Chương 4
“He said your name,” Lorenzo said.
Carlo let out a quiet breath. “Marco has been unreliable for months.”
“Interesting time to mention it.”
“There was no reason to worry you while your son was sick.”
Leo swallowed.
Carlo’s gaze dropped to the blanket. For a fraction of a second, something like distaste crossed his face.
“What exactly is she doing?” he asked again.
“She kept him alive,” Lorenzo said.
The answer surprised all three of them.
Carlo recovered first. “Lorenzo, you don’t know this woman.”
“She knows the bottle was wrong.”
Carlo glanced toward the pantry phone.
“Who did you call?”
“An ambulance,” Elena said.
His expression remained controlled, but one hand moved into his coat pocket.
Lorenzo lifted the knife.
“Take it out slowly.”
Carlo withdrew a phone. “I was going to call our doctor.”
“The lines are down,” Elena said.
“This has satellite service.”
“Then why didn’t you call when you heard shots?”
Carlo looked at her as if noticing for the first time that she could form questions.
“I came to find my nephew.”
“You came from the guest wing,” Lorenzo said. “The east stair would have brought you here before us.”
Carlo’s mouth hardened. “Are you interrogating me in a kitchen while your son needs medical attention?”
Sirens sounded faintly beyond the estate wall.
Carlo closed his eyes for half a second.
The gesture was small, almost nothing.
Lorenzo saw it.
“You didn’t expect them,” he said.
“No one expects police at this house at two in the morning.”
“I didn’t say police.”
Carlo looked toward the windows.
Red light began to move across the distant trees.
Elena shifted Leo higher. His body felt no warmer. Her arms had started to ache, but setting him down was impossible. Her body had become the only safe place she knew existed.
Carlo’s voice softened. “Lorenzo, listen to me. We need to control what enters this house. Send the ambulance to the service gate. Our physician can meet them there. The girl can give a statement later.”
“The girl has a name,” Elena said.
Carlo ignored her.
Lorenzo stared at his uncle.
For years, Elena would remember the silence that followed. Not because it was dramatic. Because during it, Carlo adjusted the cuff of his pajama sleeve. A mundane, irritated gesture. He behaved like a man waiting for a younger relative to stop embarrassing him in front of staff.
Lorenzo placed the carving knife on the marble island.
“Open the front gates,” he told the intercom.
There was no response.
He repeated the command.
Carlo said, “The system is down.”
Lorenzo turned to Elena. “Stay here.”
“No.”
His eyes flashed.
“If you leave us in this room, someone can lock another door.”
“I have men outside.”
“You had men outside the nursery.”
Carlo’s gaze moved between them.
Lorenzo took his uncle’s phone.
“Walk,” he said.
They crossed the mansion together—Lorenzo first, Carlo beside him, Elena behind. At the entrance hall, security guards struggled with the electronic controls. The gates remained closed.
The ambulance stopped beyond them. Police cruisers arrived seconds later.
The iron gates separated the estate from the road by nearly thirty yards. Officers shouted through loudspeakers, ordering visible weapons lowered and the gates opened.
Carlo spoke quietly. “This is exactly what they’ve been waiting for.”
Lorenzo glanced at him.
“Your child is dying,” Elena said. “They can wait in the driveway or they can help him. Those are the choices.”
Carlo turned on her. “You have no idea what the choices are.”
Elena looked down at Leo. “Neither do you.”
Lorenzo entered a manual code on a concealed panel. Nothing happened.
One of the guards said, “Someone disabled the motor.”
Elena watched Carlo.
His face showed nothing.
Lorenzo took a set of keys from the guard and strode toward the gatehouse. He could have sent someone. He did not. He opened the mechanical control box himself, turned the emergency release, and began pulling the heavy gate inward with both hands.
The first opening was barely wide enough for a person.
A paramedic slipped through carrying a bag.
Police followed with weapons raised.
The Rossi guards went rigid. One lowered his pistol to the ground. Another looked at Lorenzo for permission.
“Put them down,” Lorenzo said.
Carlo stared at him.
It was the first public order Lorenzo Rossi gave that night against the rules of his own world.
The paramedic reached Elena and peeled back the blanket. His expression changed when he saw Leo’s color.
“We need him on the stretcher.”
“He’s feeding,” Elena said.
“We’ll keep him warm. You can stay close.”
Lorenzo extended his hands.
Elena hesitated.
His eyes lifted to hers. The gun was gone. The anger remained, but the terror underneath it had become impossible to hide.
“He’s my son,” he said.
She transferred Leo carefully.
Lorenzo held the child with awkward precision, as though every part of him had been trained for force and none for fragility. The paramedic guided him toward the ambulance.
Elena looked back once.
Carlo stood beneath the mansion’s crystal chandelier while police entered around him. He appeared almost bored.
Then he smiled at her.
It was not a large smile. No one else seemed to see it.
By dawn, Leo Rossi lay beneath warming blankets in the pediatric intensive care unit at St. Vincent’s Medical Center. Clear tubing ran from his arm. Electrodes covered his small chest. The room smelled of antiseptic and warmed plastic.
Elena sat outside in a borrowed scrub top because the police had taken her uniform as evidence.
A detective had asked her the same questions three times.
Why had she entered the nursery?
Why had she opened her uniform?
Had Lorenzo ordered her to feed the child?
Had she ever fed Leo before?
Had she touched the bottle?
Had she consumed alcohol?
Had she assaulted Kathleen Doyle?
May you like
The questions were reasonable. She understood that. Understanding did not make them easier.
Across the waiting area, Lorenzo sat between his attorney and a uniformed officer. Someone had cleaned the blood from his hand and wrapped it in gauze. His black shirt remained untucked. Without the mansion around him, he looked younger and more tired.
