Chapter 7 - The House With No Locks
At seven the next morning, Lily announced that she would agree to moving again under three conditions: Button came with them, nobody packed her butterfly without asking, and there had to be pancakes wherever they went.
"All reasonable," Luca said.
"And no fighting," she added.
That condition settled over the hotel suite like a second ceiling. Emily looked at the bruised exhaustion beneath her daughter's eyes and wondered how many arguments Lily had heard through the walls at home. She promised that the adults would work on it. She didn't promise there would never be another frightening moment. Lily had heard enough unreliable promises for one lifetime.
Anton had traced the newest surveillance photograph to an ordinary freelance photographer hired through a third-party agency. The man insisted he believed he was documenting a celebrity custody dispute for a gossip site. His payment had passed through a company connected to the Sorrento network. Whether he understood the danger or not, the hotel was no longer a sensible place for Lily.
Luca offered the guest wing of his estate. Emily visited first with Mara, checked the rooms and exits, and insisted on keeping her own car. When they finally arrived with Lily, the estate looked nothing like a child's idea of a home. The driveway curved past stone walls and cameras. A fountain stood in front of a house large enough to require a map. Security officers watched the grounds from discreet positions.
Lily stared through the car window. "Does a dragon live here?"
"Not unless my housekeeper has been keeping secrets," Luca said.
The little girl brightened. "Can we look?"
Sofia Moretti opened the front door before he could answer. She was thirty-eight, wore a flour-dusted apron over expensive trousers, and looked remarkably little like the severe Moretti family photographs hanging in the hall. She crouched to Lily's height.
"I hear you're a very good dance teacher," she said.
"Your brother needs practice," Lily replied.
"I've been telling him that for years."
Sofia led them to the kitchen, where a disastrous first batch of pancakes sat hidden behind a bowl of fruit. Lily immediately judged the effort and volunteered to supervise the second batch. Emily watched her daughter climb onto a stool and give Sofia solemn instructions about the correct amount of chocolate chips. The relief was so sudden it hurt.
Later, while Lily explored the sunroom with Sofia, Emily found Luca standing in the doorway of an upstairs guest room. He had chosen rooms overlooking the garden instead of the driveway.
"I know what you're thinking," he said. "It looks like a fortress."
"I was thinking she hasn't smiled like that in weeks."
"She'll have freedom here. Anton will explain the safety rules without frightening her. No tracking devices on her clothes, no security men following her around the breakfast table. If there are changes, you'll hear them from me first."
"You're making this very difficult for me," she said.
"How?"
"I arrived prepared to argue."
He allowed himself a faint smile. "Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find something."
They found it that afternoon. Luca's lawyer called with the results of an expedited private paternity test offered through an accredited laboratory. He wanted to proceed immediately, arguing that confirmation would strengthen their position against Marcus. Emily refused until they agreed on how Lily would be told and how the results would be used.
"She's a child," Emily said. "Not a piece of evidence you wave at a man to hurt him."
Luca stiffened. "You think that's what I want?"
"I think you're angry. I think you're capable of making very big decisions when you're angry. I've lived with a man like that. I can't do it again."
The comparison stung more than anything she'd said since the school. Luca sent his lawyer away for an hour. When he returned, he told Emily they could meet a child psychologist before discussing the test with Lily. Any court submissions would go through Mara. Emily thanked him, but he didn't want thanks for managing to behave decently.
That evening, Sofia found him in the library studying a list of personnel with access to the hotel arrangement. Anton suspected the leak involved a former driver who still knew some of Luca's routines. Luca had hired the man eight years earlier when he was desperate and ruthless. The man's name was Rafe Bellini, and he'd recently been seen at a restaurant Sorrento controlled.
"Your past is reaching into this house," Sofia said.
"I know."
"Does Emily know enough about it to choose whether she wants to stay?"
He closed the folder. His sister had always possessed an irritating ability to identify the question he least wanted to answer. "Not yet."
"Then tell her before someone else does."
Luca found Emily in the garden. She was watching Lily turn a fallen branch into a pretend magic wand while Button served as her royal adviser. He told her about his family business: restaurants, property, shipping, and the illegal lending and gambling interests he'd inherited from his uncle. He described the years it had taken to stop pretending one side of the operation could be separated completely from the other. He did not offer himself as a reformed hero. Some activities had ended. Others remained under investigation. There were people he had hurt by participating and others he'd failed to protect by looking away.
Emily listened without speaking. Finally she asked, "Are we safer because we're here, or more at risk because we're with you?"
"Both," he answered.
It was the first time she'd heard a powerful man admit that his protection had limits. She didn't feel reassured, exactly, but she felt more able to think. She agreed to stay temporarily, subject to daily updates and the option to move to an independent protected address arranged through her attorney.
At dinner, Lily asked whether she could call Sofia Aunt Sofia. Sofia looked at Luca, who looked at Emily. Emily nodded. Lily moved on immediately to the more serious question of dessert.
For a few hours, the house stopped feeling like a fortress. Then Mara called with news that Marcus had filed an emergency petition seeking Lily's return and was preparing a public statement accusing Emily of kidnapping their daughter with the help of a violent criminal.
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"There's more," Mara said. "He attached photographs of this house. Somebody gave him your address and your security arrangements."
Luca looked through the library window. At the edge of the garden, Lily was drawing a chalk crown around Button. The house had walls. Somebody on the other side knew how to see through them.
