Chapter 3
I sent Nina upstairs with my housekeeper, Ellen, and two guards.
She refused at first.
“Bell?”
I looked at the broken brass shell still on the floor.
“It stays with me.”
Her face tightened.
“Don’t break more.”
My chest hurt.
She thought she had caused this.
I crouched.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I ring.”
“Yes.”
“You mad?”
“No.”
“Beatrice mad.”
“That was her mistake.”
Nina studied me.
Then leaned forward.
“Daddy came.”
Three words.
The entire night reduced to what mattered to her.
She rang because she wanted me.
And I came.
I kissed her forehead.
“Yes.”
Only after she left did I return to the table.
Two capos remained unusually silent.
Anthony Ravelli.
My father’s cousin.
And Samuel Voss, one of our oldest captains.
I looked at them.
“Did you know?”
Anthony answered carefully.
“We knew Caleb wanted a demonstration.”
I almost smiled.
“Demonstration.”
Respectable word.
“Of what?”
“That your household security has become too relaxed.”
I stared.
“He arranged men outside my gate.”
Anthony nodded.
“And?”
“If they could remove Nina, it would prove the weakness.”
Silence.
I leaned back.
“So the plan was to create the security failure you wanted to prove existed.”
Samuel shifted.
“When you say it like that—”
“There is another way?”
Nobody answered.
Caleb looked irritated.
“You’ve stopped listening to senior men.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“I’ve stopped automatically agreeing.”
Different.
Two months earlier, I had canceled an old rule requiring every crew leader to surrender a relative as a permanent household “guest” during major disputes.
Hostages with nicer bedrooms.
My grandfather called them guarantees.
I called them what they were.
Caleb hated that.
So did Anthony.
Then I shut Hawthorne down completely.
Or thought I had.
Hawthorne had housed many of those “guests.”
Children sometimes.
Wives occasionally.
Never harmed.
Always useful.
That was the family defense.
Caleb leaned forward.
“You destroyed leverage.”
“I removed captivity.”
“You weakened discipline.”
I looked at the SUV key on the table.
“And your answer was to take Nina.”
“Three days.”
He kept saying it like duration changed the act.
Then Beatrice finally spoke.
“It wasn’t only about you.”
I turned.
Her face had changed.
Fear had given way to resentment.
“Nina needed to learn something too.”
My whole body became still.
“What?”
May you like
Beatrice looked toward the stairs.
“That the bell does not make the world come running just because she wants Daddy.”
