Chapter 1
“You called it a small punishment. Now remember mine.”
Agatha stared up at me from the broken terracotta.
Julian was still pulling wooden slats off his shoulders.
Neither looked ashamed.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
Elliot clung to my chest.
His heart monitor continued chirping beneath his torn shirt.
Fast.
Too fast.
I carried him beneath the terrace shade.
“Water.”
Three people moved at once.
Good.
Elliot drank slowly while one of my guards called the physician attached to the estate.
Agatha stood.
“You’re overreacting.”
I looked at her.
My aunt had helped raise me after my mother died.
Sixty-five.
Elegant.
Respected.
The woman half the older capos still called before family weddings because she remembered every old grievance better than they did.
And she had just poured a four-year-old’s water into the grass.
“How long?”
She frowned.
“How long what?”
I pointed toward Elliot’s ankle.
A red ring marked the skin where the chain had sat.
“How long was he attached to that column?”
Julian laughed.
“Twenty minutes.”
Elliot whispered against my chest:
“Longer.”
Julian stopped laughing.
I looked at my son.
“How long, buddy?”
He held up both hands.
Children do not measure time well.
Then he said:
“Before lunch.”
It was almost four.
My face went cold.
Agatha said quickly:
“He exaggerates.”
Elliot’s fingers tightened around my lapel.
“No.”
One word.
Enough.
Then the physician arrived.
He checked Elliot while I stood close enough for my son to keep one hand on me.
After several minutes he looked at me.
“He’s overheated and dehydrated. He needs rest.”
Not catastrophe.
Good.
Then he touched the monitor.
“When did this start alarming?”
I answered:
“Today.”
The physician looked surprised.
“No.”
He pulled out the small receiver paired with the device.
“It has been recording repeated high-stress episodes for weeks.”
I looked at Agatha.
Her face changed.
Weeks.
Not one punishment.
Not one cruel afternoon.
Then the physician added:
“Almost all of them happened between two and five in the afternoon.”
I turned toward the garden.
That was exactly when Elliot spent time with Agatha while I handled estate meetings.
A pattern.
Not illness appearing randomly.
Something happening on schedule.
I looked at Julian.
He had gone completely still.
May you like
And I understood the chain was not the beginning.
It was the first time I had arrived early enough to see the method.
