Chapter 9
Julian told me the plan as he understood it.
Anthony Rusk would interfere with Ethan’s cake.
Enough to make the boy ill during the celebration.
Not enough, Julian had been told, to do lasting harm.
Then Genevieve would reveal that my new kitchen protocols had failed.
Security would be blamed.
My younger captains would look reckless.
Julian would step forward.
Calm.
Experienced.
Useful.
The old capos would begin talking.
Not replacing me immediately.
Questioning me.
That was how Genevieve worked.
She never pushed a door open.
She loosened the hinges.
I looked at Julian.
“You accepted using an eight-year-old for that.”
His face tightened.
“I thought he’d vomit.”
I stared.
He heard himself.
Looked away.
“I know how that sounds.”
“No.”
My voice hardened.
“You know how it sounds now that I’m standing in front of you.”
Silence.
“Earlier, you were willing.”
He nodded slowly.
At least no lie.
Then I asked the question that mattered.
“What made you think Genevieve could control the outcome?”
Julian looked at her.
“She said she’d done it before.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Genevieve’s face changed.
I turned.
“Before?”
No answer.
Julian closed his eyes.
“She said the first time taught her what not to do.”
My breathing slowed.
“Who?”
Julian looked sick.
“I don’t know.”
Genevieve stood suddenly.
Two guards blocked her.
I did not move.
“Who was the first time?”
She stared at me.
“You’re letting him invent things to save himself.”
Julian laughed.
“You told me at the lake house.”
Her face hardened.
Lake house.
A memory surfaced.
My wife.
Ethan’s mother.
Three years ago.
Her final summer.
She had become violently ill after a Moretti family dinner.
Everyone blamed a stomach infection.
Two months later, she died from an unrelated accident on a wet mountain road.
Unrelated.
That was what I had believed.
I looked at Genevieve.
May you like
For the first time that night, my voice nearly failed.
“What did you do to Elena?”
