Chapter 2
I said no.
At least, I tried to.
“I have a job.”
Rico looked around the private office.
“You have this job.”
“I mean a life.”
His eyebrow lifted.
I almost laughed.
Almost.
Leo remained asleep on the sofa beside me.
His fingers still clung to my apron.
I lowered my voice.
“You can’t buy a stranger and place her in your house because your son held her hand.”
Rico’s jaw tightened.
“I didn’t say I was buying you.”
“You told me to name my price.”
“That is generally how employment works.”
“I’m not qualified.”
“You calmed him.”
“Once.”
“He has seen four specialists.”
That surprised me.
Rico walked toward the window.
“Two nannies quit. One therapist refuses to enter my home again because Leo threw a lamp at him.”
“He’s three.”
“I’m aware.”
“He needs grief counseling.”
“He has grief counseling.”
“Then why—”
“Because nothing is working.”
The exhaustion in his voice stopped me.
For the first time, I saw more than the name.
More than the suit.
More than the stories.
I saw a father who had probably spent six months watching his child disappear.
“How long?” I asked.
Rico turned.
“Two weeks.”
“For what?”
“Spend time with him.”
“That is incredibly vague.”
“Breakfast. Play. Help with his routines. Attend appointments if needed.”
“I have another question.”
“Ask.”
“Why me?”
He looked at Leo.
“Because he chose you.”
I hated how much that answer affected me.
I also hated my rent situation.
“What would you pay?”
Rico named a number.
I stared at him.
“For two weeks?”
“Yes.”
“That’s more than I make here in four months.”
“Yes.”
“That’s insane.”
“Probably.”
I looked down at Leo.
His breathing was calm now.
My brother Evan had once needed someone to sit beside him without demanding anything.
Maybe Leo did too.
“Two weeks,” I said.
Rico nodded.
“Two weeks.”
“And I’m not moving into your house.”
His silence lasted too long.
“No.”
“Absolutely not.”
“My security team—”
“Not happening.”
Rico looked mildly annoyed.
That almost made me smile.
“We’ll arrange transportation.”
“I can take the subway.”
“No.”
I blinked.
“That wasn’t a request.”
There was the Rico Moretti everyone feared.
I stood.
“Then find someone else.”
His expression changed immediately.
He looked toward Leo.
Then back at me.
“Transportation is your choice.”
“Good.”
A tiny voice interrupted us.
“Clara?”
Leo was awake.
I moved closer.
“I’m here.”
His eyes searched my face.
Then he looked around the unfamiliar office and panicked.
“Daddy?”
Rico crossed the room immediately.
“I’m here, Leo.”
Leo reached for me instead.
I saw the hurt on Rico’s face before he could hide it.
That hurt followed me home.
The next morning, I arrived at the Moretti townhouse in Brooklyn Heights at eight.
It was enormous.
Stone steps.
Black iron gates.
Security cameras.
Two men outside.
The kind of place designed to convince the world nothing could get in.
Yet grief had entered anyway.
Dante opened the door.
His thumb was bandaged.
I glanced at it.
“How’s the hand?”
“I have survived worse.”
“From three-year-olds?”
He almost smiled.
“Welcome to the house, Miss Vance.”
Inside, everything was quiet.
Too quiet.
A house with a child should not sound like a museum.
Rico appeared near the staircase.
No suit today.
Dark slacks.
White shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
He somehow still looked intimidating.
“He’s upstairs.”
“Has he eaten?”
“No.”
“Did he sleep?”
“Four hours.”
I stared at him.
“And you?”
He ignored that.
“His room is this way.”
Leo’s bedroom was huge.
Too many toys.
Expensive furniture.
A miniature race car bed he clearly hated because he was sleeping under a blanket on the floor.
I crouched near the doorway.
“Leo?”
His head appeared.
He stared at me.
Then ran straight across the room.
I thought he might hug me.
Instead he grabbed my hand.
“Warm milk.”
I smiled.
“We can do warm milk.”
Downstairs, I let Leo pour the sugar himself.
Half landed on the counter.
Rico watched like he was witnessing surgery.
“You can sit,” I told him.
“I am sitting.”
“You’re hovering while sitting.”
Dante coughed to hide a laugh.
Rico glared at him.
Leo smiled.
It was tiny.
Barely there.
But all three adults saw it.
Rico went completely still.
I handed Leo the cup.
He drank.
Then he pushed a toy dinosaur toward me.
“Mommy liked him.”
“What’s his name?”
Leo whispered, “Blue.”
The dinosaur was green.
I did not argue.
“Blue is excellent.”
Rico turned away.
I realized he was trying not to cry.
That afternoon, Leo fell asleep beside me on the living-room carpet.
I stayed still.
Rico sat across from us.
“He used to sleep anywhere,” he said quietly.
“Before?”
He nodded.
“Elena could carry him through a crowded room and he wouldn’t wake.”
I looked at Leo.
“What happened after she died?”
“He stopped sleeping.”
“Anything else?”
Rico hesitated.
“He became frightened of cars.”
That made sense.
“Loud sounds?”
“Yes.”
“Men he doesn’t know?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone reaching toward him?”
Rico nodded.
I studied Leo.
“Did anyone explain to him what happened to his mother?”
“We told him she went to heaven.”
I closed my eyes.
“What?”
Rico frowned.
“What?”
“That isn’t enough.”
“He was two.”
“He knew she disappeared.”
Rico’s face hardened.
“What was I supposed to tell a two-year-old? Your mother was shot because someone wanted your father dead?”
“No.”
My voice softened.
“But he needed something real.”
Rico looked away.
“Everyone told me he would forget.”
“Children don’t forget fear just because they don’t understand it.”
His hands tightened.
“What do I do?”
It was the first time he asked me that.
Not as an employer.
As a father.
“Start telling him the truth he can understand.”
That evening, before I left, I noticed a framed photograph in the hallway.
Elena.
Beautiful.
Dark hair.
Warm smile.
Leo was in her arms.
Beside them stood Rico.
A different Rico.
Younger somehow.
Happy.
I stared a little too long.
A voice behind me said, “She hated that picture.”
I turned.
Rico stood several feet away.
“Why?”
“She said my smile looked fake.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
His answer came instantly.
I looked back at the photograph.
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded.
Then Leo screamed upstairs.
Both of us ran.
We found him standing in the middle of his room holding a photograph.
His whole body shook.
Rico reached for him.
Leo backed away.
“No car!”
I took the photograph gently.
It showed Elena beside a black sedan.
My stomach twisted.
Leo pointed at it.
“Mommy car.”
Rico went pale.
I crouched.
“Yes.”
Leo looked between us.
“Mommy come back?”
Nobody spoke.
Rico’s face shattered.
I realized he had never answered that question honestly.
I reached for his hand.
Not Leo’s.
Rico’s.
He looked at me.
“Tell him.”
His eyes filled.
Then the most feared man in Brooklyn dropped to his knees in front of his son.
“Mommy can’t come back, Leo.”
Leo stared at him.
“Why?”
Rico swallowed.
“Because Mommy died.”
The room went silent.
Leo began crying.
Then Rico did too.
And this time, when his father opened his arms, Leo hesitated only a second before stumbling into them.
I stepped toward the door.
But Leo reached one hand back.
“Clara.”
So I stayed.
And that was how the three of us ended up sitting on the floor, crying beneath a photograph of a woman none of us could bring back.
It was the first honest night Leo had been given.
May you like
I thought that honesty would help us heal.
I did not know it was about to lead us toward the truth about Elena’s death.
