Chapter 1
Nobody moved toward the courtyard gates.
Raffaele did not have to repeat himself.
He picked Lily up first.
The little girl wrapped herself around his neck so tightly that one sneaker fell off.
Adrian stood several feet away, breathing hard. One of the rally security men was against the maintenance cart. The other had stopped moving the moment Raffaele’s bodyguards stepped in.
Raffaele looked at his nephew.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did you hit first?”
Adrian shook his head.
“They grabbed me.”
Raffaele looked at the surrounding guests.
“Anybody see differently?”
Nobody answered.
That silence made his expression colder.
Then a woman near the sponsor frames finally raised her hand.
“I saw them grab him.”
Another guest nodded.
“So did I.”
Raffaele looked around.
“Then why was nobody helping?”
A capo named Vincent Russo cleared his throat.
“Vanessa told us it was family discipline.”
Raffaele turned toward his wife.
Vanessa was holding her cheek.
“I was teaching Lily respect.”
“She’s three.”
“She needs to understand the family she belongs to.”
Raffaele looked down at Lily.
She still had the shoe-polishing cloth clenched in one fist.
He gently removed it.
Then Lily whispered:
“They make Adrian kneel too.”
Adrian’s face changed.
Raffaele saw it.
“How many times?”
Adrian looked toward Vanessa.
Then Grant.
“Uncle Raff…”
“How many?”
“Three.”
Lily shook her head.
“More.”
Everyone heard her.
Raffaele looked at his nephew again.
Adrian finally said:
“Whenever you leave the estate, they find something we did wrong.”
Raffaele had returned expecting a charity rally.
May you like
Instead, he had walked into a system.
And half the courtyard apparently already knew it existed.
