Chapter 2
Luca stood and left.
For the first time in a decade, Julian Mercer remained seated after Luca had gone, staring at the closed door with uncertainty.
Then he slowly rotated the hawk ring around his finger.
That small movement would have meant nothing to anyone else.
But Julian was frightened.
Not because a child had worn Luca’s suit.
Because Luca had listened to her.
A man who learned to listen eventually asked questions.
And there was one question Julian Mercer had spent ten years ensuring Luca never asked.
What really happened the night Giovanni Valente died?
Over the next week, a strange new routine appeared inside the mansion.
Luca’s study door began remaining open.
Nobody understood why.
An old servant named Victor Bell seemed to understand before everyone else.
Victor had worked for Luca’s father for nearly forty years. He had gray hair, a stiff back, and the peculiar immunity of elderly men who had served a family so long that no living person remembered when they had begun.
One morning Luca entered his study and discovered a small green chair beside his desk.
He stepped back into the hallway.
Victor was polishing a brass lamp that clearly did not need polishing.
“Victor.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Why is there a child’s chair in my office?”
Victor continued polishing.
“Every important man needs advisers.”
Luca almost smiled.
The next morning Mia appeared carrying a drawing.
She climbed onto the green chair, placed the paper on Luca’s desk, and explained it.
“This is you.”
The drawing showed an enormous stick figure in a suit.
“This is me.”
A much smaller figure stood beside him.
Between them was an object that resembled a briefcase being attacked by an apple.
“What is that?”
“Important business.”
“Of course.”
He placed the drawing beside his lamp.
After that, Mia came most mornings.
She colored while Luca read reports.
She asked why his fountain pen was so heavy.
She wanted to know why men visiting him rarely smiled.
Once she asked why he needed such a large house when he only slept in one bed.
Luca had no satisfactory answer.
Elena continued trying to retrieve her daughter.
May you like
The first time, Luca said, “She isn’t bothering me.”
The second time,....?
