Chương 4
“What grocery list?”
“Flour, cocoa, eggs, cream cheese, food coloring. It was a cake.”
“Who delivered the ingredients?”
“The kitchen had most of them. Elena brought a small bottle of vanilla and a jar of cocoa.”
“From where?”
“She said Sofia’s old bakery.”
Matteo stirred.
“Mommy cake,” he mumbled.
Caldwell’s expression changed.
Luca noticed.
“What?”
“His appetite has been poor for weeks.”
“I know.”
“He ate three bites.”
“I saw.”
“That matters.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying grief, smell, memory, comfort—those things affect children. They affect adults too, though adults prefer to call it something else.”
Luca looked down at Matteo.
The boy’s hand rested open on the blanket.
“Stay with him.”
“I was planning to.”
Luca started toward the door.
Caldwell spoke behind him. “Mr. Moretti.”
He turned.
“Whatever is happening downstairs, keep it downstairs.”
Luca almost asked how she knew.
Then he remembered the mansion had always carried tension through its walls better than sound.
He returned to the library by the back staircase.
Halfway down, he called Nico Santoro, his head of security.
Nico answered on the first ring.
“Boss.”
“Where is Rafe?”
A pause.
“In the east office.”
“Doing what?”
“Phone call.”
“With?”
“I’m checking.”
“No. Don’t check. Watch.”
Another pause, this one longer.
Luca stopped on the landing.
“Nico.”
“I heard you.”
“You sound uncertain.”
“I sound careful.”
“Why?”
“Because Rafe hired half the men on tonight.”
There it was.
Not rebellion. Arithmetic.
“How many answer to you?”
“Depends what they’re asked.”
Luca looked through the balustrade into the empty hall below.
“How many answer to me?”
Nico exhaled softly. “Same answer.”
Luca had known power was conditional. He simply had not expected to discover the condition while his son slept upstairs.
“Put two men outside Matteo’s room. Men with children.”
“That your only qualification?”
“For tonight.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“And Nico?”
“Yes.”
“Rafe does not leave the property.”
The silence on the line grew dense.
“Has he done something?”
“Not yet.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It’s the answer you get.”
Luca ended the call.
Elena had not moved from the library. She stood near the window, rubbing her wrist.
The envelope and its contents remained on the desk.
“You could have taken them,” Luca said.
“I wouldn’t get past the hall.”
“You thought about it.”
“I think about exits in this house.”
He picked up the brass key. The white tag bore a handwritten number: 214.
“Who is Miriam Walsh?”
“A lawyer.”
“What kind?”
“She handled immigration and family trusts. Sofia knew her from the bakery.”
“Where?”
“Hoboken.”
“Address?”
“I have it.”
“Why didn’t Sofia use one of our lawyers?”
Elena gave him a look that made the question feel childish.
Luca slipped the key into his pocket.
“How did Sofia give you the envelope?”
“She left it in the linen closet behind the nursery. She texted me after midnight and told me where it was.”
“The night before she died?”
“Yes.”
“Where was I?”
“Philadelphia.”
Luca had been meeting union representatives in a hotel suite near Rittenhouse Square. Rafe had arranged the meeting. A dispute over loading contracts had kept Luca there until morning. By the time he returned to New Jersey, Sofia’s car had already been pulled from the river.
“Who knew you had it?”
“No one.”
“Your family?”
“My mother thinks I stayed here because I need the money.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
The plain answer unsettled him.
“You could have left.”
“And then who would watch Matteo?”
“He has nurses.”
“He has employees.”
“So are you.”
“Yes.”
The distinction did not need explaining.
Luca looked at the photograph again.
“Why the bakery?”
“Sofia went there when she wanted to think. She used to work in the kitchen before she married you.”
“I know where my wife worked.”
“You knew the name of the place. That isn’t the same.”
Luca’s fingers tightened around the photograph.
Elena looked toward the sofa where Matteo had slept minutes earlier.
“She taught me the cake recipe there. She said Matteo loved it because she ate it while she was pregnant.”
“He was one.”
“He recognized the smell.”
“He said it tasted like her.”
“He remembers more than you think.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Nico entered without waiting for permission.
He was thirty-eight, narrow-faced, and usually carried himself with the loose patience of a man who had learned that other people revealed things while filling silence. Tonight his shoulders were rigid.
“Rafe’s call was to Brennan,” he said.
Luca’s eyes shifted.
“The doctor?”
“Four minutes. Then another call to someone using a blocked number. We’re pulling internal logs.”
“Did he try to leave?”
“Not yet.”
“What does Brennan report to him?”
Nico looked at Elena.
“She stays,” Luca said.
Nico accepted it without visible reaction. “Rafe has received updates about Matteo’s treatment for months.”
“Authorized by whom?”
“I assumed you.”
“You assumed.”
“He told us the family needed continuity.”
Luca let the phrase sit between them.
Family needed continuity. Rafe’s language. Calm, reasonable, impossible to challenge without sounding reckless.
“Get Brennan back here,” Luca said.
“He left forty minutes ago.”
“Bring him.”
“Voluntarily?”
“For now.”
Nico nodded.
“Take one man you trust.”
“That list is changing.”
“Choose quickly.”
When Nico left, Elena moved toward the desk.
“Rafe knows something happened.”
“He knows an envelope exists.”
“He saw Sofia’s handwriting.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll act.”
“He may wait.”
“Why?”
“Because he taught me to do that.”
Luca picked up Sofia’s letter and read it a third time.
Anger is strength because your anger has always been useful to him.
He folded the paper with more care than before.
“We go to Hoboken tonight.”
Elena stared at him. “Matteo can’t travel.”
“He stays here.”
“With Rafe in the house?”
“With Caldwell and guards.”
“Guards you’re no longer sure belong to you.”
Luca met her gaze.
She had not raised her voice. She did not need to.
“You have a better plan?”
“Take Matteo.”
“He is medically fragile.”
“Then take the nurse.”
May you like
“We’ll be followed.”
“We’ll be followed whether he stays or goes.”
