Chapter 2 - The Language of Laughter
Elise kept her brown eyes glued to the floor, her knuckles white around the yellow gloves.
"I... I apologize, Mr. Caruso," Elise stammered, her voice shaking with fear. "The girls had a severe night terror. They were hyperventilating, and when I tried to sing, it wasn't breaking their panic. In pediatric behavioral therapy, sudden visual absurdity disrupts the acute panic feedback loop... I know it looks completely unprofessional. If you want me to pack my things, I understand."
I looked from Elise’s trembling frame to the crib.
Maisie reached out her small arms through the wooden bars, pointing a tiny finger at me. "Daddy! The duck was funny! Don't be mad at Elise!"
"The yellow duckies were arguing about bedtime, Daddy!" Rosie added, her big hazel eyes pleading with innocent desperation. "Please don't send her away!"
In twelve days, this young woman had achieved what five child psychologists and four high-society governesses had failed to do: she had made my traumatized children feel safe enough to smile in the dark.
I walked over to the crib, reaching out to stroke Maisie’s and Rosie’s soft brown curls until their tense little shoulders relaxed.
"Nobody is sending anyone away," I said softly.
Elise’s head snapped up, her wide, expressive brown eyes filled with stunned disbelief.
I turned to face her. "You broke their panic in five minutes, Miss Navarro. In this house, results matter more than decorum. But tomorrow morning, we discuss your permanent contract."
"Thank you, Mr. Caruso," Elise breathed, a faint, genuine flush touching her cheeks.
As I walked back to my study in the silence of the night, the image of her barefoot waltz lingered in my mind.
I opened my laptop, pulling up the comprehensive background check my security team had run on Elise Navarro before hiring her.
Twenty-four years old. Former pediatric nursing student at Loyola University. Honor roll graduate.
Her father, Mateo Navarro, had been a master carpenter who died six months ago in a mysterious warehouse fire on the South Side. Following his death, Elise had dropped out of medical school to pay off a sixty-thousand-dollar emergency medical debt held by an aggressive private collection agency.
I clicked through the financial records until my eyes locked onto the collection agency’s parent holding firm: Vanguard Capital Group.
The CEO of Vanguard Capital was Victor Rossi—the head of the Rossi crime syndicate and my most bitter rival in the Midwestern freight corridors.
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A chilling suspicion tightened in my chest.
Had Victor Rossi deliberately steered this innocent girl into my home as an unwitting pawn, or was Elise running from the very monsters I was preparing to destroy?
