Chapter 2 - The House of Lies
The air in the kitchen turned to pure ice.
"Grace," I said, my voice dropping into the low, deadly register I used when ordering a hit. "Take the girls up to the nursery. Lock the door from the inside. Do not open it for anyone except me. If you hear gunfire, stay down."
Grace didn't argue. She saw the lethal shift in my eyes. She gathered Olivia, Sophie, and Nora into her arms, whispering soft reassurances into their hair as she ushered them out through the side servant stairs. Before she vanished, Sophie looked back at me over Grace’s shoulder. Her big brown eyes—so much like Isabelle's—were filled with a terrifying message: Be careful, Daddy.
I pulled the Colt .45 from beneath my coat, pulling the slide back to chamber a round. The sharp clack-clack echoed through the massive, quiet house.
Fourteen months of grief melted into pure, unfiltered rage. Someone had bypassed my security, my guards, my cameras, and moved freely through the halls where my children slept. Worse, my daughters hadn't been mute out of pure trauma; they had been mute out of absolute terror. The killer had threatened them into silence.
I walked silently through the mansion, checking room by room.
The study. Empty. The formal dining room. Empty. The master suite. Empty.
When I reached the basement control room, I found my head of security, Frank Mercer, sitting in front of twelve monitor screens showing live feeds of the estate's perimeter. Frank had been with my family for fifteen years. He was a former Marine, a man I trusted with my life and the lives of my children.
"Dominic?" Frank turned in his leather chair, surprised to see me home so early. He noticed the weapon in my hand and immediately reached for his own sidearm. "What's wrong? Did someone follow you from Brooklyn?"
"Turn off the perimeter feeds, Frank," I said, stepping into the room and closing the heavy steel door behind me.
Frank frowned, his brow furrowing. "Dominic, what are you talking about? What happened?"
"My daughters spoke today," I said, keeping my firearm lowered at my side, my finger resting lightly along the trigger guard.
A flash of something crossed Frank's eyes—so fast a normal man would have missed it. Surprise? Relief? Or panic?
"They spoke?" Frank said, forcing a smile. "Boss, that's incredible news! What did they say?"
"They said the man who murdered Isabelle is inside this house."
Frank froze. The silence in the small control room became suffocating. The hum of the computer fans sounded like a jet engine.
"Dominic... they're traumatized kids," Frank said carefully, keeping his hands visible on his armrests. "They've been through hell. They might be seeing shadows, misinterpreting things. I've personally swept this estate every morning. Nobody gets in here without my code."
"Exactly," I murmured, raising the pistol and aiming it directly at the center of his forehead. "Nobody gets in without your code."
Frank didn't flinch. He was too seasoned for that. "Are you out of your mind, Dom? You think I had something to do with Isabelle's death? I loved her like a sister! I've taken bullets for you!"
"Which is why you're still breathing," I replied, my hand steady as rock. "Give me your phone and your weapon. Slowly. Two fingers."
Frank hesitated, then reached into his jacket, pulling out his sig sauer and sliding it across the desk along with his encrypted cell phone. "You're making a massive mistake, Dominic. The real threat is out there, manipulating you."
"We'll find out," I said. I picked up his phone and backed toward the door. "You're staying in this room until my secondary crew arrives from the city to check every inch of your logs."
I locked Frank inside the reinforced control room, typing the master lock code into the keypad outside.
My mind was spinning. If Frank was involved, the entire perimeter was compromised. But something felt off. Frank’s reaction wasn't that of a killer caught in a trap—it was the reaction of a man who knew something else was coming.
I hurried back upstairs toward the residential wing, my heart hammering. I needed to get Grace and the girls out of the estate immediately. I reached the nursery hallway, the heavy crimson carpet deadening my footsteps.
As I approached the nursery door, I noticed a faint, dark smudge on the brass doorknob.
Fresh blood.
I lunged forward, grabbing the handle. It turned uselessly. The lock had been picked from the outside.
I kicked the door open with a violent burst of force. "GRACE!"
The nursery was trashed. Toys were scattered across the floor, lamps were overturned, and a chair was broken into pieces.
Grace was slumped against the far wall, a line of blood trickling from her temple down her pale cheek. She was conscious, clutching her head, her eyes wide with terror.
"Grace! Where are the girls?" I shouted, kneeling beside her, checking her pulse.
"They... they didn't come from the front," Grace gasped, her breathing ragged as she pointed toward the small walk-in closet in the corner of the room. "A man... he came through the old laundry chute access inside the closet. He had a suppressed weapon. He took Olivia and Sophie... but I hid Nora under the bed..."
From beneath the ruffled skirt of the crib, a tiny, terrified sob broke through the quiet.
I reached down, pulling Nora out into my arms. She buried her face into my chest, her small hands clutching my bloody shirt with desperate strength.
"Daddy," she whimpered, her voice tiny and broken. "The dark man took them."
The dark man.
Grace grabbed my sleeve, her eyes pleading. "Mr. Romano, he had a radio. I heard him say a name before he struck me."
"What name?" I snarled, my blood running cold.
"He said... 'Tell the Council the package is secure. The Boss cleared the eastern gate.'"
The Council. The five major crime families that governed the New York underworld. The very men I had sat down with for dinner three nights ago.
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And the man who cleared the eastern gate wasn't Frank Mercer.
It was my brother-in-law, Julian—Isabelle's own brother, who oversaw our family's security contracts and private access routes.
