Chapter 3 - Back to the House of BloodI returned to the Romano estate in a wheelchair.
That alone should have been humiliating enough.
But Victor made it worse by sending six SUVs, twelve armed guards, two nurses, one doctor, and a decoy ambulance that drove in the opposite direction like I was some foreign diplomat instead of the woman who had once scrubbed toothpaste from his guest bathroom mirrors.
The front gates had been rebuilt in black steel.
The lawn still bore the scars of tire tracks beneath fresh sod. The shattered sunroom windows had been boarded up from the inside, but I could see the damage behind the plywood. Bullet holes in stone. Cracked planters. A dark stain near the place where I had fallen.
My body remembered before my mind did.
I stopped breathing.
Victor noticed.
Of course he noticed. The man noticed everything except apparently human emotion unless it was bleeding directly in front of him.
He stepped beside my wheelchair as the guards unloaded bags.
“We can enter through the east wing,” he said.
“No.”
“You do not need to see it.”
“I do.”
His eyes moved over my face. “Why?”
“Because if I don’t look at it now, I’ll be afraid of it forever.”
For once, he did not argue.
He took the handles of my wheelchair himself.
The guards pretended not to stare.
Inside, the house smelled different. Less lemon polish, more smoke and fresh paint. The staff lined the foyer like mourners at a funeral. Cooks, cleaners, drivers, guards, gardeners, people I had worked beside for months without ever really knowing because in the Romano estate, friendship was another liability.
Their eyes went to my bandaged shoulder.
Then to the ring on my finger.
I had chosen to wear it that morning.
Not because I had accepted the marriage.
Because the hospital had received another note.
This one was tucked beneath Nathan’s dinner tray.
SHE CAN’T HIDE BEHIND HIM.
Nathan had tried to laugh it off when I called him. He was always doing that. Laughing at pain like it made him less expensive. Less frightening. Less real.
But I heard his breathing shake.
So I put on Victor’s ring.
It was heavier than I expected.
“Mrs. Romano,” the head housekeeper said.
My stomach turned.
Her name was Agnes. Sixty years old, iron-gray hair, thin lips, and the emotional warmth of a locked freezer. She had trained me when the agency first sent me here.
Cold water on blood.
White vinegar on marble.
Never look the men in the eyes.
Never enter the west hallway after ten.
Never speak to the child unless spoken to first.
Now she dipped her head to me like I had not worn a gray uniform under her command two weeks ago.
“Clara is fine,” I said.
Her mouth tightened. “Of course.”
Victor’s hand rested on the back of my chair. “No. It isn’t.”
Agnes looked up.
Victor’s voice was calm. “You will address my wife as Mrs. Romano in front of staff and guests. In private, you will address her however she permits.”
The foyer became so quiet I could hear the fountain outside.
Agnes lowered her eyes. “Yes, sir.”
I hated how everyone looked at me then.
Some with fear.
Some with resentment.
Some with calculation.
To them, I had not saved a child.
I had crossed an invisible line.
A maid could be brave. A maid could be pitied. A maid could even be rewarded.
But a maid was not supposed to become mistress of the house.
Victor wheeled me toward the grand staircase.
“I can walk,” I said.
“No, you can’t.”
“I can limp dramatically.”
“You can obey your doctor.”
“I didn’t marry you so you could boss me around.”
“You married me because an assassin tried to poison you.”
“Temporary arrangement,” I reminded him.
“Temporary wives still use elevators.”
There was an elevator hidden behind a paneled wall near the library. I had cleaned that hallway for eight months and never known it existed. That irritated me more than it should have.
Victor brought me to the second floor, past oil paintings and locked doors, to a suite overlooking the gardens.
It was not the master bedroom.
I noticed.
He noticed me noticing.
“You asked for your own room,” he said.
“I did.”
“This is yours.”
The room was soft blue and cream, with tall windows, a fireplace, shelves full of books, and a bathroom bigger than the apartment Nathan and I had grown up in. Fresh clothes waited in the wardrobe. Not uniforms. Dresses, sweaters, jeans, pajamas, slippers. All in my sizes.
I touched the sleeve of a green dress.
“Who bought these?”
“Someone who is still alive because he did not choose anything insulting.”
I looked at him. “You assigned a man to buy me underwear?”
Victor looked pained. “A woman handled personal items.”
“Good. I was about to throw myself out the window.”
His eyes flicked to the window. “They don’t open more than four inches.”
“Romantic.”
“It’s bulletproof glass.”
“Even more romantic.”
A sound came from the doorway.
Leo stood there in pajamas even though it was three in the afternoon. His hair stuck up on one side. He looked thinner than before, or maybe fear had made him smaller.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
My heart squeezed. “Always.”
