Chapter 6 — The Crown Needed Two Heirs

Lily moved between us.

“No.”

A guard caught her arm. She pulled against him hard enough to twist the sleeve of her blouse.

“You promised me.”

Thomas gave the guard a small nod. The man forced her toward the terminal.

I went with them before he had to drag her.

“Look at me, Lily.”

She turned, tears running over the bruise beneath her eye.

“I didn’t know.”

“I believe you.”

It was not forgiveness. We might never have enough time for that. But I believed she had wanted a life of her own, and Thomas had found a way to make that wish serve him.

She stopped resisting.

At the loading bay, rain blew through a broken upper window. The terminal stood beneath a steel canopy. Two glass readers sat below its screen, separated by a recessed keyboard.

An old brass plate identified the cabinet as dispatch equipment. My father had liked hiding expensive things beneath ordinary labels.

Thomas woke the screen.

“Both hands on the readers.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” I said.

He turned the pistol toward me.

“Then explain how it works.”

“You’ve opened the maintenance interface. That can check the readers. It can’t authorize anything.”

His eyes returned to the screen.

He knew enough to recognize that I was right.

“Open the proper interface.”

“Move your men away from the cabinet.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to reach the keyboard without someone driving a rifle into my shoulder.”

He considered it, then signaled the guards back a pace.

I opened the authorization screen. The family crest appeared above two empty identity fields.

Beneath it, a small version number confirmed what I needed to know.

My software was still running.

I kept my hand flat against the cabinet so Thomas would not see it tremble.

He had found the access station, obtained the family documents, and brought both heirs to it. He had no idea what he was about to authorize.

But I knew.

There would be no way to protect myself from the consequences afterward.

“Lily first,” Thomas said.

She looked at me. I nodded.

She placed her right hand on the reader. The screen requested her name and displayed a camera alignment guide.

“Lillian Rosa Falcone,” she said.

The first identity field turned green.

Thomas leaned closer.

“Now you.”

I placed my uninjured hand on the second reader.

“Matteo Alessio Falcone.”

The camera adjusted. Another field turned green.

A new message appeared.

FINAL AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.

Thomas read it twice.

“Finish it.”

“There’s a second sequence.”

“What sequence?”

“My father didn’t keep everything behind a name and a photograph.”

Behind Thomas, Sophia stood beside a concrete support. A guard watched her from less than an arm’s length away.

“Bring her here,” I said.

Thomas shook his head.

“She stays where she is.”

“Then move him back.”

I nodded toward her guard.

“You’re asking for a very complicated procedure while I watch a man with a rifle breathe down her neck.”

“You cared less about your fiancée.”

“My fiancée had you at gunpoint ten minutes ago. Ask her how much she cares about you.”

Camila stood across the aisle beside Damian. Her eyes moved to the gun in Thomas’s hand, then to the office where my pistol had been kicked.

Thomas saw it too.

“Keep those two apart,” he told the nearest guard.

The man moved Camila several feet away from Damian.

Thomas returned his attention to me.

“You don’t get to keep delaying this.”

“Then stop giving me things to worry about.”

He gestured impatiently toward Sophia’s guard. The man stepped back.

Sophia was still within his line of sight, but no longer within his immediate reach. She glanced at me once.

I looked away before Thomas could notice.

Lily’s free hand rested on the cabinet beside mine.

Her thumb tapped the metal.

Three. Two. Three.

I had taught her that pattern when she was a child and our father kept us in separate rooms after an argument. It meant the words being spoken aloud could not be trusted.

Her eyes stayed on the screen.

I shifted my hand until my little finger touched hers.

She was with me now.

Thomas’s radio crackled. A man reported that the southern patrol was down and the fence had been breached.

“I know,” Thomas said.

“Do you want the entrance sealed?”

“Leave it. Watch the road.”

He turned the radio off.

I studied the nearest exterior door. A magnetic lock sat above it, connected to newer wiring that had not been here during my last inspection.

The warehouse had been prepared to hold us. I would need to make sure it did not become our coffin.

Across the loading bay, Sophia was watching Thomas’s hand.

He had turned his ring so its flat black face pointed inward. When he touched it to a small control box beside the terminal, an amber indicator changed to green.

A relay clicked behind the wall.

Sophia looked toward the sound. Then toward a yellow pipe running beneath the canopy to the fuel service enclosure.

She said nothing.

Lily had noticed the ring too.

“What did you just switch on?” she asked.

“Insurance,” Thomas said.

“Against what?”

“Your brother deciding that nobody should leave here.”

He moved away from the box before she could look more closely.

I returned to the keyboard.

There were two ways to complete the authorization. The ordinary sequence, which Thomas expected, and the alternative I had put in place after my father’s death.

The second required both heirs to be physically present. It used a distinct final consent sequence, chosen by the authorizing heir. No machine could decide whether a gun frightened me. That decision belonged to me alone.

Once submitted, it could not be canceled from this terminal.

I had spent years preparing it and hoped never to use it.

My father had built his reserve to survive him. I had changed its purpose after seeing what maintaining his empire demanded of the people around me.

Even then, I had kept running the empire.

Preparing an escape from your own life was easier than choosing to take it.

“Matteo,” Thomas said.

I looked up.

He had raised the pistol toward Sophia again.

“No more time.”

She did not look at the gun. She looked at me.

Her face was pale, her uniform torn, the dressing on her shoulder coming loose. She had every reason to hate me for the business her brother had used to reach her.

Still, she gave me a small nod.

I turned to Lily.

“Whatever happens next, stay close to her.”

Thomas frowned.

“Stay close to whom?”

“Sophia.”

“Nobody is going anywhere.”

I entered the final sequence.

One line remained on the screen, waiting for my consent.

I thought of Marco’s daughter. My driver’s wife. Lily waiting for permission to spend money that should have been hers. Sophia searching morgues because her brother understood how to use people better than I understood how to protect them.

I had the choice now. I would not get another.

I pressed my hand firmly against the reader.

“I authorize it.”