Chapter 3 - The Blood Beneath the CelebrationThe first gunshot came before the applause had finished.
For one impossible second, Isabela thought it was part of the celebration.
A champagne cork.
Fireworks.
Some extravagant Sicilian tradition no one had bothered to explain to the woman who, six months earlier, had been worrying about whether she could afford her brother’s medication.
Then the glass in Damiano’s hand exploded.
He moved before she understood why.
His arm locked around her waist and dragged her down behind the stone balustrade as a second shot cracked across the gardens.
“DOWN!”
The word came from three directions at once.
Music stopped.
Guests screamed.
Men in tuxedos reached beneath jackets.
Women in diamonds dropped behind tables.
The elegant garden transformed in seconds from an engagement celebration into a battlefield disguised beneath white roses and candlelight.
Damiano covered Isabela with his body.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Look at me.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you hit?”
“No!”
His hands moved over her shoulders, arms, waist, checking anyway.
Another shot struck the stone above them.
Fragments sprayed across Damiano’s jacket.
Isabela flinched.
“Rafael.”
Her brother had been standing twenty feet away.
“Rafael!”
She tried to rise.
Damiano forced her down.
“Enzo has him.”
“I need to see him.”
“You need to stay alive.”
“Damiano—”
“Isabela.”
Something in his voice stopped her.
Not authority.
Fear.
She had seen Damiano angry. Cold. Ruthless. Amused. Tender in private moments he would have denied existed if anyone else witnessed them.
She had never seen him afraid.
Not like this.
Not for himself.
For her.
Security flooded the terrace. Enzo appeared with a weapon drawn.
“Shooter on the western ridge. Possibly two.”
“Rafael?”
“Inside. Rosa has him.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Isabela’s lungs finally worked again.
Damiano stood, keeping himself between her and the ridge.
“Get her inside.”
“I’m staying.”
“No.”
Six months ago, she might have obeyed because she had been terrified.
Now she rose beside him.
“This is my house.”
“And somebody is shooting at you in it.”
“Which makes it even more my problem.”
His jaw tightened.
Enzo almost looked entertained despite the chaos.
Damiano noticed.
“Not one word.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking loudly.”
A fourth shot echoed.
This one came from somewhere else.
Damiano turned.
“That wasn’t the ridge.”
Enzo’s expression changed.
“No.”
The realization moved between them.
The first shooter was outside the estate.
The second was inside.
Someone had entered the restored Vitale villa as a guest.
Someone who had passed three security checkpoints.
Someone trusted.
“Lock everything,” Damiano ordered. “No one leaves.”
The iron gates closed.
Security teams spread through the gardens.
Within minutes, every guest was escorted into the ballroom and searched discreetly but thoroughly.
Isabela stood at the center of it all.
The musicians had abandoned their instruments.
A violin lay on its side near the stage.
Champagne spilled across marble.
A woman was crying quietly near the fireplace.
Cesare Moretti stood beside a column, looking annoyed rather than frightened.
He had attended the celebration as part of the uneasy peace negotiated during the previous months.
His eyes found Isabela.
“This is why,” he said calmly, “people like us rarely throw parties.”
Damiano stepped toward him.
“Careful, Cesare.”
“I’m not insulting your fiancée.”
“You have a peculiar way of demonstrating respect.”
Cesare looked toward the shattered doors.
“If I wanted the girl dead, Conti, she would not be standing here.”
Isabela hated the casual certainty of the statement.
“Comforting.”
Cesare’s mouth twitched.
“You have learned sarcasm.”
“I cleaned penthouses in Boston. Sarcasm was free.”
That earned a brief laugh.
Then Enzo entered.
“We found the outside shooter.”
“Alive?” Damiano asked.
“No.”
Damiano’s expression hardened.
“Suicide?”
“Someone reached him first.”
Silence.
Isabela understood.
The sniper had not failed and killed himself.
Someone had silenced him.
“What about the shot from inside?” she asked.
Enzo looked at her.
“We found the weapon.”
“Where?”
“The chapel.”
The private chapel stood on the eastern side of the villa.
It had survived the original fire thirty years earlier because its walls were stone and separated from the main residence by a narrow courtyard.
Isabela had restored it exactly as Rosa remembered.
Carmela had once prayed there.
Now someone had hidden a gun beneath its altar.
They crossed the villa together.
Damiano insisted she remain behind him.
She allowed it this time.
Not because she needed protecting.
Because partnership occasionally meant accepting another person’s fear without interpreting it as control.
The chapel smelled of incense and old stone.
A pistol lay inside an evidence bag on a wooden pew.
Enzo pointed toward the altar.
“Found underneath.”
“Fingerprints?” Isabela asked.
“Being checked.”
Damiano examined the weapon without touching it.
“Old.”
“Very,” Enzo said.
“How old?”
“Thirty years, approximately.”
Isabela looked at him.
Thirty years.
The fire.
Her grandparents.
The destruction of the Vitale family.
Enzo reached inside his jacket and produced something else.
“A note was wrapped around the magazine.”
He handed it to Damiano.
Damiano read it.
His expression became unreadable.
“Give it to me,” Isabela said.
He hesitated.
“Damiano.”
He handed it over.
The paper contained a single sentence written in Italian.
She had studied enough during the previous six months to understand it.
The wrong Vitale survived.
Cold moved through her.
“What does that mean?”
