Chapter 5 - Mia Comes HomeElias survived.
Barely.
But his words sent us back to Beacon Hill.
We searched every room.
Nothing.
Then I remembered Mia.
The knocking.
Every night.
Not always from the same place.
A hidden tunnel network.
Thomas Harper had renovated the house.
He had built more than one passage.
Roman found the second entrance behind the wine cellar.
We descended.
Thirty yards in, the tunnel divided.
One path led toward the library chamber.
The other curved beneath the garden.
Then we heard crying.
A child.
I ran.
Roman shouted after me.
I didn’t care.
At the end of the passage stood a locked steel door.
I kicked it once.
Twice.
Roman fired the lock.
Inside was Mia.
Alone.
She launched herself at me.
I caught her.
For a second, I forgot how to move.
Her little arms wrapped around my neck.
“I knew you’d come.”
The words destroyed something in me.
“You knew?”
“You promised Mama.”
I held her tighter.
“I did.”
She pulled back.
“Mr. Duca?”
“Yes?”
“The bad man said he brought me back because he wanted you angry.”
“He succeeded.”
Mia frowned.
“I don’t think you should do what angry people want.”
Roman turned away, hiding a smile.
Six years old.
Smarter than most of my lieutenants.
We brought her upstairs.
Grace arrived twenty minutes later, still sick, wrapped in a coat.
Mia ran into her arms.
Lily cried.
Grace cried.
Mia cried.
I stood away from them.
I had never felt more like an outsider in my own house.
Then Grace looked at me.
“Thank you.”
I nodded.
That should have been enough.
It wasn’t.
“Grace.”
“Yes?”
“You’re not working tonight.”
Despite everything, she almost laughed.
“You’re firing me?”
“No.”
I looked around the mansion.
“I’m beginning to think I work for you.”
That night, we moved Grace and the girls into a secure guest suite.
Mia refused to sleep until I checked behind the wall.
Twice.
I did.
At 3:00 a.m., I found Grace in the kitchen.
“You should be in bed.”
“So should you.”
I poured coffee.
She watched me.
“You scared her.”
“I know.”
“No. Before tonight.”
I looked at her.
“She used to hide when your cars came home.”
That landed badly.
Grace continued.
“She thought rich men were angry because that’s how people acted when you walked into rooms.”
“I never hurt her.”
“I know.”
“But she didn’t.”
Silence.
I stared at my coffee.
For years, fear had been useful.
Fear kept enemies predictable.
Employees obedient.
Business partners careful.
I had never considered what it looked like through a six-year-old’s eyes.
“Why did you stay?” I asked.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Money.”
At least she was honest.
“And because Mrs. Baines let me bring Mia sometimes.”
“Mrs. Baines threatened to report your missed shifts.”
Grace sighed.
“She follows rules.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“She follows power.”
The next morning I fired Mrs. Baines.
Not for reporting illness.
For knowing Grace’s heater had been broken for weeks and doing nothing because “staff housing wasn’t company responsibility.”
It was now.
I ordered every employee residence inspected.
Roman found three unsafe apartments.
We fixed them.
He teased me about becoming charitable.
I threatened to reduce his salary.
He stopped.
Mostly.
Then the hard drive revealed something worse.
A payment made every month.
Recipient:
Thomas Harper.
Grace’s supposedly missing husband.
Alive.
And working for someone named Helena Cross.
Roman went quiet.
“Do you know her?”
I did.
Everyone did.
Helena Cross was a federal prosecutor.
She had spent twelve years trying to dismantle my family.
If Thomas worked for her, then Grace’s husband had not simply disappeared.
He had become an informant.
Before I could tell Grace, Mia entered the office holding a drawing.
She placed it on my desk.
It showed five people.
Grace.
Mia.
Lily.
Me.
And another man.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“My daddy.”
My stomach tightened.
“You remember him?”
“No.”
She pointed toward the figure.
“But I saw him yesterday.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“Where?”
May you like
Mia pointed toward the garden window.
“Outside.”
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