Chapter 2 - THE NIGHTS ROCCO NEVER SAW
By breakfast, Rocco knew the hallway incident had not been the first.
His head housekeeper, Lorraine, admitted she had seen Noah asleep against the wall outside Ava’s bedroom twice during the previous month.
“Why wasn’t I told?”
Lorraine looked ashamed.
“Ms. Hayes said you knew.”
Rocco said nothing.
“She said it was part of helping the children bond.”
“By keeping a three-year-old awake?”
“She called it a game.”
“Did it look like a game?”
Lorraine lowered her eyes.
“No.”
Rocco felt anger rising and forced it back down.
Anger would let everyone around him focus on his temper instead of their decisions.
“Who else knew?”
One of the night guards had seen it.
A kitchen employee remembered Noah coming downstairs after midnight asking for milk.
A nanny had noticed him falling asleep during breakfast and assumed he was having nightmares.
Every person had been given a different explanation.
Bianca had used the estate’s hierarchy against itself.
To staff, she said Rocco approved.
To security, she said it was a parenting matter.
To the nanny, she blamed Noah’s sleep habits.
No single incident looked large enough for anyone to challenge the future wife of Rocco Bellandi.
Together, they formed a pattern.
Rocco went upstairs.
Noah was still sleeping.
The pediatrician Rocco trusted came to the estate and found nothing medically dangerous, but she was blunt about the fatigue.
“He’s exhausted.”
“How exhausted?”
“Enough that you need to stop whatever disrupted his sleep immediately.”
Rocco looked at the sleeping boy.
“I already did.”
The doctor studied him.
“Then figure out why nobody told you sooner.”
That sentence stayed with him.
Rocco had spent decades building a house where orders traveled quickly downward.
He had never considered how difficult truth might travel upward.
That afternoon Lorraine brought him something else.
A small cardboard box from the utility closet.
Inside were six packages of replacement flashlight batteries.
All purchased by Bianca.
All within the previous five weeks.
Rocco looked at the receipts.
Six packs.
May you like
This had not happened twice.
The hallway had become a routine.
