Chapter 1 - The carriage
I had spent eleven months believing my wife died in a fire.
Then my sister-in-law threatened to make her disappear.
Again.
My name is Dominic Bellucci.
People had spent twenty years learning not to surprise me.
Lucille did.
For exactly three seconds.
Then training, instinct, and fatherhood pushed everything else aside.
Clara’s carriage had stopped less than a foot from the first marble stair.
She was still asleep.
That detail still seems impossible.
Three months old.
Cream blanket tucked beneath her chin.
Tiny fist resting beside her cheek.
She had no idea an adult had just used gravity to make a point.
I checked:
Breathing.
Head position.
Harness.
Wheels.
No impact.
No fall.
No injury.
Only after I knew she was safe did I look upstairs.
Lucille Bellucci stood on the landing with one hand against her cheek.
She had married my younger brother Sebastian fourteen years earlier.
Sebastian died eighteen months ago.
Heart attack.
Thirty-eight years old.
Too much cocaine in his past.
Too much anger.
Too much everything.
Lucille remained inside the family after his death because she had spent most of her adult life among us.
My mother adored her.
Half the board of Bellucci Maritime still invited her to charity dinners.
And until Clara was born, Lucille behaved as if she occupied some unofficial position between widow, family representative, and substitute matriarch.
Then Clara arrived.
Things changed.
Apparently more than I knew.
“Where is Alessandra?”
Lucille stared at me.
“I said nothing.”
“You said enough.”
She recovered.
“You misunderstood.”
“No.”
She stepped backward.
I stepped forward.
“Where is my wife?”
People downstairs had stopped moving.
Forty guests.
Musicians silent.
Servers frozen beside trays.
Then Lucille said something extraordinary.
“You think you frighten me?”
I looked at Clara.
Then back at her.
“No.”
That part was true.
May you like
Fear was not what I wanted from her anymore.
Information was.
