Chapter 3 - The Apartment We Couldn’t Go Back To
“I want to go home.”
My voice sounded steadier than I felt.
Adrian looked at the photograph again.
“No.”
I nearly laughed from pure frustration.
“You keep saying that word like it belongs to you.”
“This isn't about authority.”
“Everything about you is authority.”
Mia sat beside Lucia on the sofa, clutching the stuffed rabbit she carried in her backpack.
She wasn't crying.
That worried me more.
Mia cried when she scraped a knee.
She cried during sad cartoons.
When she became completely quiet, she was frightened.
I lowered my voice.
“My daughter has school tomorrow.”
“Your apartment is being watched.”
“You don't know that.”
“The photograph was taken outside your building.”
“And whose fault is that?”
The words landed harder than I intended.
Adrian did not defend himself.
“Mine.”
That stopped me.
Men like him were not supposed to admit blame.
At least not in the stories people told.
“My mother's enemies saw you help her,” he continued. “Then Mia saw something she wasn't supposed to see. Until we know how far this reaches, your normal routine isn't safe.”
“What exactly are you suggesting?”
“You stay here tonight.”
I stared at him.
“In a Mafia mansion.”
Lucia coughed delicately.
“My dear, we prefer ‘family home.’”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Adrian did not.
“Mia and you can take the east guest suite. Two guards outside. Nobody enters without your permission.”
“And after tonight?”
“I find out who is behind this.”
“That doesn't sound reassuring.”
“It wasn't intended to.”
Dante entered carrying a laptop.
“We found something.”
He placed it on the table.
Security footage appeared.
Camille walking through the mansion's rear corridor.
She was carrying a black purse.
Timestamp: 1:17 p.m.
Three minutes before Mia saw her near the sunroom.
The next video showed Camille entering Lucia's sitting room.
Another angle captured her leaving.
Dante paused the frame.
A tiny cobalt bottle was visible in her hand.
“Can you identify it?” Adrian asked Dr. Patel.
“Not from the footage.”
Dante clicked again.
“There's more.”
At 2:06, Camille entered Adrian's study.
She remained inside nineteen minutes.
At 2:27, someone used Adrian's computer.
The surveillance system could not show the screen.
But it could show Camille inserting a flash drive.
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
“What files did she access?”
“We're checking.”
Lucia looked heartbroken.
“I treated that girl like a daughter.”
Adrian crouched beside her.
“None of this is your fault.”
“She was family.”
“So am I.”
Lucia touched his face.
“You have been angry at me for months.”
“I'm not angry.”
“You are.”
Adrian stood.
“This isn't the time.”
That told me there was an old wound between them.
One of many, probably.
People with large houses did not have smaller problems.
They simply had more rooms to hide them in.
At six thirty, Dante returned with news from Queens.
My apartment door had been forced open.
Nothing valuable was taken.
Because there was nothing valuable to take.
But drawers were emptied.
Mia's mattress had been flipped.
The closet searched.
A photograph of my late mother was smashed.
Someone had written a message across the kitchen wall.
STOP TALKING.
My knees nearly gave out.
Mia did not know yet.
I would not let her know.
Adrian offered to send someone for clothes.
“I'll make a list.”
“No,” Mia said.
We all looked at her.
“I want my red sweater.”
“You have other sweaters, honey.”
“But Grandma Rosa gave it to me.”
My throat tightened.
It was one of the last things my mother bought before she died.
Adrian looked at Dante.
“Get the red sweater.”
I started to protest.
Dante simply nodded.
“I'll bring it myself.”
Three hours later, he returned with two suitcases.
And the sweater.
Mia hugged it like a person.
That small act did something strange to Adrian.
He looked away.
Later, after Mia fell asleep in the guest suite, I found him alone in the kitchen.
Not the grand kitchen where chefs worked.
A smaller one near the family rooms.
He was making coffee.
Badly.
“You don't know how to use that machine?” I asked.
He looked at it.
“It has sixteen buttons.”
“You run companies.”
“Companies have employees.”
I showed him the correct button.
He watched coffee fill the cup.
“Remarkable.”
I folded my arms.
“Don't joke with me.”
His expression changed.
“I wasn't.”
“Someone broke into my home tonight.”
“I know.”
“My daughter is sleeping in a stranger's mansion because she was kind to your mother.”
“I know.”
“What happens next?”
He took a slow breath.
“When my father died, he left control of Moretti Holdings divided between me, my mother, and my uncle Silvio.”
“Legitimate companies?”
“Most of them.”
That answer was carefully chosen.
“My mother owns twenty-six percent. I own forty-nine. Silvio owns twenty-five.”
“One percent decides control.”
“Yes.”
I understood.
“If Lucia signs her shares to Silvio…”
“He controls fifty-one.”
“So why poison her?”
“To make her appear incompetent.”
I stared at him.
“The medication.”
“Confusion. Fainting. Memory problems. Enough documented incidents and someone could petition for guardianship.”
“And Silvio becomes guardian?”
“Possibly.”
The plan was uglier than murder.
Murder created questions.
Incompetence created paperwork.
“Why now?”
Adrian's eyes darkened.
“Because I am selling something Silvio never wanted sold.”
“What?”
He looked directly at me.
“The part of our family business that made the Moretti name something people whisper.”
I said nothing.
He continued.
“Illegal gambling. Protection money. Certain shipping arrangements. My father called it tradition. Silvio calls it our inheritance.”
“And you?”
“A disease.”
For the first time, I saw the man behind the reputation.
Not innocence.
Adrian Moretti was not innocent.
But maybe he was trying to stop handing his sins to the next generation.
“My father died before he could change,” he said. “I'm not making the same mistake.”
A phone vibrated.
Adrian checked the screen.
His entire body went rigid.
“What?”
He turned the phone toward me.
Another photograph.
This one showed Dante leaving my apartment building carrying our suitcases.
Someone had followed him.
Underneath:
WE CAN REACH ANYONE.
Then another image arrived.
My breath disappeared.
It was Mia.
Taken through the mansion's kitchen window twenty minutes earlier while she'd been eating a cookie with Lucia.
The message beneath it read:
ONE CHILD FOR ONE EMPIRE.
Adrian grabbed his phone.
“All exterior lights off. Lock the property down.”
Alarms began sounding.
Men ran through the halls.
I sprinted toward the guest suite.
“Mia!”
Her bed was empty.
I stopped.
The bathroom door stood open.
Empty.
“Mia!”
Adrian appeared behind me.
His face drained of color.
Then we heard a child's laughter somewhere downstairs.
We ran.
The sound came from the conservatory.
Mia stood beside Lucia, holding a flashlight beneath her chin and making silly faces.
“Mommy!”
I dropped to my knees and pulled her against me.
“You scared me.”
“Grandma Lucia couldn't sleep.”
Lucia looked apologetic.
Adrian stared through the glass walls of the conservatory.
Beyond them were acres of darkness.
Someone had taken Mia's photograph from somewhere outside.
He pointed at one particular section of garden.
“Dante.”
“Yes?”
“Find where that picture was taken.”
Twenty minutes later, they found footprints.
And cigarette ash.
Just outside the security fence.
But what Dante discovered beside the footprints frightened Adrian more.
A brass button.
Stamped with the Moretti crest.
It came from a uniform worn only by the mansion's own security staff.
May you like
The enemy wasn't trying to get inside.
The enemy was already there.
