Chapter 3 - THE LITTLE GIRL WHO KEPT ASKING FOR HOME
Elena later told me Mia never cried for more than two minutes at a time.
Not because she wasn’t afraid.
Because she was watching her mother.
They had been taken to the second floor of an abandoned marine warehouse near Erie Basin.
Windows painted black.
One mattress.
One metal chair.
A bathroom without a door.
Two guards outside.
Elena woke with blood dried near her temple.
Mia was curled beside her.
“Mommy?”
Elena opened her eyes.
“I’m here.”
Mia immediately climbed onto her chest.
“They took Miss Rose.”
“I know.”
“Dominic will find her.”
The certainty hurt more than fear.
Elena held her tighter.
“I’m sure he will.”
“And us?”
Elena swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Because he’s scary?”
Despite everything, Elena almost laughed.
“Yes.”
Mia nodded.
“Good.”
Three months earlier, Elena would have corrected her.
Dominic is not for you to worry about.
Mr. Moretti is your employer.
Do not wander into his office.
Do not touch his piano.
Do not ask him why he never smiles.
Mia had ignored every rule.
The first week Elena worked at my home, Mia discovered the library.
The second, the kitchen.
The third, me.
By month two, she had begun saying, “Dominic is grumpy,” directly to my face.
Nobody else in New York would have survived the experiment.
I bought her strawberry ice cream afterward.
That was when Elena realized she had a problem.
Not because Mia liked me.
Because I liked her back.
In the warehouse, Elena counted everything.
Two guards.
One camera.
Three meals delivered from outside.
Train sounds twice an hour.
Foghorns.
Water dripping behind the east wall.
She listened.
Watched.
Waited.
A guard entered around nine in the morning.
“Stand up.”
Elena held Mia closer.
“For what?”
“Phone call.”
“With whom?”
He smiled.
“Your boyfriend.”
“He is not my boyfriend.”
The guard laughed.
“Might want to tell him.”
They were taken downstairs.
Vincent Colombo stood beside a folding table.
He was fifty-two.
Gray at the temples.
Expensive coat.
No need to carry his own gun because other men carried five for him.
Mia stared.
Vincent looked down.
“So this is the famous child.”
Elena stepped in front of her.
“She is three.”
“I can count.”
“Then act like it.”
One guard grabbed Elena’s arm.
Mia screamed.
“Mama!”
Vincent raised a hand.
The guard released her.
He watched Elena with mild interest.
“I see the appeal.”
She stared back.
“You don’t know anything about Dominic.”
Vincent smiled.
“Neither did you until three months ago.”
“I know enough.”
“That he kills men?”
Mia looked up.
Elena’s face hardened.
“Not in front of her.”
Vincent crouched.
Mia immediately moved behind Elena’s dress.
“Hello, Mia.”
She said nothing.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Vincent stood.
“You’re smarter than most adults.”
He handed Elena a phone.
“Say hello.”
Dominic answered.
One word.
“Elena.”
She closed her eyes.
Hearing his voice nearly broke her.
“We’re alive.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
She almost smiled.
“Headache.”
“Mia?”
“She’s scared.”
Mia tugged the phone.
Elena hesitated.
Vincent nodded.
Mia took it.
“Dominic?”
His voice changed immediately.
“I’m here, piccola.”
“Miss Rose is gone.”
“I have her.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Of course he did.
Mia’s shoulders lowered for the first time since the kidnapping.
“You found her?”
“Yes.”
“Is Mama there?”
Dominic went silent for half a second.
That half second told Elena how afraid he was.
Then Vincent took the phone.
The call ended soon after.
Mia whispered, “He’s coming.”
Vincent heard.
He smiled.
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
Elena stared.
“You don’t understand him.”
“No?”
“You think he’ll pay.”
“He will.”
“No.”
Vincent’s smile thinned.
“He’ll attack.”
That was what frightened Elena too.
Not because Dominic couldn’t survive.
Because he might.
And surviving could turn him into the version of himself he had spent years pretending not to be.
Vincent walked toward the door.
Elena called after him.
“What happens if he gives you Red Hook?”
Vincent stopped.
“You go home.”
She didn’t believe him.
“What about Mia?”
“Home.”
“Both of us?”
He turned.
“Yes.”
Elena studied his face.
“You’re lying.”
His expression changed.
Small.
Enough.
After he left, Elena sat on the mattress.
Mia crawled into her lap.
“Are we going home?”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“I want piano.”
Elena’s throat tightened.
The piano.
The old Steinway in Dominic’s ballroom.
Mia had become obsessed with it.
One key became two.
Then three.
Eventually she started inventing songs with no rhythm at all.
Dominic would stand in the doorway pretending not to listen.
One evening Elena caught him touching the dust cover after Mia left.
“You could play.”
“I don’t.”
“Can’t?”
His eyes had turned cold.
“Don’t.”
Later Marco told her Dominic’s younger sister, Francesca, used to play.
She died at fourteen.
Car bomb meant for Dominic’s father.
The piano had gone silent after.
Until Mia.
“I want Dominic’s house,” Mia whispered.
Elena kissed her hair.
“Me too.”
That realization frightened her.
She had come to the Moretti estate because the salary doubled what she could earn elsewhere.
Her husband, Lucas, had died in a construction accident when Mia was eight months old.
Debt followed.
Rent.
Childcare.
Hospital bills.
Dominic was supposed to be a job.
Then he became the man who repaired Mia’s broken music box himself because she cried when someone suggested throwing it away.
The man who knew Elena skipped dinner when she worked late and began leaving covered plates in the kitchen without admitting they were for her.
The man who hated children and somehow learned which stuffed animal needed to sleep on Mia’s left side.
Family, he had said in the rain.
Elena did not hear it.
But later she would.
At noon, a different guard delivered food.
Young.
Nervous.
Elena noticed his hands.
Shaking.
“You’re new.”
He looked at her.
“Eat.”
“Vincent doesn’t trust you.”
“Shut up.”
“Neither does whoever paid you.”
His eyes flashed.
Good.
“You’re not Colombo.”
He stepped closer.
“I said shut up.”
Elena lowered her voice.
“You’re Moretti.”
His face gave him away.
The betrayal was inside the warehouse too.
“Who sent you?”
He grabbed her jaw.
Mia started crying.
Elena slapped his hand away.
“Don’t touch me.”
He looked toward the camera.
Then whispered.
“Vittorio Moretti.”
Elena froze.
She knew the name.
Dominic’s uncle.
“Why?”
The guard swallowed.
“Because you were supposed to disappear.”
Her stomach turned cold.
“After the ransom?”
He looked away.
“Mia too?”
Silence.
Elena stood.
The guard stepped back.
“Answer me.”
His eyes filled with something close to shame.
“I was told there would be no child.”
“But now there is.”
He said nothing.
Elena understood.
Vincent wanted territory.
Vittorio wanted Dominic unchanged.
And Mia—
Mia was the complication neither man intended to leave alive.
Elena looked at her daughter.
Three years old.
Barely tall enough to reach a doorknob.
Singing invented songs on a dead girl’s piano.
She crouched.
“Mia.”
“Yes?”
“Remember hide-and-seek?”
The little girl nodded.
“When I say bluebird, you hide.”
“Where?”
Elena looked at the loose ventilation panel behind the mattress.
“Wherever Mommy tells you.”
The guard stared.
“What are you doing?”
Elena looked directly at him.
“Getting my daughter home.”
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And for the first time since the taxi door opened outside Little Meadows, Elena stopped waiting for Dominic to save them.
She began planning to save Mia herself.