No one answered.
“Damiano.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m considering possibilities.”
“That’s your sophisticated version of lying.”
Cesare had followed them.
He stopped in the chapel doorway.
When he saw the message, all amusement disappeared.
“Where did you get that?”
Isabela watched him carefully.
“You recognize it.”
Cesare said nothing.
Damiano stepped between them.
“Answer her.”
Cesare’s eyes remained on the paper.
“That phrase was used once before.”
“When?”
“The night the Vitale estate burned.”
The chapel suddenly felt colder.
Isabela’s fingers tightened around the note.
“Explain.”
Cesare looked older than he had ten seconds earlier.
“My father received a message the morning after the attack. Four words.”
“The wrong Vitale survived?”
“Yes.”
“Who was supposed to die?”
Cesare looked at her.
“That,” he said, “is the question your grandmother spent the rest of her life hiding from.”
Rafael was furious.
Not frightened.
Furious.
“There was an assassination attempt at your engagement party, and you didn’t immediately leave?”
They were in one of the secure rooms beneath the villa.
“You didn’t leave either.”
“I require medical equipment.”
“I require answers.”
“You require common sense.”
Rosa put a cup of tea in front of him.
“Drink.”
“I’m twenty-three now.”
“And still incapable of arguing without becoming dehydrated.”
He drank.
Isabela almost smiled.
Almost.
Damiano stood near the door speaking quietly with Enzo.
Security footage covered six monitors.
Every guest.
Every entrance.
Every corridor.
Hours of recordings.
Someone had brought the pistol into the chapel.
Someone had known the security arrangements.
Someone had known where Isabela would stand during the engagement announcement.
And someone had known enough about Vitale history to use a phrase buried for three decades.
Rafael lowered his voice.
“You think this is connected to Grandma.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe we should look at what she left us.”
“We already did.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“You looked at the songs. The Zurich documents. Family records.”
“And?”
“What about the recipe book?”
Isabela stared.
“What recipe book?”
“The ugly brown one from Grandma’s kitchen.”
Her memory opened.
A battered leather notebook.
Carmela kept it in the kitchen drawer beside wooden spoons and rubber bands.
Sauces.
Bread.
Pastries.
Measurements written partly in English and partly in Italian.
After Carmela died, Isabela’s mother kept it.
After their mother died, Isabela packed everything into boxes.
Most remained in storage in Providence.
“You kept it?”
“I didn’t.”
Rafael smiled faintly.
“You did.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You never throw anything away if it belonged to Mom or Grandma.”
He was right.
Damiano had stopped talking.
“What book?”
Isabela explained.
He immediately looked at Enzo.
“Providence storage unit.”
“Already secured months ago.”
“Have everything transported here.”
“No,” Isabela said.
Both men looked at her.
“We go ourselves.”
Damiano’s expression was predictable.
“Absolutely not.”
“The assassin expects me to hide.”
“That is not an argument for making yourself accessible.”
“It’s an argument for controlling the next move.”
“Isabela—”
“The notebook has sat untouched for years. If we suddenly move it through your people, whoever is watching may realize it matters.”
Damiano studied her.
Six months ago, their arguments had been between a powerful man accustomed to command and a frightened woman refusing to surrender autonomy.
Now they were different.
He listened.
Actually listened.
“What do you propose?”
“We return to Boston quietly.”
“Too obvious.”
“Not Boston. Providence.”
Cesare spoke from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
“You people really need better habits regarding doors,” Rafael muttered.
Cesare ignored him.
“The girl is right.”
“Don’t call her girl,” Damiano said.
Cesare sighed.
“The formidable head of the restored Vitale family is right. Better?”
“No.”
Isabela looked between them.
“Why are you still here?”
“Because someone used a message my father received thirty years ago.”
“That doesn’t make you trustworthy.”
“No. But it makes me interested.”
He stepped inside.
“There is something else you should know.”
Damiano’s posture changed.
“What?”
Cesare looked directly at Isabela.
“The attack on your family was never supposed to kill everyone.”
Her heart slowed.
“What does that mean?”
“My father believed one member of the Vitale family needed to survive.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect nothing.”
Cesare reached into his jacket.
Damiano’s hand moved toward his weapon.
Cesare rolled his eyes and slowly produced an envelope.
“My father kept this in his private safe until he died.”
He placed it on the table.
The paper was yellowed.
On the front was one name.
Carmela.
Isabela stopped breathing.
“Why didn’t you give me this before?”
“Because until tonight, I believed it was irrelevant.”
“Open it,” Rafael whispered.
Isabela did.
Inside was a photograph.
Carmela stood beside another young woman.
They looked nearly identical.
Same eyes.
Same dark hair.
Same crescent-shaped birthmark visible beneath hair lifted by the Sicilian wind.
On the back, someone had written:
Carmela and Sofia Vitale. Palermo, 1989.
Isabela stared at it.
“My grandmother had a sister?”
Cesare’s voice was quiet.
“A twin.”
Damiano took the photograph.
Isabela looked again at the note from the chapel.
The wrong Vitale survived.
Suddenly the words meant something entirely different.
May you like
And somewhere beneath the villa, with security alarms still active and blood being cleaned from the garden stones, Isabela understood that restoring the Vitale name had not ended her grandmother’s secret.
It had only announced to whoever had been waiting that Carmela’s granddaughter was finally ready to discover it.
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