The photograph lay on the table like an accusation.
Lottie couldn't look at it again without her chest tightening. The young woman's face—the woman Gabe claimed was her mother—stared up from the faded print, eyes both strange and unnervingly familiar. The longer Lottie looked, the more she saw traces of herself in the curve of her jaw, in the sharpness of her gaze.
But she wasn't supposed to. That wasn't supposed to be her.
By morning, the estate buzzed with activity. The guards were restless, their clipped orders carrying through the halls. Reinforcements had been called in. Every window was double-checked, every gate tested, every shadow regarded as a threat.
Lottie moved like a ghost among them, ignored yet scrutinized. Whispers followed her down corridors. She knew what they were thinking: she was the crack in Cavelli armor, the weakness Vitale had chosen to pry at.
In the library, she found Gabe standing by the hearth, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled to his forearms. He looked like he hadn't slept, but he carried himself with the same iron posture, unbending, unyielding.
Her voice came out harsher than she intended. "You can't just drop that on me and walk away."
He didn't look at her, just poured himself a glass of whiskey he didn't drink. "You wanted the truth. I gave you a piece of it."
"A piece isn't enough." Her hands trembled against the spines of books she didn't see. "If Vitale is willing to kill for this, don't you think I should know what this even is?"
Finally, his gaze lifted, pinning her in place. "Do you really want to know, Lottie? Because once you do, there's no taking it back. You'll carry it forever, the same way I do."
She swallowed hard, but her chin didn't lower. "Yes."
Silence stretched between them, thick as smoke. Then he turned back to the fire, his voice low, measured.
"Your mother wasn't just anyone. She was born into the Caruso line—Veronica's bloodline. Old money, old power. A family tied to Vitale long before I took my first breath."
Lottie's stomach lurched. "Caruso? But that's—"
"Vitale's sister," Gabe finished, his jaw tight. "Which makes her your aunt."
The room tilted. She gripped the back of a chair to steady herself. "That's not possible. My father—"
"Your father knew. He married her anyway." Gabe's eyes darkened. "And when she died—or was killed, depending on which story you believe—Vitale swore the blood debt would never be forgotten. Not by your father. Not by me. Not by you."
Her pulse thundered in her ears. "So I'm… I'm part Vitale."
"You're not him." Gabe's voice cracked sharp. He stepped forward, fierce, as though he could beat the thought out of her. "Don't ever say that. You're not him. You're you."
Tears blurred her vision. "But to him, I'm proof. Proof that his blood runs through me. Proof that his legacy isn't dead."
Gabe's hands flexed like he wanted to reach for her but didn't. His restraint hurt more than his words. "To him, you're leverage. To me…" He stopped, throat working, then turned away. "To me, you're the one thing I can't afford to lose."
Her breath caught.
Before she could respond, Marco appeared in the doorway, tension radiating off him. "We've got a problem."
Gabe's head snapped up. "What now?"
Marco's jaw worked. "Vitale's people weren't circling aimlessly last night. They were mapping. We pulled footage—drones, hidden cameras. They've got every angle of the estate catalogued."
A curse hissed from Gabe's teeth. "He's setting up a siege."
"That's not all," Marco continued. His eyes flicked to Lottie, then back to Gabe. "They weren't just tracking you. They were tracking her."
Lottie's blood ran cold.
"How?" Gabe demanded.
Marco hesitated, then answered. "He's got someone feeding him from inside. Again."
The words were a blade through the room. Lottie gripped the chair tighter, bile rising in her throat. Another traitor? After they'd already rooted one out?
"Impossible," Gabe snarled. "I cleared this house myself."
"Then one slipped through your net," Marco said evenly. "Because Vitale knew she was in the east wing last night, down to the hour. And he knew about the photograph. Someone's watching her movements from inside these walls."
Lottie's skin crawled. Every corner of the room felt hostile. Every guard in the house suddenly wore two faces.
Gabe's fury burned like wildfire, but beneath it she caught something else—fear. The one thing he never showed.
"Double the sweeps," Gabe ordered. "Check comms, check phones, check every goddamn man on rotation."
Marco nodded and vanished, already barking orders down the hall.
The silence that followed pressed heavy. Lottie turned to Gabe, her voice shaking. "You said the walls were supposed to keep us safe."
"They were," he growled. "Until someone inside decided they wanted you dead as much as Vitale does."
Her throat tightened. "So I'm not just his target—I'm the spark he's trying to use to burn this house down."
His eyes locked with hers, fierce and unyielding. "Then I'll burn first."
She didn't know whether it was a vow or a warning.
Night fell thick and tense. Gabe barely left her side, his presence a shadow she couldn't shake. He followed her down hallways, sat silently during her meals, lingered outside her door until exhaustion dragged her into uneasy dreams.
But she wasn't the only one unraveling. She could see it in him—in the taut line of his shoulders, in the darkness under his eyes. Gabe Cavelli was a man at war with every direction at once: Vitale outside, betrayal inside, and her—always her—at the center.
When she woke sometime past midnight, she found him in the armchair near her window, gun resting across his thigh, gaze sharp on the garden beyond. He looked carved from stone, relentless, untouchable.
But when his eyes flicked to hers, for one fleeting moment, she saw the cracks.
And she realized with a shiver that if Vitale wanted to destroy Gabriel Cavelli, he'd already found the perfect way.
He'd found her.