Chapter 4
Claire heard enough from the hallway to understand.
She entered only after the doctor finished with Luca and told me the baby was stable.
I should have sent her away.
Instead, I asked one question.
“Why did Grant tell you to put Luca back?”
Claire looked toward him.
“Because he wanted the crying to continue.”
Grant’s face hardened.
I stared.
“What?”
Claire swallowed.
“Whenever Luca cried long enough, someone came to watch.”
That silenced the room.
“Who?”
“I don’t know all their names.”
She pointed toward Carlo.
“Him once.”
Carlo closed his eyes.
Claire continued.
“Another older man. Two younger men. Mrs. Bellandi would tell me not to interfere until they had already seen Luca upset.”
My hands tightened.
Carlo looked sick now.
“What did she tell you?” I asked him.
He hesitated.
“That the child was difficult.”
“A newborn.”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“That you were exhausted. That the house had no routine anymore. That staff were afraid to make decisions because everything depended on Luca.”
Vanessa finally spoke.
“It was true.”
I turned toward her.
She continued.
“You were becoming irrational.”
“I moved meetings.”
“You moved the family around a baby.”
“Yes.”
She laughed.
“That is not how your father ran this house.”
There.
My father.
Again.
Every comparison eventually returned to a dead man who could no longer correct anyone’s memory.
I stepped closer.
“My father missed half my childhood.”
Vanessa lifted her chin.
“He built Bellandi.”
“And I buried him.”
Silence.
“I remember the cost better than you do.”
Grant’s expression tightened.
Claire looked down at Luca.
Then quietly said:
“They wanted people to see him crying.”
I looked at her.
She had reached the center of it before the rest of us.
The distress was not merely punishment.
It was demonstration.
Make Luca miserable.
May you like
Make me respond.
Then tell everyone the newborn controlled the boss.
