Chapter 2
Noah was taken into a private trauma room.
Lily refused to leave the corridor.
Not because she wanted to stay with me.
Because she was afraid Helena would disappear.
That told me more than anything Helena could have said.
I sat across from Lily.
A nurse wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
Her feet were cut.
One heel was bleeding.
“Did you carry Noah all the way from the estate?”
She nodded.
“That is almost three miles.”
Another nod.
“Why didn't you call security?”
Her eyes dropped.
“Mr. Dominic had the radios.”
I looked at him.
Dominic was sitting twenty feet away with two bodyguards beside him.
One hand pressed against his face.
He heard her.
So did Helena.
“Why did Dominic have the radios?”
Lily looked toward them.
I moved my chair between her and their line of sight.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“You are not going back with them.”
Her mouth trembled.
“Mom is still there.”
That changed everything.
“Emma is at the estate?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
I stood.
Helena spoke immediately.
“She left.”
I turned.
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
“Where?”
“How would I know?”
Emma Carter had worked in my house for nine years.
She had never left a shift without telling my steward.
Never.
I looked at Elias, my head of security.
“Call the estate.”
He did.
No answer from Emma.
No answer from the service wing.
Then:
“Boss.”
I looked at him.
“Her car is still there.”
Helena closed her eyes.
Small mistake.
I saw it.
I walked toward her.
“Where is Emma?”
“She quit.”
“Her daughter is barefoot in my hospital.”
Silence.
“Her car is at my house.”
Nothing.
“And you expect me to believe she quit?”
Helena crossed her arms.
“Maybe she ran.”
Lily suddenly stood.
“No.”
Every adult looked at her.
She was tiny.
Exhausted.
Wrapped in a hospital blanket.
But her voice was clear.
“Mom didn't run.”
Helena's face tightened.
Lily pointed at Dominic.
“He locked her downstairs.”
Dominic stood.
“That child is lying.”
I looked at him.
“Sit.”
He stayed standing.
One bodyguard put a hand on his shoulder.
Dominic sat.
I looked back at Lily.
“Why?”
She swallowed.
“Because Mom found the boxes.”
“What boxes?”
Lily shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“What did they look like?”
“Black.”
“How many?”
“A lot.”
Helena laughed.
“Children exaggerate.”
Lily flinched.
I saw it.
I looked at my aunt.
“You speak again before I ask, you leave this conversation without teeth.”
She stopped.
I turned back.
“Where were the boxes?”
Lily whispered:
“The room behind the wine wall.”
My blood went cold.
The hidden room.
The one built by my father thirty years earlier.
No staff knew it existed.
No child should have known.
Noah did.
Because I had shown him once.
Two months earlier.
He was my son.
One day, maybe, he would need to understand which doors in our house were safe.
Apparently someone else had been using one.
“What happened when Noah saw it?”
Lily started crying again.
“He told me to run.”
“Why?”
She looked at Dominic.
“Because Mr. Dominic was putting guns in the boxes.”
Dominic's face didn't change.
Helena's did.
I noticed.
Not fear.
Anger.
At Lily.
That distinction mattered.
“What happened next?”
Lily wiped her nose.
“Aunt Helena came.”
“She hit you?”
Lily nodded.
“Noah got in front of me.”
I waited.
“And?”
She closed her eyes.
“Mr. Dominic hit him with something.”
I stood.
Dominic didn't move.
Smart.
“What?”
“I don't know.”
She pointed toward the side of her own head.
“He fell.”
The entire corridor went silent.
I looked toward the trauma-room doors.
My son had not fainted.
He had been attacked.
I looked at Dominic.
He finally looked afraid.
Then Lily said:
“He woke up once.”
I turned.
“When?”
“Before I carried him.”
“What did he say?”
She hugged the blanket tighter.
“He said the boxes weren't ours.”
I stared at her.
“What did he mean?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Then she remembered something.
“He said there was another name on them.”
“What name?”
Lily whispered:
“Varela.”
I didn't move.
Nobody around me did.
May you like
Because the Varela crew had buried three Castellano men fifteen years earlier.
And as far as I knew, not one of them had set foot inside my home since.
