Chapter 4 - Seven Calls Before Sunrise|
At 4:00 a.m., Vivien sat at her mother's writing desk with seven telephones arranged in a row.
She had not used the room since childhood. Yet the moment she opened the journal, she remembered the lessons her mother had taught her about power.
Never make a promise you cannot keep.
Never threaten someone who has not yet decided to become your enemy.
And never mistake silence for surrender.
The first call went to Kanti in Chicago.
He answered on the second ring.
"I was wondering when you would call."
"You saw the announcement."
"I saw a fool give away the one thing that made his authority legitimate."
Vivien closed her eyes briefly.
"I need to know whether the old agreements remain intact."
"They do. My people will honor the terms we signed with you."
"Not with Damian?"
"With the syndicate. But understand this, Vivien. I will not start a war to restore your pride."
"Neither will I."
"Good. Then perhaps we can still save something."
The second call went to the Romano sisters in New Jersey. The third went to a family in Boston whose shipping dispute she had settled six years earlier.
By sunrise, six families had agreed to attend an emergency council.
The seventh did not answer.
The Bellandi family had been silent for months, ever since its patriarch died unexpectedly and his son took over the business.
Vivien left a message.
"Tell Matteo Bellandi that his father once asked me to protect his family from a debt that could have destroyed it. I honored that request. Now I need him to honor his father's word."
She hung up.
The townhouse door opened downstairs.
Vivien reached for the small pistol inside the desk, then heard a familiar voice.
"You're still keeping your mother's office exactly as she left it."
Gabriel Ashcroft stood in the doorway.
For several seconds, Vivien could not move.
He looked older than the man she remembered. His hair had turned silver at the temples, and a thin scar crossed his cheek. But his eyes were unmistakable.
"You're dead," she whispered.
"So I was told."
She crossed the room and struck him across the face.
Gabriel accepted it without flinching.
"That was deserved."
She struck him again.
"That too."
Then she grabbed the front of his coat and held him as though she could prevent him from disappearing a third time.
"Where have you been?"
"Keeping people alive."
"By letting me bury you?"
His expression tightened.
"I thought distance would protect you."
"It protected everyone except me."
He lowered his head.
"I know."
Vivien stepped away.
"Did you know what Damian would do tonight?"
"No. But I knew he would eventually make a mistake large enough to reveal who was controlling him."
"Who is controlling him?"
Gabriel glanced toward the journal.
"Thomas Bell is not the man he appears to be. Neither is Seline."
"What do they want?"
"The Donna council's voting rights. The original Ashcroft trust. And something your mother hid before she disappeared."
Vivien's hands went cold.
"What did she hide?"
May you like
Gabriel looked directly at her.
"The names of the people who ordered your father's murder."
