Chapter 1
“You called it a small punishment. Now remember mine.”
I kept Elliot against my chest when I said it.
Agatha stood among the shattered terracotta pots with soil streaked across her dress. Julian was still beneath the collapsed garden trellis, but neither of them mattered as much as the small body trembling against me.
Elliot’s cheek was hot.
Too hot.
His lips were dry, and each breath still came between broken little hiccups.
I looked toward my guards.
“Water.”
One of them moved immediately.
Agatha recovered first.
“You’re embarrassing yourself.”
I slowly turned my head.
She lifted her chin as though she were correcting a child at dinner instead of standing beside the chain she had used on my son.
“Half the family watched you lose control over discipline.”
There.
Not apology.
Not defense.
Audience.
I looked across the terrace.
Capos.
Cousins.
Old family associates.
People who had supposedly come for a summer garden party.
Too many important men for an ordinary afternoon.
I felt Elliot take the water bottle with both hands.
He drank too fast.
I slowed him gently.
“Easy.”
Julian dragged himself upright and wiped soil from his face.
“You proved our point.”
I looked at him.
“What point?”
He smiled despite the swelling already forming near his cheek.
“That you can’t think when it’s about the boy.”
The garden went silent again.
Agatha’s eyes moved toward him.
A warning.
Too late.
I looked from Julian to the chain still hanging from the stone column.
Then to the capos watching me.
My anger did not disappear.
It became colder.
“You did this so I would react.”
Julian said nothing.
Agatha did.
“He needed correction.”
“No.”
I shifted Elliot higher against my chest.
“You needed witnesses.”
For the first time, the confidence left her face.
May you like
That was when I understood the chain had never been only around my son’s ankle.
Someone had been trying to put one around me.
