Chapter 5
Mia remembered more.
Not because I questioned her.
Because she heard Anna and me discussing gloves.
“Mama cry in pantry.”
Anna went still.
I looked at her.
“When?”
She whispered:
“Two weeks ago.”
“Why?”
Celeste had made her taste another drink.
Anna refused.
Marco happened to be in the pantry corridor.
He told her refusal meant she was hiding something.
Then Celeste said something worse.
“If Vittorio trusts you, prove you aren’t afraid.”
Trust weaponized.
My trust.
Again.
Anna tasted it.
Later she became dizzy while cleaning upstairs.
Celeste sent her home early.
Generous appearance.
Private cause.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Anna looked ashamed.
“Because Marco said you ordered the testing.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
“What exactly?”
“That you were worried someone in the kitchen was tampering with your drinks and wanted staff tested randomly.”
Plausible.
Very.
I had ordered security checks before.
Never human testing.
But to Anna, what did Mafia bosses consider normal?
She had no reason to know.
I looked at Mia.
“How did you see?”
“I hide by towels.”
Anna frowned.
“Mia…”
The child looked guilty.
“Why hide?”
Mia whispered:
“Celeste says kids bother rich people.”
My jaw tightened.
Anna closed her eyes.
There it was.
Celeste had been teaching the daughter of a maid that visibility itself was misconduct.
Sit elsewhere.
Stay quiet.
Don’t enter dining rooms.
Don’t speak around capos.
A perfect environment for adults who needed witnesses to doubt their own right to speak.
Except Mia ignored the lesson.
She walked through armed guards and told me to open my mouth.
May you like
Three years old.
More courage than half my house.
