”
Salvatore continued.
“Gabriel arrived through the courtyard entrance. Antonio told him to take the records and leave.”
“What records?”
“Evidence against Sebastian.”
Sebastian spoke.
“And against Salvatore.”
“Yes.”
Vincent asked, “Where are those records?”
No one knew.
Of course.
Another missing truth.
Salvatore continued.
“Gabriel refused to leave Antonio.”
Grace could imagine it too easily.
The uncle she never knew.
Trying to protect the man who once protected his sister.
“Then Elena arrived?”
“Yes.”
Elena nodded.
“My father came seconds later.”
Sebastian’s face tightened.
Grace asked, “Because Elena warned you?”
Elena looked sick.
“Yes.”
Vincent turned toward her.
“You called him.”
“I thought he would leave if he knew Gabriel had evidence.”
“You brought him there.”
“Yes.”
The weight of that choice sat visibly on her shoulders.
She had not pulled either trigger.
But she had opened the door to the man who did.
Grace understood something then.
Guilt was not one size.
Some people wore it because they murdered.
Others because they lied.
Others because they stayed silent.
Elena had all three kinds around her and had chosen the fourth.
Cruelty.
Vincent looked at Salvatore.
“Then?”
“Sebastian entered. Gabriel moved toward Antonio. I still had the gun. Gabriel told Elena to take Antonio out through the rear door.”
Elena nodded.
“My father told me not to move.”
Grace stared at Sebastian.
“You controlled everyone.”
“Not everyone.”
He looked at Antonio’s cracked watch on the desk.
“Antonio never listened.”
Salvatore continued.
“Gabriel reached toward me.”
“For the gun?”
“I thought so.”
Elena shook her head.
“He was reaching for Antonio.”
Salvatore looked at her.
“I know that now.”
“And Sebastian fired.”
“Yes.”
“One shot?”
“Yes.”
Grace touched Gabriel’s rosary.
“Where?”
“Chest.”
Her throat tightened.
“Did he die immediately?”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
Grace looked at her.
“What did he say?”
Elena’s tears returned.
“He looked at me.”
She pressed the rosary against her palm.
“He said, ‘Don’t become him.’”
Sebastian looked away.
Grace closed her eyes.
Her uncle’s last words had been to save the daughter of his killer from becoming her father.
That hurt in a way she had no name for.
Vincent asked the question everyone had avoided.
“What happened to Antonio?”
Silence.
Salvatore stared at Sebastian.
Sebastian stared back.
Elena looked between them.
Then Grace understood.
“No one actually saw the shot.”
Elena whispered, “I did.”
Everyone turned.
Vincent’s face became unreadable.
Elena took one step backward.
“I saw the gun come up.”
“Whose?”
Her eyes moved toward Salvatore.
Then toward her father.
“I thought it was Salvatore’s.”
Sebastian snapped, “It was.”
“No.”
Elena shook her head.
“Not anymore.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“What does that mean?”
Elena looked terrified now.
“Gabriel fell against Salvatore.”
“Yes.”
“The gun dropped.”
Salvatore nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
“My father picked it up.”
Sebastian’s face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
Grace saw it.
Vincent saw it too.
Elena continued.
“I remembered it wrong for years.”
Sebastian’s voice hardened.
“Elena.”
She flinched.
Then Grace stepped beside her.
“Keep talking.”
Elena looked at Grace.
The maid she had slapped.
The woman standing beside her now.
And she did.
“My father picked up Salvatore’s gun.”
Sebastian stood.
“That is enough.”
Vincent blocked him.
“No.”
Sebastian stared at him.
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“You sit.”
For the first time all night, Sebastian Marconi obeyed another man.
Elena continued.
“Antonio tried to stand.”
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“He looked at my father and said, ‘You killed Dominic. You don’t get another Bellini.’”
Grace’s knees nearly gave way.
Antonio had remembered.
Twelve years later.
He had remembered Dominic.
Elena pressed the rosary to her lips.
“Then the lights went out.”
Everyone stared.
“What?”
Grace asked.
“The warehouse lost power for maybe ten seconds.”
Salvatore nodded.
“There had been electrical problems.”
Sebastian looked almost relieved.
Elena continued.
“I heard another shot in the dark.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“When the lights came back?”
“Antonio was down.”
“And the gun?”
“On the floor beside Gabriel.”
The staged scene.
Grace understood.
Salvatore and Sebastian had both been there.
Both had motive.
Both had handled the weapon.
Neither would admit firing in the dark.
The biggest secret remained.
Vincent looked at his uncle.
“Who moved the bodies?”
Salvatore answered.
“Sebastian and I.”
“And you let Gabriel take the blame.”
“Yes.”
Grace felt sick.
Vincent picked up his father’s watch.
“You robbed me of the truth.”
“Yes.”
“You robbed Grace.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury Gabriel as a murderer.”
Salvatore closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Vincent raised the cracked gold watch.
“And then you put this in my father’s coffin like nothing happened.”
“No.”
Salvatore’s voice cracked.
“I took it back out because I could not stand the lie being buried with him.”
Vincent’s eyes filled for the first time.
“That doesn’t make you brave.”
“I know.”
Grace looked at the watch.
Then at her black lion medallion.
Maria had known enough to send both families back toward this night.
But not enough to name the shooter.
“Who knows?”
Grace asked.
Everyone looked at her.
“Who knows what happened during those ten seconds?”
No one answered.
Grace thought of Maria.
Then of Gabriel.
Then of the line on the second page.
Her mother had written:
YOUR FIANCÉE KNOWS WHO REALLY KILLED YOUR FATHER.
Not thinks.
Not suspects.
Knows.
Grace turned toward Elena.
“My mother believed you knew.”
Elena stared at the floor.
Grace stepped closer.
“What have you not told us?”
Elena’s hand closed around Gabriel’s rosary.
“There was one thing I found after everyone left the warehouse.”
Vincent’s voice was almost a whisper.
“What?”
Elena looked at her father.
Sebastian went pale.
She opened her hand.
Hanging beside Gabriel’s cross was a second tiny object none of them had noticed beneath the beads.
A broken gold button.
Sebastian stood so fast his chair struck the floor.
Elena looked at Grace.
May you like
“It came from my father’s coat.”
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