THE MAFIA BOSS FOUND HIS MOTHER’S BURIAL RUBY IN HIS FIANCÉE’S PURSE—THEN CONFRONTED HER IN THE PRIVATE STUDY AND ASKED, “WHO DUG UP MY FAMILY’S CRYPT?” / Chapter 2 / 15

Chapter 2 - The Microfilm Behind the Bloodstone“Then explain it to me,” I said.

My voice was barely a murmur, yet it had the weight of an iron anchor dropping through black water.

Camilla backed away two paces, her hands coming up defensively against her chest, the diamonds at her wrists throwing fractured glints against the dark mahogany bookcases. Her eyes darted toward the study doors, but Dante and two armed sentries in tailored charcoal wool already blocked the threshold like stone pillars.

“Julian, please,” she breathed, her composure disintegrating into ragged, panicked fragments. “Your mother wasn't just a syndicate matriarch. She was the confidential trustee for the maritime escrow accounts in Genoa. She kept the unredacted ledgers—the ones detailing the diversion of seventy million dollars from the port expansion.”

“And you believed those ledgers were buried beneath five feet of reinforced granite?”

“Not the ledgers,” Camilla whispered, her gaze dropping to the tarnished mahogany case on my desk. “The master encryption cipher. A high-density microdot film set beneath the pavilion facet of the bloodstone.”

I didn't answer.

I picked up the heavy gold signet from the velvet recess. The metal was cool, etched with the soaring sea-falcon of the Vance armory. With deliberate, surgical care, I slipped the edge of my pocket watchmaker’s blade beneath the tiny bezel notch along the inner rim of the setting.

A microscopic click sounded in the quiet room.

The blood-red Burmese ruby swung open on an invisible platinum hinge.

Inside the hollowed gold cup rested a wafer of laminated microfilm smaller than a grain of rice.

My mother had taken the truth into her tomb—not to hide it from me, but to protect her son until the syndicate's true traitors exposed their greed.

I looked up, my slate-gray eyes locking onto Camilla’s pale face.

“Who was the woman in the black lace veil, Camilla?”

Camilla’s throat clicked as she swallowed dry air. “Julian... you can’t—”

“Who was she?”

“My mother,” Camilla choked out. “Donna Beatrice Laurent.”

Behind me, Teresa let out a soft, shuddering breath, her fingers clutching her apron.

The pieces aligned with lethal, mathematical clarity. Beatrice Laurent had spent eight years maneuvering her daughter into my bed, pretending the Laurent family wanted a lasting peace after my mother's passing. But they hadn't wanted an alliance; they had needed access to the family chapel. They needed to pry open Donna Sofia's sarcophagus to destroy the only evidence that proved the Laurents had sabotaged the Hudson shipping lines in 2018.

And when an observant maid carrying clean laundry crossed their path in the subterranean corridor, Camilla had staged a theft before thirty dinner guests, hoping I would execute an innocent servant before she could utter a single word about the iron door.

I looked at Teresa.

She stood straight despite her trembling, her brown eyes clear, honest, and completely devoid of guilt.

“You gave my mother fresh water every morning for five years before she died, didn't you, Teresa?” I asked softly.

Teresa’s chin lifted, tears hovering at the edges of her lashes. “Yes, Mr. Vance. She asked for lavender in her wash water every day at sunrise.”

I closed the ruby signet with a definitive snap, sliding it into my waistcoat pocket over my heart.

“Dante.”

“Command, Don Julian,” my chief enforcer answered, stepping forward from the door.

“Seal the chapel tunnel. Call the port authority and impound every vessel bearing the Laurent flag between Manhattan and Albany. And bring Beatrice Laurent to the grand salon.”