Chapter 2
Only six people knew where I was going tomorrow night.
My mother was one of them.
Hattie and Nolan were not.
That mattered.
I moved Adelaide inside.
Not upstairs.
My private garden room.
One door.
Two windows.
Four men outside.
Ella refused to leave her.
I didn't make her.
Sometimes children understand danger before adults stop explaining it away.
Adelaide sat on the sofa with a bowl of soup in her hands.
She ate slowly.
Too slowly.
Five days changes the way someone looks at food.
I hated Hattie for making me learn that.
“What did they ask you?”
My mother looked at Ella.
I nodded toward the adjoining room.
Ella went with my housekeeper after making me promise Grandma would still be there when she returned.
Then Adelaide answered.
“The River House.”
My jaw tightened.
Tomorrow night I was supposed to meet Daniel Mercer there.
Mercer controlled crews west of the river.
We had spent eleven months avoiding a war neither of us needed.
Tomorrow's dinner was supposed to end it.
No entourage.
No spectacle.
Six men total.
If someone wanted both sides bleeding, there would never be a better opportunity.
“Who told Hattie about the meeting?”
“I don't know.”
“Nolan?”
“He knew there was a meeting. Not where.”
“How?”
“Someone told him.”
I stared at her.
“Who?”
Adelaide shook her head.
“They never used a name around me.”
“What did they do?”
She looked down at the soup.
“First they stopped dinner.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then breakfast.”
She paused.
“Then water except enough that I wouldn't collapse.”
I stood.
The room suddenly felt too small.
“Why didn't you call me?”
“They took my phone.”
“Your guards?”
“Changed.”
That stopped me.
“Who changed them?”
“Hattie said you ordered it.”
I almost laughed.
Except nothing was funny.
I had been away for four days handling trouble at our northern warehouses.
Every evening Nolan sent me a message saying Adelaide was tired but fine.
Every evening Hattie sent photographs.
Mother in the garden.
Mother reading.
Mother asleep.
Proof.
Or what I thought was proof.
“You knew I would come back today.”
“No.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Adelaide looked toward the window.
“Hattie thought you weren't returning until tomorrow afternoon.”
That explained Nolan's face when I stepped onto the patio.
My arrival had not interrupted humiliation.
It had interrupted preparation.
“What happened tonight?”
“They were going to make me speak after dessert.”
“Speak to whom?”
“The old capos.”
My mother looked toward the patio.
Most of the men sitting outside had served my father before they served me.
“What were you supposed to say?”
Adelaide closed her eyes.
Then repeated the sentence.
“The river belongs to whoever keeps the house standing.”
My entire body went still.
That was not a toast.
It was an old Carbone warning.
My father had used it once.
Twenty-three years ago.
Before three crews changed sides in a single night.
I stared at my mother.
“Hattie doesn't know that phrase.”
“I know.”
“Nolan doesn't either.”
“I know.”
“Then who taught them?”
Adelaide looked at me.
“That is what scared me.”
Because the phrase belonged to men older than my leadership.
Men who knew exactly what it meant.
If my mother had spoken those words in front of the old capos, it would have sounded like permission.
Not to kill me.
May you like
Something more dangerous.
Permission to stop following me.
