Chapter 3
I brought the monitor logs downstairs.
No doctors.
No charts projected like a boardroom.
Just timestamps.
Simple.
Agatha sat at the breakfast table.
Julian beside her.
I placed the list between them.
“Explain the afternoons.”
Agatha barely glanced down.
“Exercise.”
“Unauthorized.”
“He needs stamina.”
“He is four.”
Julian said:
“He is your son.”
Wrong answer.
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
He leaned back.
“It means everyone watches him.”
True.
People watched Elliot because he was mine.
My enemies noticed him.
My allies judged him.
My family treated his childhood as public property.
I had tolerated too much commentary around that.
Julian continued.
“A boy who panics every time his heart races becomes vulnerable.”
His heart monitor existed because he had experienced several unexplained fainting episodes the previous winter.
Nothing they were entitled to turn into philosophy.
His doctors wanted observation.
Agatha and Julian wanted transformation.
“What were you trying to transform him into?”
Agatha answered:
“Someone who can survive you.”
The sentence stopped me.
“Survive me?”
“Your life.”
Better.
Still wrong.
She explained.
Crowds.
Guards.
Sudden travel.
Raised voices.
Threats.
The Carbone—Bellafonte world did not offer ordinary childhood.
She had seen my father raise me brutally.
Cold showers.
Long runs.
Standing silently through arguments no child should hear.
I survived.
Therefore she believed preparation worked.
Old logic.
“Did I ask you to prepare him?”
“No.”
“Did his physician?”
“No.”
“Did Elliot?”
Her mouth tightened.
“He’s a child.”
Exactly.
Then Julian said:
“You’re too soft with him.”
There.
Finally.
The real accusation.
I picked up the monitor logs.
“Why hide the lessons?”
Agatha said nothing.
“Why tell me the alarms happened after tantrums?”
No answer.
Because she knew.
Because if she truly believed the training was right, she would have told me.
Secrecy is often the confession people refuse to make aloud.
Then I asked one question that changed both their expressions.
“What happens when Elliot becomes ‘too weak’?”
Silence.
Julian looked at his mother.
There.
A future had been discussed.
May you like
I leaned forward.
“Where were you planning to send my son?”
