The Blood Oath’s Ten-Year Silence Chapter 06

The Blood Oath’s Ten-Year Silence Chapter 06

In the stone cloisters of the White Citadel, silence was not merely the absence of speech. It was a physical weight, thick as incense and cold as

marble.

For forty days, I wore coarse gray linen, washed the stone flagstones of the chapel on my knees, and trained in blind knife defense with the Order’s elite guardians.

Under the Rule of Saint Jude, once every quarter, the prior’s office provided an external intelligence folio to all cloistered novices. It was necessary to track blood vendettas outside our walls, so the Order could prepare for armed incursions by rival syndicates.

Don Antonio entered the scriptorium, placing a black leather folder embossed with the papal crest on my wooden reading desk.

He looked at me with solemn eyes, tapped the seal once, and left without speaking a single sound.

I opened the dossier.

Inside were surveillance logs and intelligence transcripts gathered by the Order’s informants across Sicily.

The first entry was dated four days after my initiation: The return of Don Matteo Falcone from Capri.

The transcription was verbatim, recorded by our listening post in the

Corleone estate:

Matteo, Lorenzo, and Carmela had arrived back at the villa at dusk, followed by six armored black SUVS carrying cases of vintage wine and designer luggage.

Matteo had walked into the great hall, laughing, calling out: “Elena! Bring the ledger! We need to audit the wine distribution before the Commission arrives!”

No one answered.

The old majordomo, Silvio-who had served our family for forty years-had come hobbling out of the kitchen, his apron trembling, tears running down his weathered wrinkles.

“Don Matteo…” Silvio had whispered, falling to his knees on the marble floor. “Signorina Elena is gone.”

Lorenzo had scoffed, lighting a cigarette. “Stop crying, old man. Did she check into the Grand Hotel in Taormina to pout? Send two soldiers to drag

her back.”

“She is not in a hotel, Commander,” Silvio had wept, holding out the heavy bronze master key to the southern wing and the three presentation boxes. “She cleared out her suite five days ago. She left all her contract earnings. She signed over all her vineyard deeds to you and Don Matteo for zero euros. And… she left this on the altar.”

The folio included a high-resolution photograph of the parchment letter I had left on the fireplace mantel:

The Falcone house has no sister. My voice belongs to the grave. Sanguis

Ante Omnia was a lie.

Beside the letter was the silver-threaded dragon-scale vest, the flask of consecrated healing oil, and Carmela’s black lace gown.

Silvio had broken down in uncontrollable sobs: “Don Matteo, you called her a parasite… But on the night Father was buried, she took her last savings to buy you armor! Over nine years, she stood between you and forty rival bullets! She took three shotgun blasts in Catania to shield your spine! She

Apever told you because she didn’t want you to worry! And you gave her

bedroom to a mistress’s daughter!”

According to the intelligence report, Matteo’s face had drained of every drop of blood.

He had dropped his glass of grappa, the crystal shattering across the stone floor. He tore up the stairs to my former bedroom, kicking the door wide

open.

The room was hollow. The fresco walls were bare. The bed was stripped to

bare pine boards.

Matteo had let out an ungodly, gut-wrenching howl from the balcony.

An hour later, Matteo had commandeered an armored Maserati, speeding up the treacherous mountain road to Mount Pellegrino in the middle of a torrential storm, followed by twenty armed capos.

He had rammed the heavy iron portcullis of the White Citadel twice, shattering the bumper of his car, screaming like a lunatic into the night

mist:

“Elena! Elena, open the gate! I am your Don! I order you to come out! Forgive your brother! Elena, come home!”

The Order’s Swiss guard had responded instantly.

Four snipers on the battlements had fired warning shots into the asphalt six inches from Matteo’s boots, and Don Antonio’s voice had boomed through

the stone horn:

“Under ecclesiastical interdict, the soul who entered this sanctuary is dead to the world. Cross this threshold, Matteo Falcone, and the Holy See will declare your entire bloodline excommunicated and damned.”

Matteo had fallen to his knees in the mud outside the gate, beating his chest with bloody fists, screaming my name until his vocal cords tore and he

choked on blood.

I stared at the black-and-white photograph of my brother kneeling outside

the iron gate.

My hands did not tremble. My pulse did not race.

I closed the folder, slid it back to the edge of the desk, picked up my copy of the Latin psalms, and began to write.

The world had buried me.

And I was content to stay dead.