Chương 14
"What?"
"Have your lawyer write rules."
"You're serious."
"Yes."
"Limits on access?"
"If you need them."
"Limits on gifts?"
Vincent hesitated.
Elena caught it.
"There."
"What?"
"You hated that."
"I did not."
"You absolutely did."
He exhaled.
"Fine."
"Because you want to buy her things."
"Yes."
"What things?"
He had not expected the question.
"I don't know."
Elena smiled.
"You've already imagined it."
"No."
"Vincent."
He glanced toward Sophie.
"A bicycle."
Elena blinked.
"She has a bicycle."
His face fell before he could stop it.
Elena laughed.
"Of course she has a bicycle."
"I didn't know."
"It is pink and she hates it because she decided pink is for babies."
Sophie shouted from the table, "I can hear you."
Elena called back, "Good."
Vincent looked at Sophie.
"What color do you want?"
"Black."
Elena closed her eyes.
Vincent smiled.
"Excellent choice."
"Do not buy her a black bicycle."
"I said nothing."
"Your face did."
Sophie grinned.
For a few minutes, nothing terrible happened.
Marco inspected a loose cabinet hinge.
Mr. Chen argued from the hallway that whoever installed it had been an idiot.
Elena made tea and forgot where she put the spoon.
Sophie complained that almonds were not food.
Vincent stood among them with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled once.
It felt stranger than any meeting he had attended.
It also felt more dangerous.
Not because anyone there could hurt him.
Because he could lose something now.
His phone buzzed.
Marco looked at his own at the same moment.
Their expressions changed together.
Elena noticed immediately.
"What?"
Vincent checked the message.
One of Marco's investigators had traced the buyer who paid Anthony.
The buyer had not chosen the hospital photograph randomly.
Someone had requested anything connecting Vincent Moretti to the girl in Queens.
Someone had been asking about Sophie before the first article went live.
Vincent looked at Elena.
She read the answer in his face.
"Tell me."
He wanted to soften it.
Then he remembered what he had promised.
"Anthony didn't just sell a picture to a gossip site."
Elena went still.
Sophie was laughing at something Marco had said.
Vincent lowered his voice.
"Someone was already looking for information about her."
Elena's tea cup touched the counter too hard.
"Who?"
"We don't know yet."
Her fear turned instantly to anger.
"This is what I meant."
"I know."
"No, this is exactly what I meant."
"I know."
"Your world finds people."
Vincent looked at Sophie.
The room no longer felt ordinary.
That was how quickly danger worked.
It did not knock.
It simply changed the meaning of things that had been harmless a minute earlier.
The dark windows.
The front door.
A school route.
A bicycle.
A child's name online.
Vincent pulled out his phone.
Elena grabbed his wrist.
"No."
He looked at her hand.
She released him.
"No men outside."
"That was before."
"You promised."
"And now something changed."
Her eyes hardened.
"So the promise disappears?"
"No."
Vincent put the phone down.
He forced himself to think.
Not command.
Think.
"What will you allow?"
Elena stared at him.
Marco went silent across the room.
Sophie looked up from the drawing.
Nobody wanted her to notice the fear.
She noticed anyway.
"What happened?"
Vincent crouched beside her.
"Somebody we don't know has been asking questions about you."
Sophie frowned.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Is it bad?"
"It could be."
Elena closed her eyes.
Vincent continued.
"So for a little while, we're going to be more careful."
"Like stranger danger?"
"Something like that."
"Can I still go to school?"
Vincent looked at Elena.
She answered.
"Yes."
His head turned sharply.
Elena held his gaze.
"We are not locking her inside."
"I didn't say that."
"You were about to."
"I was thinking it."
"Same difference."
Sophie looked between them.
"You're doing the old argument thing."
Neither adult spoke.
Sophie sighed.
"Mom says arguing when you're scared makes everything worse."
Vincent looked at Elena.
"She says a lot."
Elena's mouth tightened.
"She's usually right."
Vincent stood.
"Then we do it your way."
Elena blinked.
"For now."
"There it is."
He almost smiled.
Then Marco's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face became unreadable.
Vincent knew that face.
"What?"
Marco looked at Sophie.
Then at Elena.
"Not here."
Vincent did not move.
"You tell me here."
Marco lowered his voice.
"The person paying for information used a shell company."
Vincent waited.
Marco continued.
"The account is tied to Dominic Falcone."
Elena's face went blank.
Vincent felt every muscle in his body become still.
Sophie looked from one adult to another.
"Who's Dominic?"
Vincent kept his eyes on Marco.
A man he had spent ten years keeping at arm's length had just reached toward the one thing Vincent had not known existed a week earlier.
He answered Sophie without looking away.
"Someone who should never have learned your name."
Elena's hand closed around the edge of the counter.
"Why would he care about Sophie?"
Vincent did not answer immediately.
Dominic Falcone cared about leverage.
He cared about appearances.
Most of all, he cared about anything Vincent Moretti cared about because the two men had spent a decade pretending their truce was friendship.
"He may not care about her," Vincent said.
"That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"No."
Elena stepped between Sophie and the window without seeming to realize she had done it.
Marco noticed too.
"Dominic has been trying to force Vincent into a waterfront deal," he said.
"Marco."
"She needs context."
Elena looked at Vincent.
"What kind of deal?"
"One I refused."
"Legal?"
Vincent hesitated.
Elena gave a short, bitter laugh.
"Fantastic."
"The part he wanted from me wasn't."
Sophie raised her hand.
Everyone looked at her.
"What?"
Vincent asked.
"Can I go color?"
Elena's face softened instantly.
"Yes, baby."
Sophie carried her crayons to the bedroom.
She closed the door most of the way, but not completely.
Vincent understood the trick.
He had done the same thing as a boy.
"She's listening," he said.
May you like
"I know."
Elena lowered her voice.
