Chapter 26 - The Unraveling Secret
Brody lay pinned beneath Clara’s blade, gasping for breath as blood pooled from his shattered knee.
Julian burst into the library, his weapon raised, his eyes widening as he saw Clara holding the traitor completely at her mercy, while Constance pushed herself up against the wall, clutching her bleeding shoulder with a grim, proud smirk.
"Don't kill him yet, Clara," Constance ordered, her voice laced with venomous calm. "Traitors do not get the mercy of a quick death."
Julian stepped forward, hauling Brody up by the collar and throwing him into an armchair. "Talk, Marcus. Or Salieri will spend the next three days peeling your skin off strip by strip."
Brody spat blood onto the oriental rug, laughing wheezily. "It’s too late, Julian. You think Elena Moretti is the mastermind? She’s just a messenger girl. The Council of Seven didn't come to destroy the Vance family. They came to reclaim their lost child."
Clara froze. The air in the room suddenly felt thin, suffocatingly cold. "What are you talking about?"
Brody turned his bloodshot eyes directly onto Clara, his smile twisted into a grotesque sneer. "Ask the matriarch, little girl. Ask her why she plucked you out of poverty to be Julian's bride. Ask her why your mother died in that mysterious fire twenty years ago in Chicago!"
Clara slowly turned her gaze to Constance.
Constance stood frozen. For the first time since Clara had met her, the formidable, fearless matriarch looked as though she had been struck by a mortal blow. The cold majesty melted away, replaced by an agonizing sorrow that carved deep lines into her weathered face.
"Mother?" Julian’s voice was barely a whisper, filled with a terrifying dread. "What is he saying?"
"Constance..." Clara’s voice shook, her fingers loosening slightly on the grip of her knife. "Is it true? Who was my mother?"
Constance closed her eyes, exhaling a long, shuddering breath. When she opened them, the tears she had held back for decades finally glistened in the corners of her iron eyes.
"Your mother was not a nobody, Clara," Constance confessed softly, her voice cracking with ancient guilt. "Her name was Alessandra Valente. She was the youngest daughter of Don Lorenzo Valente—the supreme sovereign of the Council of Seven."
The room plunged into an absolute, suffocating silence.
"Twenty-five years ago," Constance continued, looking straight into Clara’s widening eyes, "Alessandra fell in love with a man outside the Council. Her family ordered him executed and forced her into hiding. She came to me. I hid her in the heart of Chicago. I promised to protect her and her unborn child with the entire military might of the Vance family."
Constance took a trembling step toward Clara. "When the Council discovered her location, they burned the safehouse. I thought both she and her baby had perished in the flames. It was only six months ago that I discovered Alessandra had managed to get you into the foster system before the fire took her."
"You didn't choose me because I was an innocent bride," Clara whispered, the ground vanishing beneath her feet. "You chose me because my bloodline owns the throne of the Council."
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"I chose you," Constance said with fierce, passionate intensity, "because you are the only one alive who can tear that Council apart from the inside out."
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