Chapter 2 - The Sound Behind the Door
Word count: ~1,500 words
Dominic Moretti did not move.
For three agonizing seconds, time seemed to stretch thin across the stainless steel counters. Anna’s breath caught in her lungs, her mind racing through every worst-case scenario. She imagined being thrown out onto the freezing Boston streets without a reference, blacklisted from every wealthy household in the tri-state area, unable to pay her mother’s mounting medical bills. She braced herself for the sudden, terrifying explosion of rage that everyone in the city whispered was never far beneath Moretti’s calm exterior.
Instead, Dominic slowly lowered his coffee mug to the counter.
His dark, piercing eyes—eyes that usually looked at corporate rivals and politicians like they were insects under a microscope—shifted slowly from Lily to his own son, Leo.
Leo wasn't crying. He wasn't retreating into the silent, catatonic shell his therapists had spent years trying to crack. For the first time in four years—since the rainy night a twisted metal wreck had stolen his mother from the passenger seat—Leo was smiling. A wide, toothy grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
“Ducks,” Leo repeated clearly, his voice small and hoarse from disuse. He pointed a soapy finger at Dominic’s chest. “You… no ducks on your shirt.”
Dominic looked down at his crisp, expensive charcoal dress shirt, now splashed with suds and water. A muscle ticked sharply along his jawline.
Anna lunged forward, her hands trembling as she scooped Lily up into her arms, burying the little girl's head against her shoulder to shield her.
“I am begging you, Mr. Moretti, please,” Anna stammered, her voice shaking violently. “She’s only three. She doesn't understand boundaries, she doesn't know—I’ll pack our things right now, just please don't—we’ll leave immediately.”
Dominic didn't look at Anna. His gaze remained locked on his son, who was now reaching out a soapy hand, trying to grab the lapel of his father’s jacket.
For a terrifying moment, Dominic raised his large hand. Anna flinched instinctively, stepping back to shield Lily with her own body.
But Dominic didn't strike. He simply reached out and gently plucked a stray soap bubble off his son’s forehead.
“Get him out of the water, Anna,” Dominic said, his deep, gravelly voice carrying an chilling, unreadable weight. “And clean this kitchen.”
Before Anna could utter another word, Dominic turned on his heel. His broad shoulders were rigid under his ruined shirt as he walked out of the kitchen, down the long hallway, and into his private study.
The heavy oak door swung shut behind him.
A heavy, suffocating silence settled back over the estate.
Anna spent the next hour scrubbing the kitchen floor on her hands and knees, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Lily sat quietly in the corner, coloring with her crayons as if she hadn’t just single-handedly disrupted the most dangerous household in Massachusetts.
As Anna carried the cleaning bucket down the secondary service hall toward the supply closet, she passed near the back of the east wing, right outside the heavy double doors of Dominic Moretti’s private study.
The house was dead quiet. The staff stayed far away from that hallway when Moretti was inside.
Then, she heard it.
It was a sound that didn't belong in this fortress of stone and power. It was a muffled, ragged hitch of breath, followed by the unmistakable sound of a grown man breaking down.
Dominic Moretti—the man who made grown politicians sweat, the ghost who owned the city’s shipping lanes—was locked behind his study door, weeping where no one was supposed to hear.
Anna froze against the wall, her knuckles whitening around the handle of the bucket.
She heard him mutter something through the thick oak, a broken sentence choked by raw, agonizing grief. She couldn't catch all the words, but one distinct name slipped through the wood grain like a knife blade.
It was a name Anna hadn't heard spoken aloud in over a decade.
May you like
A name tied to her own family’s darkest, most heavily buried history.
It was her mother’s name.
