Chapter 3 - The Fracture Beneath the Surface
The realization didn't make Marciano look like a monster; it made him look like a prisoner.
Beatrice spent the next morning watching him from her second-floor window as he stood by his black town car, speaking in low, clipped tones to a man in a dark overcoat. Marciano’s shoulders were rigid, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his posture radiating a permanent, coiled readiness for a blow that never stopped coming.
She understood now why the girls were so fractured. They were living inside an active war zone disguised as a luxury estate.
“Miss Hale?”
Beatrice jumped slightly. Gia was standing in the doorway of the schoolroom, holding a heavy geography textbook against her chest like a shield.
“Yes, Gia?”
“You’re doing that face again.”
“What face?”
“The one where you look like you’re about to fix something that’s none of your business.” Gia walked over, dropping the book onto her desk with a heavy thud. “The last tutor—the one with the blonde hair and the pearls—she made that face right before she tried to convince us to tell her where my father keeps his spare safe keys.”
Beatrice looked down at the nine-year-old. There was a terrifying amount of intelligence behind Gia’s sharp eyes—intelligence that had been weaponized to protect herself in a house where adults were either terrified, greedy, or absent.
“I don’t care about your father’s safe keys, Gia.”
“Everyone cares about my father’s safe keys. Even the men who come to the gates at midnight smoking cigars care about them.”
Beatrice’s blood ran cold. “What men at midnight?”
Gia shrugged, a gesture too casual to be genuine. “Men in suits. They talk to him in the study. Sometimes they leave briefcases. Sometimes they leave yelling.”
Before Beatrice could press further, the heavy schoolroom door swung open.
Marciano stood in the threshold. His eyes swept the room, bypassing Gia and locking instantly onto Beatrice.
“Leave us,” Marciano said to his daughter.
Gia didn’t argue. She shot Beatrice a long, complicated look before slipping out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
Marciano walked in, closing the distance between them with slow, measured strides. The air in the room suddenly felt heavy, charged with an unspoken confrontation.
“Harold tells me you spent last night looking up old public records,” Marciano said softly.
Beatrice didn’t blink. She stood up from her chair, facing him head-on, refusing to shrink despite the sheer physical presence of the man.
“This is a very quiet house, Mr. Bellfort. Sometimes people look at old records just to understand why the children living here are waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Miss Hale.”
“I’m not playing anything. I’m trying to teach your daughters math, but it’s hard to focus on geometry when the entire foundation of the house is built on a lie.”
Marciano’s jaw clenched so tightly a muscle twitched in his cheek. He closed the remaining space between them until he was towering over her. Most people would have stepped back. Beatrice held her ground, her gray eyes flashing with a quiet fire that matched his own.
“You think you know why Serena died,” Marciano said, his voice dropping to a harsh, gravelly whisper.
“I know what the police report said, and I know what the transport registry left out,” Beatrice replied steadily. “I know that an accident on black ice doesn't usually involve a seized transport truck owned by a rival who is currently bidding on your shipping routes.”
Marciano’s hand gripped the back of a wooden chair so hard the old oak groaned in protest.
“If you dig into my past, you put yourself in the crosshairs,” he said, his voice laced with genuine, unfiltered warning. “I don't protect people who go looking for ghosts in my house.”
“I’m not looking for ghosts,” Beatrice said, her voice dropping to a matching intensity. “I’m looking at two little girls who draw empty chairs because they think love is something that gets locked behind a deadbolt when things get too hard. You aren't protecting them by hiding the truth, Mr. Bellfort. You’re just teaching them how to build their own cages.”
For three endless seconds, the room hung suspended. Marciano stared down at her, his pale eyes searching her face as if trying to find the angle, the manipulation, the hidden wire.
Instead, he found only truth. And it seemed to physically pain him.
“Get out of my office,” Marciano said, though he was no longer talking about the schoolroom. He turned away, his broad shoulders heaving as he stared out the window. “Take the girls into town. Buy them whatever they want. Just… leave me alone for an hour.”
May you like
Beatrice stood her ground for a moment longer, then nodded once. “Come on, Frankie and Gia,” she muttered to herself as she walked out. “Let’s go see what the real world looks like.”
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