Chapter 4 - The Shadow in the Courtyard
By dusk, Mia had woken up.
Instead of crying or screaming for a mother she barely seemed to remember, she sat quietly at the heavy mahogany dining table, swinging her short legs and eating a bowl of buttered noodles Dr. Sterling had ordered from the kitchens.
I sat across from her, watching the way she held her fork—not with the clumsy fist of an average toddler, but with a strange, delicate precision that reminded me hauntingly of my own hands.
"Do you want more, Mia?" I asked, pouring a glass of water.
She shook her head, her dark curls bouncing against her shoulders. She pointed a small finger at the pocket watch, which I had placed in the center of the table under the warm glow of the brass chandelier.
"Grandpa gave that to Mommy," she said clearly.
I froze, my hand hovering over my glass. "When did Mommy tell you that?"
"Before the bad men broke the window," Mia said, her voice dropping into a matter-of-fact tone that sent a chill down my spine. "Mommy said I had to walk through the woods until I found the man with the big house and the dogs. She said he would keep the clock safe."
"Who were the bad men, Mia?" I asked, leaning in closer, keeping my voice soft so as not to frighten her.
Before she could answer, the heavy oak doors of the dining hall swung open. Luca hurried inside, his face pale and slick with evening sweat.
"Boss," Luca said, bypassing protocol entirely. "We just got the footage back from the Route 420 traffic cameras."
I stood up immediately, pushing my chair back. "Did you find a vehicle dropping her off?"
"No," Luca said, his eyes darting toward the child before locking back onto mine. "There was no car. But thirty minutes before our motion sensors failed on the eastern ridge, a black sedan was spotted parked two miles down the service road. The driver didn't get out."
"Whose car?"
"That's the problem," Luca swallowed hard. "It wasn't a rival family. It was registered to the Pennsylvania State Police. Specifically, to Captain Thomas Vance."
The name hit the room like a physical shockwave.
Thomas Vance. The head of the state task force currently investigating our shipping lines—and the brother of Clara Vance.
My father's secret mistress had a brother inside the state police. A man who had spent the last five years methodically building a corruption case against the Romano family.
"He didn't just drop her off," I whispered, the pieces clicking together with terrifying clarity. "He sent his own niece into my fortress."
"There's more," Luca said, holding out a printed photograph pulled from his jacket. "The state police department ran a background check on the mill house property tax records last week. Someone paid off twenty years of back taxes on the ruined property. The payment didn't come from a dummy corporation."
He laid the paper on the table next to the pocket watch.
May you like
The signature on the receipt was Mateo's.
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