Chapter 5
Sofia did not call every capo.
She called four.
The four least connected to Grant.
That distinction might keep her alive.
The suburban house was sealed.
Grant was moved into the library.
Not the hidden compartment.
Yet.
He sat in an armchair between two bodyguards.
Elsie remained upstairs with Tilda.
The stuffed rabbit from the basement storage room was beside her.
Sofia had carried it up herself.
The child cried when she saw it.
Not because it frightened her.
Because she thought it had been gone forever.
That told Sofia more about Grant than any security log.
He didn't only punish.
He removed comfort and called the absence a lesson.
Now Sofia sat across from him.
“Victor’s location.”
Grant smiled.
“No.”
“Receiver location.”
“No.”
“Next entry time.”
Nothing.
Then he laughed.
“You can't stand this, can you?”
Sofia waited.
“Not knowing.”
He leaned forward.
“For once, Sofia Keats is the person outside the room.”
She said nothing.
Grant's smile widened.
“You do it to everyone.”
“Meetings behind closed doors.”
“Men waiting for instructions.”
“People wondering whether you decided they still matter.”
His voice sharpened.
“I lived that for five years.”
Sofia looked at him.
“So you locked a child in a wall.”
Grant's face hardened.
“She needed discipline.”
“Because of me?”
“Because she was becoming you.”
Sofia's expression barely changed.
“What does that mean?”
He laughed.
“That look.”
He pointed at her.
“Exactly that.”
“She'd stare at me when I corrected her.”
“Like I wasn't worth fearing.”
His voice became more bitter.
“She'd say Mommy doesn't do that.”
“Mommy lets me eat.”
“Mommy lets me sleep with the light on.”
“Mommy said I can cry.”
He mocked Elsie’s small voice cruelly.
Every bodyguard in the room stiffened.
Grant ignored them.
“Do you know how humiliating it is to have a three-year-old compare you to your wife?”
Sofia answered quietly.
“No.”
“Because it isn't humiliating.”
“It's parenting.”
Grant's face twisted.
“You made me irrelevant in my own house.”
“It isn't your house.”
There.
The old wound.
His eyes flashed.
“Exactly.”
Sofia let the silence sit.
Then:
“What did Victor promise you?”
Grant smiled bitterly.
“Respect.”
“Men like Victor don't give respect.”
“You wouldn't know.”
“I know him well enough to know he sent you into my bed instead of coming himself.”
Grant's face changed.
Good.
“You think you're his partner.”
Silence.
“You're his key.”
Grant stood.
Bodyguards moved.
Sofia didn't.
“He needs my security device.”
She pointed at the table.
“He needs my house.”
Then Grant.
“And he needed my husband.”
Grant's jaw tightened.
“I'm more than that.”
“There it is.”
Sofia leaned back.
“The sentence he trained you to say to yourself.”
Grant stared.
Then laughed.
“You're seven months pregnant.”
One bodyguard stepped forward.
Sofia raised a hand.
Grant continued.
“You think the family is going to keep following you when you can't even walk up stairs without holding a railing?”
Sofia's expression remained blank.
“You think they don't see weakness?”
He smiled.
“Victor does.”
“And when your baby comes, you'll disappear for months.”
“You know who won't?”
He tapped his chest.
“Me.”
There it was.
Not only betrayal.
Replacement.
Grant imagined Sofia’s pregnancy was his opening.
“Victor promised you the family.”
“He promised me what should already be mine.”
Sofia almost looked amused.
“Because you married me?”
“Because I held this house together while you traveled.”
Tilda appeared in the doorway.
“No.”
Grant turned.
She held Elsie’s empty plastic bowl.
“You held her in a wall.”
Grant's face hardened.
“Get out.”
Tilda walked in.
“You told her Mommy wasn't coming back.”
Silence.
Sofia looked at Tilda.
“What?”
Tilda placed the bowl on the table.
“I asked Elsie why she didn't scream louder.”
Her voice broke.
“She said Grant told her you stopped coming home because you didn't want a difficult child.”
Sofia did not move.
Grant rolled his eyes.
“She wouldn't stop yelling your name.”
Tilda stared.
“So you told her her mother abandoned her?”
“It made her quieter.”
One bodyguard looked as if he might hit Grant.
Sofia spoke first.
“Anything else?”
Tilda nodded.
“He told her if she cried too loudly, Victor would take her somewhere Mommy couldn't find.”
Grant's face changed.
There.
Victor's name.
Sofia leaned forward.
“So Elsie knows Victor.”
Grant said nothing.
Tilda continued.
“She calls him the man with the silver cane.”
Sofia knew only one place Victor Dane always carried a cane.
After the explosion that supposedly killed him eight years earlier.
So the death had been staged.
Grant wasn't surprised by Sofia’s recognition.
“Where does Victor stay?”
No answer.
Sofia looked toward Tilda.
“Did Elsie say?”
Tilda nodded.
“She said he sleeps where the red horse is.”
Sofia frowned.
Then understood.
The old Keats riding lodge.
Twenty miles north.
A red horse carved above the entrance.
Abandoned after her father's death.
Grant stood.
“No.”
Too late.
Sofia looked at him.
“You should have taught your daughter fewer landmarks.”
May you like
His confidence cracked.
And Sofia knew they had finally found Victor.
