Chapter 2
Raffaele moved Lily and Adrian inside before asking another question.
A family nurse checked Lily’s knees and wrists.
No serious injury.
Adrian had bruising along one forearm where the security man grabbed him.
Raffaele sat across from both children in the estate library.
Lily colored motorcycles while Adrian stared at the carpet.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Adrian shrugged.
“Vanessa said you knew.”
Raffaele’s eyes narrowed.
“Knew what?”
“That you wanted Lily taught rank.”
Raffaele looked toward his daughter.
She had drawn a large motorcycle with a tiny figure beside it.
“What does rank mean to you?”
Lily answered immediately.
“Grant goes first.”
“Who told you that?”
“Vanessa.”
Adrian spoke next.
“At the Memorial Day cookout, Grant made Lily carry his helmet because Vanessa said family kids should learn service.”
“Did you stop them?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“They made me stand against the garage wall for an hour.”
Raffaele stared at him.
Adrian was the son of Raffaele’s late younger brother, Dominic.
Since Dominic’s death four years earlier, Adrian spent most weekends at the Moretti estate and trained at the family boxing gym.
Raffaele had promised Adrian’s mother he would give the boy structure.
Apparently Vanessa had turned that promise into something else.
“Why didn’t your mother know?”
“I told her Grant was hard on me.”
“And?”
“She said talk to you.”
Adrian looked embarrassed.
“I didn’t want to sound like a kid complaining.”
He was fourteen.
He was a kid.
Raffaele hated that nobody around him seemed to remember that.
Then Adrian added:
“Vanessa said if I kept causing scenes, you’d stop letting me come here.”
That finally explained part of the silence.
Adrian had been afraid of losing the one place where he still felt close to his father.
May you like
Lily had been too young to understand why anyone was afraid.
Which was probably why she had screamed the truth across the courtyard.