Victor moved aside.
Leo walked carefully to my wheelchair, holding something behind his back.
“I made you this.”
He handed me a drawing.
The paper showed three stick figures. One tall man in black. One smaller woman in green. One little boy holding both their hands.
Over our heads, he had drawn a crooked yellow sun.
At the bottom, in uneven letters, he had written:
NO BULLETS TODAY.
My throat closed.
Victor looked away.
I pressed the paper to my chest. “This is the best thing anyone has ever given me.”
Leo climbed onto the footstool near my chair. “Do you like your room?”
“It’s nicer than my old one.”
“You had a room here?”
“In the staff wing.”
He frowned. “I thought you went home every night.”
“Sometimes.”
“Where?”
“Small apartment. Bad radiator. Loud neighbors. Excellent taco truck downstairs.”
He looked fascinated. “Can we go?”
Victor said, “No.”
Leo and I both looked at him.
Victor added, “Not now.”
Leo leaned closer and whispered, “Daddy says no to everything.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Victor’s phone rang.
He checked the screen, and the temperature in the room dropped.
“I have to take this.”
Leo stiffened. “Are bad men coming?”
“No,” Victor said, too quickly.
Leo did not believe him.
Neither did I.
Victor crouched beside his son. “Marco is outside. Clara’s nurses are down the hall. I will be in my office.”
“Can I stay here?”
Victor looked at me.
I nodded.
“Stay,” he said.
When Victor left, Leo curled into the armchair by the fireplace while I settled into bed with the nurse’s help. He did not talk much. He only watched the windows, the door, the shadows.
After the nurse left, I said, “Do you want to tell me about the nightmares?”
Leo’s eyes snapped to mine.
“I don’t have nightmares.”
“Okay.”
“I just don’t sleep.”
“Ah. Completely different.”
He looked down.
I waited.
Kids tell the truth when adults stop trying to drag it out of them.
After a while, he whispered, “In the dream, I’m under you again.”
My chest tightened.
“But this time when Daddy pulls me out, you don’t wake up.”
I swallowed. “That sounds scary.”
“And then Mommy is there.”
I went still.
“What does she say?”
His small hands twisted together. “She says I forgot something.”
“What did you forget?”
“I don’t know.”
The door opened before I could answer.
Agnes entered with a tray.
Tea. Toast. Soup.
Her eyes moved to Leo, and something flickered across her face.
Not affection.
Alarm.
“You should be in your room, Master Leo.”
“He’s fine,” I said.
Agnes set the tray down too hard. “Mr. Romano prefers routines.”
“Mrs. Romano prefers not frightening children.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Agnes turned slowly.
For one second, the old hierarchy returned. I was a maid under her authority, waiting for correction.
Then her eyes dropped to the ring.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”
She left.
Leo watched the door after she closed it.
“What is it?” I asked.
He hesitated.
“Leo.”
“I don’t like her.”
“Agnes?”
He nodded.
“Why not?”
His voice fell so low I almost missed it.
“She used to take my drawings.”
A strange unease moved through me.
“What drawings?”
“The ones I made after Mommy died.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, but his eyes stayed on the door. “She said Daddy shouldn’t see ugly things.”
My fingers tightened around the blanket.
“What did you draw, Leo?”
He looked toward the fireplace.
“The man by the car.”
Every injury in my body seemed to pulse at once.
“What man?”
Leo’s face went pale, as if he knew he had said something dangerous.
“The night Mommy died,” he whispered. “I saw a man by the garage before the boom.”
I could barely breathe.
“Did you tell your father?”
He shook his head. “Agnes said I was confused.”
The room felt suddenly full of hidden doors.
“Leo,” I said carefully, “do you remember what the man looked like?”
He slid off the chair and came to my bedside.
Then he took the hospital pen from my tray and turned over his drawing of the three of us under the sun.
On the back, with the intense concentration of a child trying to pull a nightmare into the light, he drew a rough shape.
A hand.
And on the hand, near the thumb, he drew a small black flower.
“What is that?” I whispered.
Leo looked at me.
“A rose,” he said. “The man had a black rose on his hand.”
That evening, when Victor came back, he found me sitting upright despite the pain, Leo’s drawing in my lap.
I held it out.
“Your son saw someone the night your wife died.”
Victor’s face changed.
“What?”
“And Agnes told him not to tell you.”
For a second, Victor did not move.
Then he looked at the drawing.
At the black rose.
The blood drained from his face.
“Victor?” I whispered.
His voice came out deadly quiet.
“Only one family in Chicago marks their soldiers with a black rose.”
“Who?”
May you like
He looked toward the door Agnes had used.
“The Bellandis.”
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