Chapter 2 - What the Cast Was Hiding
The darkness lasted three seconds.
For Gabriel, it was enough.
His right hand moved toward the inside of his jacket before he remembered the jacket was around Lucy’s shoulders. Then he remembered something more important.
She was watching him.
He forced his hand down.
“Nora, stay with her.”
Emergency lights flickered on along the baseboards.
Lucy clutched the sofa cushion.
“Daddy?”
“I’m right here.”
Gabriel crossed to the window. Outside, the lawn remained bright beneath the afternoon sun. The outage had affected only the house.
Not the gate.
Not the garage.
The house.
His phone rang.
Marco.
“The east panel was shut down manually. Someone used an administrator code.”
“Pike?”
“His code.”
Gabriel’s eyes went to the hallway.
“Find Serena.”
They found her in the upstairs dressing room with a packed overnight bag on the bed.
She did not look frightened when Gabriel entered.
She looked offended.
“This is absurd.”
“Where were you going?”
“To my sister’s.”
“Without telling me?”
“You just called me a criminal in front of the staff.”
“I asked where you were going.”
“And I answered.”
Gabriel noticed her phone on the vanity.
Screen down.
He also noticed the small safe behind an open painting.
Empty.
“What was in the safe?”
“My jewelry.”
“Where is it?”
She smiled without humor.
“Perhaps I no longer feel safe leaving it here.”
For years, Gabriel’s reputation had made other people overexplain.
Serena knew him well enough not to.
That frightened him more than panic would have.
Dr. Helen Chen arrived fifteen minutes later.
She had treated Lucy since infancy and had never once allowed Gabriel’s name to intimidate her.
“Everyone out except Dad and Nora,” she said.
Serena stood in the doorway.
“I am her stepmother.”
Dr. Chen looked directly at her.
“Not during this examination.”
Serena left.
The doctor checked Lucy carefully. She examined her neck, shoulders, wrists, and cast, then asked Gabriel to move several feet away.
“I need to ask Lucy some questions without you hovering.”
Gabriel obeyed.
Lucy described the lawn in short pieces.
The leash.
The crutch.
The pulling.
Then Dr. Chen asked about the original fracture.
Lucy went quiet.
Gabriel saw the struggle in her face.
“You don’t have to protect anyone,” Dr. Chen said.
Lucy finally told the story again.
When she finished, Dr. Chen sat back.
“Gabriel.”
The use of his first name made his stomach tighten.
“Yes?”
“When she broke her leg, I was told she slipped while carrying a tray.”
“I know.”
“She never said that to me.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“Serena answered every question before Lucy could.”
Gabriel remembered the hospital room. Serena sitting beside the bed. Serena smoothing Lucy’s hair. Serena telling every nurse how terrible the accident had been.
He had mistaken control for care.
Dr. Chen continued.
“I can’t tell you from the fracture alone exactly how she fell. But Lucy’s account is medically plausible, and what happened today is enough that I’m making a formal report.”
Gabriel did not argue.
“Do it.”
Serena heard.
She entered without knocking.
“You’re reporting me?”
Dr. Chen stood.
“Yes.”
“Based on a child’s story?”
“Based on what I examined and what she disclosed.”
Serena laughed once.
“You people are unbelievable.”
Lucy recoiled.
Gabriel stepped between them.
“Go downstairs.”
“No.”
“Serena.”
“You want the truth?” she snapped. “Your daughter hates me because I made rules. You are gone half her life, and whenever you come home you buy her something expensive and call it parenting.”
The words landed because part of them was true.
Gabriel knew it.
Serena knew he knew it.
She pressed harder.
“I was the one here when she had nightmares. I was the one handling tutors, meals, doctors. You were meeting men at midnight and pretending she didn’t understand what kind of family she lives in.”
Gabriel looked at Lucy.
Her eyes were on the floor.
He did not defend himself.
Not yet.
Serena continued.
“She lies because she wants you to herself.”
Lucy whispered, “No.”
Serena’s head turned.
“No?”
Lucy looked up.
Her eyes were wet, but this time she did not shrink.
“You told me not to tell him.”
Serena’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
Dr. Chen saw it too.
Lucy gripped the edge of the sofa.
“You said if I told Daddy about Mr. Pike, people would get hurt.”
“That never happened.”
“You said my mom died because people around Daddy don’t listen.”
Gabriel felt air leave his lungs.
His first wife, Emily, had died three years earlier in a highway collision caused by an impaired driver.
Lucy had been five.
Serena knew exactly how that wound lived inside the child.
“You used her mother to frighten her?” Gabriel asked.
Serena turned on him.
“Oh, please. Don’t become righteous now.”
Gabriel’s anger went cold.
But Lucy was watching.
So he did something his younger self would have considered weakness.
He stepped back.
“Marco.”
His driver entered.
“Escort Serena to the guest apartment. No phone. No visitors. She stays there until investigators arrive.”
Serena stared.
“You’re imprisoning me?”
“No. The exterior door stays unlocked. You may leave whenever you want.”
Gabriel paused.
“But if you cross the property line before you speak to the authorities, I won’t stop them from wondering why.”
She slapped him.
The sound cracked through the room.
Marco moved.
Gabriel lifted a hand.
“No.”
Serena’s face flushed.
For one heartbeat, everyone waited for Gabriel Russo to become the man newspapers hinted he was.
He did not.
He looked at Serena and said, “My daughter has seen enough violence.”
Something in Lucy’s expression changed.
Serena saw it too.
She left.
That evening, Lucy was taken to a private pediatric clinic for imaging. Her cast had shifted slightly but the fracture remained stable.
While a technician replaced it with a fresh purple one, Gabriel sat alone in the hall.
Nora joined him.
“I failed her,” he said.
Nora sat beside him.
“You believed your wife.”
“I didn’t ask my daughter.”
“You asked.”
“I accepted the easiest answer.”
Nora said nothing.
Gabriel leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Her eyes lowered.
“Because Mr. Pike told the staff all calls to you had to go through him unless it was a medical emergency.”
“That’s never been my rule.”
“I know that now.”
“What else?”
Nora hesitated.
Gabriel looked at her.
“What else?”
“Serena had the cameras turned off in parts of the house.”
“When?”
“Mostly when you traveled.”
Gabriel’s stomach tightened.
“Who authorized it?”
“Pike.”
At that moment, Marco appeared at the far end of the hall.
His face told Gabriel something had gone wrong.
“Serena’s gone.”
Gabriel stood.
“How?”
“The guest apartment has a service entrance. Someone opened the exterior gate for her remotely.”
“Pike?”
“We’re checking.”
Marco handed him a tablet.
“There’s more.”
On the screen was a log of messages recovered from the estate network.
Three outgoing calls from the black phone Lucy had seen.
All placed while Gabriel had been in New York.
All to a number associated with a rival crew.
Then Gabriel saw the timestamp of the last call.
Eleven minutes before an ambush on one of his trucks two nights earlier.
He looked at Marco.
“How many men were hurt?”
“Two.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
Marco lowered his voice.
“Lucy didn’t just witness abuse.”
“No.”
May you like
Gabriel looked through the clinic window at his daughter choosing a purple marker for the nurse to draw a star on her new cast.
“She witnessed treason.”
