Chapter 6
THE HOUSE OF WOLVES STOLE FACES—UNTIL A CHILD EXPOSED THEM ALL
Marco survived the sh/o/ting.
The bullet missed his heart by less than an inch, but he required surgery.
While doctors worked, Adriana explained the final horror of the House of Wolves.
Salvatore did not merely control people.
He replaced them.
Over thirty years, surgeons had altered the faces of loyal agents. Voice coaches taught accents. Psychologists built memories from stolen diaries, letters, and recordings.
Some replacements were used for a single meeting.
Others lived inside families for years.
“My mother’s twin?” I asked.
“Bianca Morelli,” Adriana said. “Caterina’s younger sister. She joined Salvatore before you were born.”
“Was my mother really my mother?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because Bianca could not have children. Salvatore kept her as a backup identity.”
The phrase made me sick.
A human being reduced to a backup identity.
Adriana continued.
“After Caterina’s d/e/@/th, Bianca disappeared. Salvatore must have brought her back.”
“Why sh/o/ot Marco?”
“To make him believe his mother chose Luca over him even from the grave.”
Salvatore’s strategy was always the same.
Divide.
Confuse.
Replace love with suspicion.
But he had underestimated one thing.
Children notice what adults ignore.
Emma sat near Isabella’s hospital bed, drawing with blue crayons.
I crouched beside her.
“Emma, when you saw the old man at the river house, why did you say he had two faces?”
She looked at me seriously.
“Because one face smiled, but the other one didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
She pointed to her own eyes.
“His mouth smiled. His eyes stayed mean.”
“That is an expression, sweetheart.”
She shook her head.
“Grandma said people wear pretend faces. But their hands tell.”
I remembered her first words about doctors knowing doctor things and Lucia knowing sleeping things.
“What do hands tell?”
“Who they are.”
She held up the silver charm.
On the cracked edge was a dark blue stain.
Ink.
The same stain I had seen on Marco’s ring.
But Marco had not worn that ring the night Elena’s route changed.
Someone else had.
Someone whose hand was trained to imitate him.
I found Marco’s childhood photographs in the Archive files.
In every picture, Marco held objects with his left hand.
He had been left-handed until a riding accident injured his wrist at sixteen.
Afterward, he learned to use the right.
The man seen on security footage changing Elena’s escort had signed documents with his left hand.
Not Marco.
A replacement trained from old records.
Salvatore had framed him using an outdated habit.
Adriana reviewed the footage.
“There was an agent called Marius. He studied Marco for years.”
“Where is he now?”
“Officially d/e/@/d.”
I almost smiled.
Of course he was.
We traced Bianca’s van to an abandoned theater in Brooklyn.
The building had once hosted opera companies. Now its basement contained dressing rooms filled with wigs, prosthetics, voice recordings, and photographs of my family.
Elena found a wall covered with images of Isabella.
At different ages.
Sleeping.
Eating.
Sitting in the garden.
Every photograph had been taken from inside our estate.
The traitor had not been Marco.
It was someone who had access to the child every day.
Sophia looked at the photographs.
“One of these was taken from the nursery.”
“Who entered?” I asked.
“Nurses. Housekeepers. Dr. Price. Family.”
Emma pointed to a photograph of Isabella asleep.
“That blanket is wrong.”
We all looked at her.
“What?”
“The stars point down.”
Sophia examined the image.
“Emma is right. Isabella’s blanket has stars pointing upward toward the pillow.”
The photograph had been reversed.
It was taken through a mirror.
The nursery had only one mirror.
A tall antique mirror brought from my mother’s house.
We returned to the estate and removed it from the wall.
Behind the glass was a narrow camera.
Inside the wooden frame we found a transmitter and a list of codes.
Adriana recognized one.
“The camera reports to Housekeeper Unit Seven.”
My head housekeeper was Marta Leone.
She had served my family for twenty-two years.
She had comforted Isabella after nightmares.
She had organized Elena’s funeral.
She had stood beside my mother during her final illness.
We found Marta in the kitchen preparing tea.
When I placed the camera on the table, she did not pretend ignorance.
She simply sighed.
“I wondered when the child would notice.”
Sophia pulled Emma behind her.
“You watched Isabella.”
“I protected her.”
“You drugged her,” I said.
“No. Price did.”
“You allowed it.”
Marta looked tired.
“Salvatore would have replaced me with someone worse.”
I aimed my g/u/n at her.
“That excuse has buried too many people.”
She smiled sadly.
“You sound like Antonio.”
“Where is Salvatore?”
“At the old Valenti theater.”
“We just came from there.”
“Not Brooklyn. Sicily.”
Elena stepped forward.
“The theater beneath the Palermo villa.”
Marta nodded.
“He is gathering the remaining branches. Tomorrow night, they will recognize him as head of the House.”
“Why now?”
“Because Isabella has begun to walk. The family heir is no longer broken, and the House will question why Salvatore hid her recovery.”
“So he must control her or remove her.”
Marta looked toward the door.
“He plans to crown her.”
The word sounded impossible.
“Crown?”
“The House needs Antonio’s descendant. Isabella is his granddaughter. Salvatore intends to place her publicly at his side, then rule through her.”
I lowered the g/u/n.
“He will never touch her.”
“He already has.”
Marta nodded toward Emma’s silver charm.
I took it from the child and examined the blue stone.
A tiny light blinked inside.
A tracker.
Salvatore had known our location every moment since the garden.
I crushed the charm beneath my heel.
Emma stared at the broken pieces.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
She picked up the cracked blue stone.
“It was already broken.”
Her words stayed with me.
Perhaps our family was the same.
Broken long before she touched it.
But broken things could still reveal what was hidden inside.
We traveled to Sicily with a small group we trusted completely.
Marco insisted on coming despite his wound.
Elena sat beside Isabella on the plane.
Dr. Greene had fitted the girl with supportive braces.
During the flight, Isabella practiced lifting her feet.
One inch.
Then two.
Each movement was a rebellion against Salvatore.
At the old Valenti villa, hundreds of guests gathered beneath masks shaped like wolves.
Judges.
Businessmen.
Officials.
Men I had considered enemies.
Men I had considered friends.
The House of Wolves had no single face because it had stolen all of them.
We entered through the tunnels beneath the cliff.
Adriana led us toward the theater.
Onstage, Salvatore stood beneath a golden crest.
Bianca stood beside him wearing my mother’s face.
Gabriel knelt at the center, chained but alive.
Salvatore addressed the crowd.
“Tonight, Antonio’s line returns to the House.”
Two guards rolled out an empty wheelchair.
He expected Isabella to be brought forward helpless.
Instead, the theater doors opened.
Isabella stood between Elena and me.
Braces supported her legs.
Emma held one hand.
I held the other.
The entire House fell silent.
Salvatore’s smile vanished.
Isabella took one trembling step.
Then another.
Each footfall echoed louder than a g/u/n/sh/o/t.
She looked at Salvatore and said, “My legs aren’t sleeping anymore.”
The crowd began whispering.
Salvatore raised his hand.
“Seize them.”
No one moved.
Because every screen inside the theater suddenly activated.
The Archive files appeared.
Names.
Payments.
Crimes.
Replacements.
The entire history of the House of Wolves.
Adriana had transmitted the evidence to every member.
Then another image filled the screens.
Antonio Valenti sat in a wheelchair inside a dark room.
My adoptive father was alive.
He looked directly into the camera.
May you like
And said:
“Salvatore was never the head of the House.”
