Chapter 7 - A Daughter's Small Question
The next morning, Sophia asked whether her mother would be at breakfast.
Elena was still asleep. She had spent most of the night talking quietly with Isabella, then had finally rested shortly before dawn. Dante considered waking her, but Sophia was watching him with the same anxious attention she had shown at the restaurant.
"Mommy needs a little more sleep," he said. "Would you like breakfast with me first?"
Sophia nodded, though she kept glancing at the stairs. Dante made toast and cut a pear into small pieces. He had never prepared breakfast without staff nearby, and the first slice of toast burned while he was searching for the butter.
Sophia studied the blackened bread.
"Mommy doesn't burn it."
"No," Dante admitted. "Your mother is better at this."
"Will she teach you?"
The question was so ordinary that it caught him unprepared. He sat across from her and said he hoped she would. Sophia ate half the pear and asked whether Maya was coming back.
"I don't know when," he said. "But she told you she would tell you before she left, and she kept that promise."
Sophia thought about it. "You should do that too."
Dante set down his knife.
"I will."
The conversation stayed with him throughout the morning. For years, he had treated information as something to distribute according to risk. He had hidden business troubles from Elena because he believed she would worry. He had hidden his own fear from Sophia because he believed children needed certainty. In the end, both had been left to imagine worse things than the truth.
At noon, Maya called. She had located the shipping broker, a nervous man named Peter Hales who operated from a small office near the waterfront. He claimed Adrian had paid him to arrange a transfer but insisted he had never seen Elena. Maya believed he was withholding information, though she had no proof that he knew where Adrian had gone.
"Don't approach him alone again," Dante said.
"I'm not planning to. I wanted you to know he mentioned a second destination."
"Where?"
"He wouldn't say without legal protection. Ruth should speak to him."
Dante relayed the information to the lawyer, who arranged a formal interview. By evening, Hales had agreed to cooperate. He said Adrian had planned to move Elena onto a vessel only if the warehouse became unsafe. The transfer had been postponed, then canceled when Dante arrived.
That was good news, but it also meant Adrian had likely left the city with access to funds and documents.
Ruth warned them that a formal investigation could take time. The records would need verification, witnesses would need to be interviewed, and any charges would depend on evidence gathered independently. Dante could not simply order Adrian's arrest, however much he wanted to.
He spent the afternoon turning over the household's security arrangements. Rather than replacing every guard with people loyal only to him, he asked Ruth to review the contracts and access logs. He also gave Elena copies of the relevant records and contact information for her own attorney.
When she saw the documents, she looked at him with cautious surprise.
"You don't have to give me everything at once," she said.
"I should have given you the truth before it became evidence."
She sat beside him and read the first pages. They worked quietly for nearly an hour, marking questions for Ruth and separating confirmed facts from assumptions. It was the first time in months they had approached a problem as partners rather than opponents.
Then Elena found a transfer bearing Victor's signature and went still.
"This payment happened after he knew I was investigating."
Dante checked the date. It was two days before she disappeared.
"That suggests he continued helping Adrian," he said.
"It does. It doesn't prove he knew what Adrian planned to do to me."
Dante looked at her. She was making the distinction he had once refused to make for her.
"You're right," he said.
The acknowledgment seemed to matter more than he expected. Elena continued reading, though the tension between them remained.
That evening, Isabella took Sophia to the garden while Dante and Elena discussed where she would stay. Elena did not want to return permanently to the townhouse until the security review was complete. She had found a small furnished apartment through a friend and intended to spend several days there.
Dante disliked the distance, but he didn't argue.
"Can I visit?" he asked.
"If we agree on the time. And not with a security team standing in the hallway."
"I can arrange that."
She studied him. "This isn't a test you pass by saying yes. I need to see what happens when you don't like my decision."
"I understand."
"I'm not sure you do yet."
He accepted that too.
Before Elena left, Sophia came inside carrying a drawing. It showed three figures standing together beside a house with purple windows. The smallest figure held a red crayon.
"I made one for Maya," she said. "Can you give it to her?"
Elena promised she would. Sophia then turned to her father.
"Are you going to live in different houses?"
Dante crouched beside her. "For a little while, Mommy and I may sleep in different places. We're still both your parents, and we'll both take care of you."
"Did I make you fight?"
"No. Grown-ups made their own choices. You didn't cause any of this."
Sophia accepted the answer without looking convinced. She folded the drawing and placed it in Elena's bag.
May you like
After they left, Dante remained in the garden, watching the lights in the neighboring houses. He had wanted to bring his family back under one roof, believing that togetherness would mean everything had been repaired. Now he understood that a home could not be made safe by keeping its doors locked.
He had to become someone his wife and daughter could trust when those doors were open.
