Chapter 1 - The Slap
Chloe Hastings swung before she could stop herself and shouted:
“Let him go!”
Dominic Russo turned toward her as a broken piece of his late wife’s glass music box glittered beside his shoe.
A tiny smear of blood marked Luca’s wrist where Dominic’s watch had scraped him.
Chloe saw it.
This was no longer about a broken music box.
Her palm struck Dominic across the left cheek.
The sound cracked through the second-floor landing like a pistol shot.
Nobody moved.
For one impossible second, even the storm outside seemed to hold its breath.
Dominic’s head had turned slightly from the impact. A red mark began spreading across the hard line of his cheekbone.
Behind him, Carlo Rossi moved first.
Three men reached inside their jackets.
Metal flashed.
Chloe heard a handgun clear leather.
Another clicked.
She knew what those sounds meant.
Her right hand still burned from the slap.
Her heart hammered so violently she could feel it in her throat, but she stepped backward rather than away, placing herself directly in front of Luca.
The little boy caught the back of her white blouse in both fists.
He was shaking.
Dominic slowly turned his face toward her.
Chloe had seen anger before.
She had seen exhausted parents yell in grocery stores. She had seen men lose their tempers outside the emergency room where her mother received treatment. She had once watched her landlord kick a broken mailbox after another tenant threatened to sue him.
None of that looked like Dominic Russo.
His anger was quieter.
That made it worse.
His pale blue eyes settled on Chloe.
“You hit me.”
His voice was almost conversational.
Chloe swallowed.
“Yes.”
Carlo stared at her as if she had just volunteered to walk into traffic.
“Boss.”
Dominic raised one hand.
Every weapon stopped moving.
His eyes never left Chloe.
“What did you say to me?”
Chloe could have apologized.
Every survival instinct in her body told her to do exactly that.
Her mother needed medication next week.
The hospital had already called twice about an unpaid balance.
Chloe had $413 in checking, forty-seven dollars in cash, and no backup plan if she lost this job.
But Luca’s fingers were still twisted in her blouse.
She could feel him trembling.
So she looked Dominic Russo directly in the eyes.
“I said let him go.”
Carlo exhaled through his nose.
One of the guards shifted nervously.
Dominic took one step closer.
At six-foot-four, he towered over her.
“You appear to have forgotten where you are.”
“No.”
“Who I am?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps you’ve forgotten who he is.”
Dominic pointed toward Luca.
“My son.”
Chloe’s jaw tightened.
“Exactly.”
The word landed differently.
Dominic’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.
Chloe pointed at Luca’s wrist.
“Look at what you did.”
Dominic did not look.
“He broke something that belonged to his mother.”
“He dropped it.”
“He destroyed the last thing she—”
“He was scared.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“Of the thunder?”
Chloe stared at him.
“No.”
Silence.
Luca pressed closer against her back.
Dominic finally looked down.
The boy’s face was wet with tears.
His dark curls stuck to his forehead.
His small shoulders rose and fell too quickly.
Dominic’s gaze moved to Luca’s arm.
Five faint red marks were appearing around the boy’s wrist.
For the first time since reaching the landing, Dominic stopped looking angry.
He looked confused.
Chloe saw the opening and took it.
“You want to know why he dropped that music box?”
Dominic said nothing.
“You came home screaming. You kicked a table. Men downstairs were shouting. He heard everything.”
Dominic glanced toward Carlo.
Carlo lowered his eyes.
Chloe continued.
“He came into the hallway because he was scared. Then you looked up at him like he had committed some unforgivable crime.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt him.”
“You already did.”
Dominic’s jaw flexed.
Chloe knew she had crossed another line.
She crossed it anyway.
“He doesn’t know what you intended.”
Her voice dropped.
“He only knows what you did.”
Dominic looked at Luca again.
The boy immediately hid farther behind Chloe.
That movement struck Dominic harder than the slap.
Chloe saw it.
So did Carlo.
Dominic’s hand lowered.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
Then he said, “Leave us.”
Carlo hesitated.
“Boss?”
