Chương 6
“A little.”
Ellie pinched two fingers together near her temple.
“He pulled.”
Clara made a sound I had never heard from another human being and hope never to hear again.
She lifted Ellie and searched through her curls with shaking fingers.
There was no injury I could see.
That did not matter.
I took my phone back from Paul.
This time he did not stop me.
I did not call Dante.
I called the gatehouse.
“Lock the service gate.”
The night guard sounded confused.
“Sir?”
“Do not admit my brother onto this property.”
There was a pause.
“Mr. Dante?”
“Yes.”
“What if he says—”
“He can say whatever he wants from the other side.”
I ended the call.
Clara stared at me.
“What happens now?”
It was the first time all night she had asked me that instead of telling me what she feared would happen.
I looked at the three cheap gold coins scattered across my table.
For seven years I had treated them as relics from a life I could not recover.
Tonight a three-year-old had used them for something Sofia would have understood better than I ever had.
Not magic.
Permission.
Permission to ask a question adults had worked very hard to keep buried.
I picked up the third coin and placed it back in Ellie’s hand.
“Now,” I said, “we stop letting Dante decide what everybody else is allowed to know.”
My phone vibrated before anyone could answer.
The gatehouse number appeared on the screen.
I put it on speaker.
The guard’s voice came through thin and urgent.
“Mr. Moretti, your brother is already back.”
I looked toward the front windows.
No headlights crossed them.
“Where is he?”
There was a burst of static.
Then the guard said, “He didn’t come through the gate.”
For one second I thought the guard had misspoken.
“What do you mean he didn’t come through the gate?”
“He left his car outside the north wall.”
The guard was breathing hard now.
“Camera caught him climbing over near the old greenhouse.”
Paul was already moving toward the windows.
“Do you have eyes on him?”
“No, sir.”
“Call the police,” Teresa said.
Clara grabbed my sleeve.
“No.”
I looked at her.
Her face had gone completely white.
“If police come, Ellie’s name gets into everything.”
“Not necessarily,” Paul said.
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
“That’s exactly my point.”
The guard spoke through the phone.
“Mr. Moretti, should I come to the house?”
“Stay where you are.”
Paul turned from the window.
“Vincent, lock the doors and stop moving people around.”
I hated being instructed inside my own home.
I hated more that he was right.
Mrs. Alvarez crossed to the dining-room doors and locked the set leading toward the terrace.
Father Michael picked Ellie up before Clara could protest.
“I’m taking her to the pantry.”
Clara stiffened.
“I said she stays with me.”
“You’re coming too.”
That stopped her.
The pantry was windowless, built between the kitchen and wine room, with one heavy oak door and a second service exit into the interior hall.
It was not designed as a safe room.
Tonight it was the closest thing we had.
Teresa went with them.
Clara turned back at the doorway.
“Do not hurt him.”
The request surprised me.
“After everything he did?”
“I said don’t hurt him.”
Her voice shook.
“If you hurt him, he becomes the victim.”
Paul looked at me.
“She’s right.”
“I heard her.”
Clara held my gaze another second.
Then she followed Ellie.
Mrs. Alvarez remained.
I said, “Go with them.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“I know.”
She folded her arms.
“I’m still not going.”
Paul almost smiled.
I did not have time to argue.
The house had three floors, fourteen bedrooms, two staircases, a service corridor, and enough doors for a man who knew it well to move without being seen.
Dante knew it better than most.
We had grown up spending summers there before I bought the property from our parents.
He knew which locks stuck in winter.
He knew the basement entrance behind the garage.
He knew that the library windows looked secure but one latch had never seated properly unless pushed from outside.
I called the security company.
While I spoke, Paul checked the interior camera feeds.
There were only cameras in entrances, hallways, the wine cellar, and the garage.
I had refused cameras in living spaces.
Another decision that had seemed civilized until civilization left the building.
“Nothing,” Paul said.
The security dispatcher promised county officers were being notified.
Clara would hate that.
I could apologize later.
I was done asking fear for permission.
A sound came from somewhere beyond the foyer.
Not loud.
Metal against wood.
Mrs. Alvarez looked toward the hall.
“That’s the library window.”
I moved.
Paul caught my arm.
“Absolutely not.”
“He’s my brother.”
“That has ceased to be a useful credential tonight.”
Another faint sound.
Then silence.
I stepped into the foyer anyway.
The house looked absurdly normal.
Sofia’s Christmas tree glowed beside the staircase.
A silver tray of untouched coffee sat on the console.
Someone had left a dinner napkin on the floor.
Through the front windows, the lawn was black except for the low amber path lights.
“Dante.”
My voice traveled through the hall.
Paul muttered, “Terrible idea.”
I ignored him.
“You’re in my house.”
Nothing.
Then a floorboard creaked near the library.
Dante appeared in the doorway.
His coat was open.
There was mud on one knee of his trousers.
His hair, normally precise even at midnight, had fallen over his forehead.
He looked less like a threat than a man whose evening had gone badly wrong.
That made him more frightening.
“Why did you lock me out?”
I stared at him.
“You climbed a wall.”
“You wouldn’t answer.”
“You were gone twenty minutes.”
“I forgot my phone.”
He lifted one hand.
Empty.
Paul stepped beside me.
“Where is it?”
Dante glanced at him.
“Excuse me?”
“Your phone.”
May you like
“In the car.”
“Then why come back?”
