Chapter 8 - The confession
Vincent returned to the estate just as the sun was beginning to rise, painting the winter sky in bright, cinematic hues of violet and gold. The sprawling mansion was dead quiet.
He walked up the grand staircase, the manila envelope heavy in his hand. He bypassed the library where Celeste was sleeping on a leather sofa and headed straight to the second floor.
Eleanor was already awake. She was sitting in the same armchair by the fire, entirely dressed for the day in a fresh navy blouse and her signature pearls, looking out the frost-covered window. She knew he was coming.
Vincent walked in and tossed the envelope onto the coffee table between them. It landed with a heavy slap.
“I took care of the lawyer,” Vincent said, his voice exhausted but steady. “Celeste has no leverage. The family is safe.”
Eleanor looked at the envelope. She didn't reach for it. She just stared at it, a profound sadness settling over her wrinkled, dignified features.
“Why?” Vincent asked, his voice breaking for the first time in two decades. “Why did you do it, Ma? He was the boss. If the Commission ever found out, they would have executed you on the spot. Why did you take that risk?”
Eleanor finally looked at her son. Her bright blue eyes were hard, fierce, burning with the protective fury of a mother.
“Because he was going to kill you, Vincent,” she said, her voice steady and clear in the quiet room.
Vincent froze.
“Your father was going mad,” Eleanor continued, her hands gripping the armrests of her chair. “The power, the paranoia, it was eating him alive. He looked at you, his strongest, most capable son, and he didn't see a successor. He saw a threat. He thought you were plotting with the rival families to overthrow him. I found the orders on his desk one night. He had arranged a hit on his own son.”
Vincent felt the air leave his lungs. He remembered a drive he was supposed to take twenty years ago—a late-night meeting at the docks that got canceled at the last minute because his father had suddenly collapsed.
“I made him his tea every night,” Eleanor whispered, a single tear rolling down her rosy cheek. “I crushed the seeds. I measured the doses. I watched the man I married waste away in front of me, and I did it with a smile on my face because I knew every day he grew weaker was another day you got to live.”
May you like
Vincent dropped to his knees in front of his mother. The legendary, terrifying Mafia boss rested his head in the lap of the frail, eighty-one-year-old woman who had damned her own soul to save his life. She gently stroked his dark hair, just as she had when he was a boy.
“I would do it again, Vincent,” she whispered fiercely. “A thousand times over.”
