Chapter 11 - The Letter Beneath the Snow
Clara had expected the morning after Roman’s proposal to feel different.
She expected champagne, teasing from Marcus, perhaps one of Roman’s rare smiles over breakfast.
She did not expect a dead man to send them a wedding gift.
The package arrived at eleven-thirteen.
No courier approached the Duca estate. No vehicle crossed the outer checkpoint. The small black box simply appeared inside the private greenhouse, resting among white winter roses beneath a pane of frosted glass.
Marcus found it during the security sweep.
Within minutes, the entire estate went into lockdown.
Roman stood at the end of the long dining table while the bomb team opened the package remotely.
Clara watched from behind reinforced glass.
“No explosives,” Marcus finally reported through the intercom. “No chemical residue. Just paper.”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“Bring it.”
Marcus entered wearing gloves and carrying a transparent evidence case.
Inside lay a single cream envelope.
Written across the front in black ink were four words.
FOR ROMAN DUCA’S BRIDE.
Clara felt Roman’s hand close around hers.
“Someone has dramatic taste,” she said, trying to lighten the air.
Roman did not smile.
Marcus cut the envelope open.
Inside was an old photograph.
Roman’s father stood beside another man outside the Duca shipping offices nearly twenty-five years earlier. Both men were young. Both were smiling.
But someone had drawn a black circle around Roman’s father’s face.
On the back, three sentences had been written.
Your father murdered an innocent man.
He built your throne over the grave.
Ask Roman about Elias Vane.
Clara looked at Roman.
For the first time since she had known him, the most dangerous man in the city looked genuinely blindsided.
“You know that name,” she said.
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“I knew a Vane.”
“Knew?”
“My father’s accountant.”
Marcus shifted beside them. “Elias Vane disappeared during the first Marcone war.”
Roman took the photograph from the evidence case.
“I was twelve,” he continued. “My father said Elias stole money and ran.”
“And you believed him?”
“I was twelve, Clara.”
The sharpness in his voice was immediate.
So was the regret afterward.
Roman exhaled and rubbed a hand over his face.
“I’m sorry.”
Clara stepped closer.
“Don’t apologize. Tell me what happened.”
Roman stared at the photograph.
“Elias handled the legitimate side of the family. Properties. Shipping. Construction. He wasn’t a soldier. He never carried a weapon. Then one night, he disappeared.”
“And no body?”
“No body.”
Marcus folded his arms.
“If somebody knows enough to connect Vane to the old war, we have a problem.”
Clara studied the photograph again.
There was something strange near the bottom edge.
A reflection.
She carried it toward the window.
“What is that?”
Roman stepped beside her.
In the glass door behind the two men stood the faint image of a woman.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Pregnant.
Roman suddenly stopped breathing.
Clara looked at him.
“Who is she?”
Roman took the photograph.
His fingers tightened until the corner bent.
“My mother.”
Silence filled the room.
Roman almost never spoke about his mother.
Clara knew only that Sofia Duca had died when Roman was thirteen, officially from complications related to an illness.
But in the photograph, Sofia was visibly pregnant.
Roman had never mentioned a sibling.
Clara looked at him carefully.
“Roman.”
His eyes remained on the picture.
“My mother was never pregnant after me.”
Marcus moved closer.
“Boss…”
Roman turned the photo toward him.
“You see it.”
Marcus nodded.
“And if that date is correct,” Clara whispered, reading the faded stamp printed along the border, “this was taken one year before she died.”
Roman’s face went completely still.
The engagement ring on Clara’s hand suddenly felt heavy.
A family secret had just reached through twenty-five years of silence and touched them inside the safest room in the city.
Then Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
Roman’s gaze snapped toward him.
Marcus lowered the phone.
“Security found something underneath the greenhouse bench.”
“What?”
“A child’s silver bracelet.”
Marcus swallowed.
“It has the Duca crest engraved on it.”
Roman’s expression darkened.
Clara felt cold spread through her chest.
Because engraved beneath the crest was a name.
ADRIAN.
May you like
And underneath it—
MY SECOND SON.
