Chapter 1
Dominic did not slap Clarice a second time.
He wanted to.
Everyone on the staircase saw that.
Instead, he turned toward two of his men.
“Call an ambulance.”
Clarice laughed once.
“You’re calling help now?”
Dominic looked down at Agnes, who was holding her wrist against her chest and trying not to cry.
“Yes.”
The banquet room went silent.
In the Falcone house, silence usually meant fear.
That night it meant something else.
Witnesses.
Guests had seen Clarice shove Agnes.
Guests had seen Dominic strike Clarice after catching his mother.
Both acts would matter later.
Paramedics arrived first.
Then police.
Dominic hated police in his house.
He still let them in.
Agnes had bruising, a sprained wrist, and a hairline fracture in one rib.
No head bleed.
No broken hip.
At seventy-eight, she was lucky.
Clarice had a swollen cheek and a split inside her lip.
Her attorney later argued Dominic assaulted her after the danger had passed.
He was not entirely wrong.
Dominic had saved his mother, walked back up the stairs, and hit Clarice.
Defense of another was not automatic once immediate danger ended.
That decision would follow him.
Detective Mara Voss separated everyone.
She asked Agnes:
“What did you mean by chair at the family table?”
Agnes closed her eyes.
“Our family council.”
“Legal council?”
Agnes hesitated.
Dominic answered from the doorway.
“Not exactly.”
Mara looked at him.
“I asked her.”
Agnes said:
“It controls family business decisions.”
“What business?”
“The legal ones,” Dominic said.
Mara did not smile.
“The fact that you clarified that tells me enough.”
Clarice, sitting in another room with ice against her cheek, gave a different explanation.
Agnes was old.
Confused.
Controlling.
She had embarrassed Clarice for years.
The push, Clarice claimed, was not a push.
Agnes stumbled during an argument.
Dominic assaulted Clarice to silence her.
Mara asked:
“Silence you about what?”
Clarice stopped.
Then said:
“Ask his mother.”
By midnight, the house had two investigations.
May you like
One for elder abuse and assault.
One for whatever secret could make Agnes Falcone look more terrified than she had looked falling down the stairs.