“Everyone downstairs.”
One guard glanced at Chloe.
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“Now.”
The men moved.
Carlo remained for another second.
“Dominic.”
“I said downstairs.”
Carlo obeyed.
The footsteps faded.
Soon there were only three people standing beside the shattered music box.
Dominic.
Chloe.
Luca.
Dominic stared at the broken mechanism scattered across the hardwood.
The tiny brass cylinder had stopped turning.
A few torn strips of painted glass showed pieces of a woman in a white dress.
Chloe had seen a photograph of her before.
Elena Russo.
Luca’s mother.
Dead two years.
The woman whose death had apparently silenced a child.
Dominic crouched.
Chloe tensed.
He noticed.
That seemed to hurt him too.
He picked up one piece of glass.
A painted blue flower crossed its surface.
“Elena gave me this the night Luca was born,” he said quietly.
Chloe had never heard Dominic speak about his wife.
“She hated expensive gifts.”
His thumb traced the broken edge.
“I bought her diamonds. She returned them.”
A humorless breath escaped him.
“She found this music box at some antique shop in Lincoln Park for sixty dollars.”
Chloe said nothing.
Dominic looked toward Luca.
“He used to ask her to play it every night.”
Luca’s grip tightened.
Dominic slowly stood.
His voice became controlled again.
“Take him to his room.”
Chloe hesitated.
“Chloe.”
It was the first time he had used her first name.
She turned.
“Come on, sweetheart.”
Luca followed her down the hallway.
He never looked back.
Inside his bedroom, Chloe closed the door softly.
Luca climbed onto the bed.
His plush wolf remained under one arm.
Chloe sat beside him.
“You’re okay.”
He stared at the floor.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Still nothing.
“You hear me?”
Luca nodded once.
Chloe checked his wrist.
No swelling.
No serious injury.
She hated how relieved she felt.
The fact that Dominic had not intended to injure him did not excuse what had happened.
She pulled the blanket around Luca.
“You want me to stay?”
A nod.
So Chloe stayed.
Ten minutes passed.
Then twenty.
The storm moved farther over the lake.
Luca’s breathing slowed.
Chloe thought he had fallen asleep when his fingers suddenly moved.
He reached under his pillow.
He pulled out a folded piece of paper.
Chloe frowned.
“What’s that?”
Luca handed it to her.
It was a drawing.
Three figures stood beneath a crooked yellow sun.
One was small.
One had brown hair.
One was tall and colored almost completely black.
Chloe recognized herself.
Luca.
Dominic.
But there was a fourth figure.
A woman.
She stood behind Dominic.
Her face had been scribbled over with red crayon.
Chloe’s stomach tightened.
She pointed carefully.
“Who is she?”
Luca stopped breathing.
His eyes moved toward the bedroom door.
Then he grabbed the pencil from Chloe’s notebook.
He wrote slowly.
One letter at a time.
M.
Chloe watched.
A.
R.
A.
Mara.
“Who is Mara?”
Luca’s hand began shaking.
He drew a line through the name.
Then another.
Then another.
Chloe took his hand gently.
“It’s okay.”
He shook his head violently.
The first real sound Chloe had ever heard from him escaped his throat.
Not a word.
A frightened whimper.
She leaned closer.
“Luca?”
His lips moved.
For two years, according to every member of the Russo household, Luca had not spoken.
Now a tiny voice came out.
“She saw.”
Chloe went completely still.
“What did she see?”
Luca’s eyes filled with tears.
“The stairs.”
Chloe’s blood ran cold.
“What stairs?”
He pointed toward the hallway.
The grand staircase.
Chloe remembered what Dominic had told her during her interview.
Luca’s mother died two years ago.
Nothing more.
She had never asked how.
Luca whispered again.
“Mama fell.”
Chloe stared at him.
“You saw your mother fall?”
Luca shook his head.
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“Mara did.”
Footsteps stopped outside the bedroom.
Chloe turned toward the door.
The handle moved.
Dominic stood on the other side.
May you like
And Luca whispered one more word.
“Hide.”
