Chapter 6
A former nanny named Grace Miller contacted Rebecca after hearing about the pool incident.
She had left the Bianchi estate two months earlier.
Official reason:
Personal circumstances.
Actual reason:
Selena fired her.
“She told me I was making Ava dependent.”
Donato read Grace’s statement in his office.
“What did that mean?”
Grace explained that Ava often carried objects belonging to Isabella.
A blue blanket.
A small photograph tucked into a cloth pouch.
A stuffed rabbit Isabella bought before she died.
Selena began telling staff not to bring those things downstairs.
“She said grief had become a behavioral tool.”
Donato’s expression hardened.
“Whose words?”
“Selena’s.”
“Did Luca say anything?”
Grace hesitated.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“He said every time Ava got upset, she reached for something connected to her mother and then ran to you.”
Donato felt cold.
Grace continued.
“He called it a triangle.”
“A triangle?”
“Ava, Isabella, you.”
Rebecca asked:
“What did he think should happen?”
“He said Mrs. Cross couldn’t become a real wife if a dead person stayed in the marriage.”
Donato put the statement down.
There it was.
Not proof of a scheme.
But ideology.
Luca viewed Isabella’s memory not as part of Ava.
As competition with Selena.
Grace described one incident.
Ava had refused to sleep because the blue blanket was in the laundry.
Grace found it.
Selena took it from her.
“Mrs. Cross told Ava she was a big girl and didn’t need Mommy’s blanket anymore.”
“What did Ava do?”
“She cried.”
“Then?”
“She ran for your study.”
Donato remembered that night.
Ava had appeared at his door hysterical.
He held her for nearly an hour.
Selena later told him the child had thrown a tantrum over bedtime.
He had believed her.
The next morning, Luca told Donato that new marriages required boundaries with children.
Donato had agreed in principle.
Of course children needed boundaries.
He never knew the boundary under discussion was whether Ava could keep a blanket from her dead mother.
Grace’s final statement hurt the most.
“I tried telling you once.”
“When?”
“At the winter dinner.”
Donato searched his memory.
Grace had approached him near the library.
Luca stepped between them.
Said the council was waiting.
Grace disappeared into the hallway.
Donato never followed up.
“I thought it was staff scheduling,” he said.
Rebecca did not comfort him.
He did not want her to.
May you like
Power had made everyone around him efficient at deciding what deserved his attention.
That efficiency had included deciding his daughter’s grief did not.
