Chapter 1 - The Sound of a Crack
A low, vibrating rumble that sounded dangerously close to a chuckle broke from Dominic Moretti’s chest, though the humor in it was as dark and cold as the marble beneath our bare feet.
My breath caught in my throat. I stood frozen, my knuckles white around the tray of onions, expecting the guards at the perimeter to rush in with weapons drawn to protect their boss from a three-year-old terrorist. But nobody moved. The men stationed outside the archway remained carved out of the shadows, their eyes fixed rigidly on the floorboards as if witnessing a miracle they weren't permitted to see.
Dominic slowly lowered his hand, his gaze shifting downward from the soap-smeared cabinets to the tiny, soaked girl standing defiantly between him and his son.
"You're a brave little thing, aren't you, Ms. Carter?" Dominic said, his voice dropping into that quiet, gravelly register that made his enemies sweat. He didn't look at me; his eyes were locked on Lily, who stubbornly refused to blink, her small chin still tipped toward the ceiling like a tiny, fierce soldier.
"Don't call her that," Lily piped up, completely unfazed by the aura of terror that kept grown men shaking in their boots. "She's Mommy. I'm Lily."
A sudden, sharp intake of breath hissed through Leo’s teeth. The six-year-old shrank back an inch, his shoulders hunching up toward his ears as he waited for the lightning bolt to strike. In that house, nobody corrected Dominic Moretti. Nobody ever spoke to him with unvarnished, childish honesty.
Instead of exploding, Dominic crouched.
The movement was slow, deliberate, the joints of his knees popping slightly in the terrifying silence of the kitchen. He knelt right down into the puddle of soapy water, his expensive custom-tailored trousers soaking up the foam without a single flinch from him. He looked directly into Lily's wide, innocent brown eyes.
"Lily," he repeated, testing the name on his tongue like a rare word he hadn't used in years. He reached out, his large, calloused hand—a hand rumored to have signed away fates and shattered syndicates—hovering just an inch from her wet, curly hair. "And what gives you the right to make a disaster of my kitchen?"
Lily didn't flinch. She reached out her own sticky, soap-covered hand and poked him squarely in the center of his crisp, expensive silk tie.
"You have a sad face," she whispered, her voice carrying an uncanny, heartbreaking wisdom that belonged to someone ten times her age. "Leo has a sad face too. Soap makes bubbles. Bubbles make happy."
The room seemed to tilt on its axis.
Dominic stared at the small, bubbly imprint of her hand on his tie. A muscle twitched sharply along his jawline, a silent war playing out behind those cold, slate-grey eyes. For one agonizing heartbeat, I thought he was going to sweep her aside, stand up, and fire me on the spot, throwing us out into the cold Chicago winter with nothing but the clothes on our backs.
Instead, Dominic Moretti did something that shattered every single rule of his world.
He raised his hand and gently flicked a single, soapy bubble off the tip of Lily's nose.
"Bubbles make a mess, Ms. Lily," he murmured, his voice softening into a tone I didn't recognize. Then, slowly, painfully, he turned his head to look at his son. "And it looks like we have a lot of cleaning up to do."
May you like
Leo stared at his father, his eyes wide and shimmering with unshed tears, before looking down at Lily, and then, for the first time in four months, a tiny, genuine smile broke through the rigid armor of his face.
It was a fragile, beautiful thing. And it was about to bring an invisible war straight to our front door.
