Chapter 8
Rose entered after midnight wearing pajama pants beneath her coat.
Good.
Normal people should look inconvenienced when dragged into Mafia houses at Christmas.
The moment Harper saw her, she screamed:
“Rosie!”
All four girls ran.
That was enough.
Rose dropped to the floor and held them.
Then looked at me over their heads.
Anger.
Good.
“You finally came home.”
I deserved that too.
“Yes.”
She stood.
“Do you know what they did?”
“Some.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You know tonight.”
She told me the months before.
Food punishments began small.
Vanessa called them “gratitude meals.”
If the girls behaved, normal food.
If they cried for Claire, plain bread.
If they refused Vanessa’s title, no dessert.
Rose fought every step.
At first she secretly fed them.
Grant caught her.
Threatened dismissal.
She ignored him.
Then Edmund warned her that if she created conflict, I would remove her permanently.
She knew me better than that.
Good.
So she tried calling.
Blocked.
Then wrote a note for one of my returning bodyguards.
Grant found it.
That was when she was expelled.
I asked:
“Why didn’t you come to me another way?”
Rose looked furious.
“I tried.”
She contacted my New York office.
Messages went to Grant.
My overseas number was compartmentalized.
No direct line.
She even waited outside one of our warehouses when she heard I might return.
Wrong information.
Eventually she realized every path ran through people inside the same house.
That sentence hit hardest.
A powerful man can become unreachable without knowing it.
I had built layers for security.
Vanessa used them as insulation.
Rose then pulled something from her coat pocket.
A folded drawing.
Four stick girls beside a tall black figure.
Me.
Above them, a plane.
Harper had drawn it the week Rose left.
At the bottom were four little circles.
Plates.
Empty.
“She asked me to give you this.”
Rose had carried it for months.
I looked at Harper.
She had tried to tell me.
She was three.
May you like
She used the only language available.
And every adult system between us failed.
