Chapter 2 - The Interrogation in the Study
The mahogany walls of my ground-floor study absorbed the dim light of a single desk lamp, casting long, menacing shadows across the Persian rug. Outside, the Long Island wind whipped the autumn branches against the reinforced glass windows.
I sat behind my father’s massive oak desk, a glass of un-iced bourbon untouched in front of me.
The maid—her employment file identified her as Chloe Hayes, twenty-two years old, background clean, references from a parish in Brooklyn—sat in the leather armchair opposite me. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, her eyes fixed on the grain of the wooden desk.
"You've been in this house for three weeks, Chloe," I began, my tone measured, flat, and chillingly calm. "In that time, the girls haven't spoken a single word to anyone. Not to me, not to Rosa, not to the battalion of specialists I flew in from Zurich. Yet today, within minutes of my arrival, my eldest daughter breaks a fourteen-month silence to repeat a lie that could tear this family apart."
Chloe swallowed hard, her chest rising and falling beneath her modest sweater. "I didn't teach her that, Mr. Russo. I swear to God I didn't."
"Then where did she hear it?" I leaned forward, resting my forearms on the desk, closing the distance between us until she had no choice but to meet my gaze. "Children don't invent conspiracies out of thin air. Someone whispered those words into her ear. Was it you? Did someone from the old neighborhood put you up to this? Are the Mendozas still reaching into my home?"
"No! No, absolutely not!" Chloe’s voice cracked, tears finally spilling over her lashes and tracking down her cheeks. She didn't shrink back, though. Despite the fear radiating off her, there was a stubborn, fierce defiance in her eyes that caught me off guard. "I don't know anything about cartobs or mobsters, Mr. Russo. I needed a job where people wouldn't look at my face or ask questions about why I dropped out of college. Rosa hired me because I could bake cookies and keep my mouth shut."
"People who keep their mouths shut don't inspire my traumatized children to accuse me of murder," I snapped, reaching out to slide my personnel file closer to my fingertips. "I checked your file before Rosa brought you here. It’s remarkably thin. Too thin."
"Because I have nothing to hide!" Chloe cried out, her voice rising before she instantly bit her lip, checking herself as she glanced nervously toward the heavy oak door leading to the hallway. "Look... Mr. Russo. You think you're the only one who knows what it's like to live in a house where terrible things happen? The day I arrived here, Lucia wouldn't even let me walk into the same room. Valentina hid under the table. Mia wouldn't stop crying for her mother."
"Get to the point," I growled.
"The point is, I didn't tell her you killed her mother," Chloe said, her voice dropping to a trembling, intense whisper. "If she said that, maybe it's because she saw something. Or maybe... maybe she heard someone else say it when you weren't looking."
The room went dead silent.
My hand tightened around the stem of the bourbon glass so hard I thought the crystal might shatter. Someone else.
No one outside my inner circle—my capos, my security detail, and my personal attorneys—had access to the inner gates of this estate. Security was absolute. Perimeter sensors, biometric locks, armed patrols twenty-four hours a day. No one could walk onto these grounds unnoticed.
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Unless the threat wasn't coming from outside the gates.
Unless it was already living inside them.
