Chapter 32 - Bloodlines and Bakeries
The silence in the vault was suffocating. Aurelia let out a raspy, hysterical choke from the corner. "You're lying... you're lying! She's a maid! She's a filthy, lowborn baker who cleaned the floors!"
Without looking at her, Lorenzo flicked his wrist. One of his operatives stepped forward, driving the butt of his tactical shotgun hard against Aurelia’s jaw. The sound of cracking bone echoed off the reinforced concrete, and Aurelia collapsed into unconsciousness, finally silenced.
Luca did not drop his guard for a second. "You're telling me Lily wasn't an outsider? That she didn't just stumble into my estate seeking employment?"
"She didn't know," Lorenzo replied smoothly. "Her mother kept her ignorant to protect her. But the blood remembers. Why do you think she smelled the cyanide and belladonna in the engagement cake when no one else did? Why do you think she recognized the subtle discoloration of the sugar icing that fooled your best food tasters?"
Lorenzo looked at Lily with an unnerving intensity. "Because the Valenti blood was bred to withstand and detect the finest poisons in the Mediterranean. Your hand was not burned by accident, child. Your mother burned you to obscure the Syndicate crest stamped into your skin, hoping I would never find you. But when you stopped Aurelia from poisoning Luca, you triggered the silent alarm in our network. You signed your own summons."
Lily felt Luca’s arm tighten around her, pulling her close against his side. His heartbeat was a rapid, thundering rhythm against her shoulder.
"She is not a weapon for you to harvest, Grandfather," Luca said, his voice dropping into a register of murderous calm. "She is my fiancée. She wears the Moretti emerald. And whatever lineage she carries, she belongs to this house."
"Does she?" Lorenzo smiled thinly. "A Moretti does not wed for romance, Luca. You took her into your bed out of defiance against Aurelia’s family. But if she is Elena’s heir, she holds the key to the underground vaults beneath Zurich, Milan, and Marseille. She holds the codes to the Silent Flame."
"I don't know any codes," Lily said firmly, lifting her chin to meet the terrifying gaze of the old Don. "I only know how to bake. I know how to make bread that feeds people, and I know the scent of bitter almonds when someone tries to kill a man in cold blood. I will not be your chemist, and I will not be your prize."
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed into slits of ice. "How quaint. The lamb believes it has the right to negotiate with the wolf."
He tapped his cane once against the floor. Instantly, the four operatives raised their weapons, their barrels tracking seamlessly between Luca’s head and Lily’s chest.
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"You have two choices, grandson," Lorenzo whispered. "Surrender the girl to my research laboratory in Geneva, and you may keep the Moretti name, the estate, and your life. Refuse... and I will bury you in this vault alongside the Drake dogs, and take her over your corpse."
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