Chapter 3 - SOMEONE WAS WATCHING THE BOYS
Victor moved so quickly that Serena almost missed it.
One second he stood beside the table.
The next, he had positioned himself between his sons and the doorway.
“Office,” he told the man.
“Victor—”
“Now.”
The stranger nodded once and disappeared.
Marco looked at his father.
“Who followed us?”
“Nobody.”
“You just said—”
“I said finish dinner.”
Marco’s face tightened.
Serena recognized the mistake immediately.
Children heard fear even when adults covered it with authority.
Victor was not calming them.
He was teaching them there was something too terrifying to discuss.
Tommy still crouched beneath the table.
Serena knelt.
“Hey.”
No answer.
She lowered herself until her cheek nearly touched the polished floor.
Tommy’s knees were pulled tightly against his chest.
“What scared you?”
“The gray man.”
“The one who came in?”
Tommy shook his head.
“No.”
Serena’s pulse shifted.
“Another gray man?”
Tommy whispered, “At school.”
Victor heard.
He crouched beside Serena.
“What did you say?”
Tommy immediately closed his mouth.
“Thomas.”
The boy turned away.
Victor’s voice sharpened.
“Look at me.”
Serena put a hand on Victor’s arm.
He looked at her as if nobody had touched him without permission in years.
“Don’t.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Excuse me?”
“He’s scared.”
“He needs to answer.”
“He will.”
Victor stared at her.
Then withdrew.
Serena returned her attention to Tommy.
“Was he inside your school?”
Tommy shook his head.
“Across the street?”
A nod.
“How many times?”
Tommy lifted three fingers.
Victor swore quietly.
Marco crawled under the table beside his brother.
“He told me not to tell.”
“You knew?” Victor demanded.
Marco glared.
“Tommy said the man was probably waiting for someone else.”
“You tell me everything like that.”
“You’re never here!”
The words landed harder than the flying apple had.
Victor went silent.
Marco scrambled out and ran.
“Marco!” Victor called.
A door slammed somewhere upstairs.
Nico and Alessandro stared at their plates.
Dinner was over.
Victor turned toward Serena.
“Take them upstairs.”
She stood.
“I started working twenty minutes ago.”
“You’re their nanny.”
“And you’re their father.”
His jaw tightened.
Not the response he expected.
Serena lowered her voice.
“They need you right now.”
“My security team needs me right now.”
“Then tell them why you’re leaving.”
Victor stared.
“Tell the boys?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then Marco will imagine something worse.”
“You don’t understand my world.”
“No, but I understand six-year-olds.”
Victor looked away.
For the first time Serena noticed something beneath his anger.
Fear.
Not fear for himself.
Fear so deep it had probably been living in him for years.
He rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“Enzo!”
The gray-suited man returned.
Victor pointed upstairs.
“Double the men on every entrance. Nobody approaches the boys without clearance. Pull their school security footage for the past month.”
“Yes.”
“Call the principal. They stay home tomorrow.”
Enzo nodded.
Victor looked at Serena.
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“My office.”
She glanced at the children.
“I’m not leaving them like this.”
Victor appeared ready to argue.
Tommy solved it by taking Serena’s hand.
Victor saw.
His gaze dropped to their joined fingers.
Something tightened in his face.
“Bring them.”
The office was less theatrical than Serena expected.
Dark shelves.
A massive walnut desk.
No golden guns or secret trapdoors.
Although with Victor Rinaldi, she could not entirely rule out either.
Marco stood by the windows, arms crossed.
Victor entered without speaking.
His son did not turn.
Victor dismissed Enzo and closed the door.
Then he removed his suit jacket.
Serena sensed the gesture was deliberate.
Not mafia boss.
Father.
Victor sat on the edge of his desk.
“There was a car near the cemetery yesterday,” he said.
Marco finally looked around.
“The cemetery where Mom is?”
“Yes.”
“And it followed us?”
“Possibly.”
“You said nobody.”
“I was wrong.”
Marco studied him.
Victor continued.
“There may be someone watching the family. My people are finding out who.”
“Are they bad?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are they going to kill us?”
Nico gasped.
Alessandro whispered, “Marco.”
Victor went pale beneath the controlled expression.
“No.”
“You don’t know.”
Victor paused.
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t know everything yet.”
Serena watched Marco’s shoulders lower slightly.
Truth.
Children could survive frightening truth better than comforting lies that collapsed five minutes later.
Victor explained that extra guards would be around them.
The boys could ask questions.
Nobody was in trouble for being scared.
It was not perfect.
But it was the first glimpse Serena had seen of the father beneath the armor.
Afterward, Serena helped settle them upstairs.
Their bedroom suite consisted of four connecting rooms surrounding a play area large enough to qualify as a public park.
Nico demanded three stories.
Alessandro wanted two glasses of water.
Marco claimed he was not tired and fell asleep wearing one sock.
Tommy remained awake.
Serena sat beside him.
“Do you know what the man looked like?”
Tommy nodded.
“Can you tell me?”
“He had a scar.”
“Where?”
Tommy touched his own right eyebrow.
“And he showed me something.”
Serena’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
Tommy climbed from bed.
He went to a wooden toy chest and dug beneath stuffed animals until he found a tiny object wrapped in tissue.
He handed it to her.
Serena unfolded the paper.
Inside was a silver medal no larger than a quarter.
A woman’s profile was engraved on one side.
On the other were initials.
A.R.
She heard the door open.
Victor stood there.
His face changed when he saw the medal.
He crossed the room and took it from Serena.
“Where did you get this?”
Tommy shrank backward.
Serena stepped between them instinctively.
Victor immediately controlled himself.
“Tommy,” he said more softly. “Who gave you this?”
“The man.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Victor turned the medal over.
His thumb froze against the initials.
Serena asked, “Do you recognize it?”
He did not answer.
“Victor?”
His eyes lifted.
“It belonged to my wife.”
Serena stared.
“The wife who died?”
“Yes.”
Tommy whispered, “The man said Mommy wanted me to have it.”
Victor’s hand closed around the medal.
A dangerous stillness filled the room.
Serena felt the hair rise along her arms.
“Who was your wife?” she asked.
Victor looked at his sleeping sons.
“Adriana Moretti Rinaldi.”
Moretti.
Serena knew the name.
Everyone in New York did.
The Moretti family had once been as feared as the Rinaldis.
Until most of them were wiped out in an internal war seven years earlier.
Including, according to every newspaper report, Adriana’s younger brother.
Victor suddenly walked toward the door.
“Enzo!”
Footsteps pounded from the corridor.
Victor held up the medal.
“Run every camera around the school. I want this man’s face.”
Enzo looked at it and went gray.
“You think it’s him?”
“I watched him die.”
Serena’s heart hammered.
“Who?”
Victor turned toward her.
His answer came quietly.
“My wife’s brother.”
Then a gunshot cracked somewhere beyond the mansion walls.
Every child woke screaming.
Victor shoved Serena and Tommy behind the bed.
May you like
The lights went out.
And from the darkness outside came a second gunshot.
