Chapter 3

Sofia flinched from my touch. "Mama, I fell at the estate. It was my fault, Mama..."

Her whole body trembled as she kept apologizing.

My heart ached. I pulled her onto my lap and kissed her forehead again and again. "You didn't do anything wrong. Mama didn't take good care of you. I'll stay with you from now on and never let you get hurt again."

Away so often, moving between sit-downs and territory that never slept, I hadn't even noticed something was wrong with my own blood. Now I saw it plainly. My once lively, fearless little girl, the true heir to everything the Vellano name commanded, had become timid and flinching.

The gash on her head wasn't serious, thank God. That evening the clinic doctor said she could be discharged, that the dressing would only need changing later. He said it fast, eyes down, the way every man on the Family's payroll spoke to me now.

I took my daughter home, back behind the estate gates where the soldiers straightened as our car rolled through. Dinner was already laid out.

Every dish on the table was something my daughter loved.

Rosaria set the last plate down, smiling sweetly, a dish towel in her hands. "Little Gia Sofia is always so obedient and sensible, and never fussy about her food. Such a good child."

Yet Sofia, sitting close against my side, took no comfort in the praise. In the presence of the gentle-seeming old woman who had kept this house for years, a flicker of fear shone in her eyes.

I quietly helped my daughter finish her dinner, then took her up to our room and into the bathroom.

When I lowered her into the bath, just as I feared, I found them. Pinch marks, fresh and old, scattered across her body. Not only on her arms.

"I'm not hurt... I'll be more careful next time," she murmured, curling in on herself as if she expected me to scold her. My heart ached even more.

After her bath I gave her the medication. That was when my husband called.

"Cara, Ferraro won't let me leave the table. He insists I sit in on the cards. Looks like I'll be up all night."

"Bellandi said you took Sofia home. Is she all right? I can't be with you tonight, but I'll make it up to you tomorrow."

I stared out at the dark grounds below, the perimeter lights, a soldier moving slow along the wall. "Mm," I said, calm. "You handle that first."

Then I hung up.

The housekeeper had come to us through Vincent.

When Vincent was young, both his parents were gone. He told me Rosaria had paid his way, put him through school, made him the man he became. So when he asked me to bring her into our house to look after our daughter, I didn't refuse. I gave Rosaria wages far above what the position was worth, a gesture of thanks for what she had once done for my husband.

But it wasn't long before I understood Rosaria was not what I had imagined.

She quietly kept back half of the king crab and salmon I had flown in for my daughter. When I found out, she muttered that a girl as small as Sofia couldn't possibly eat that much.

She grumbled about the tailored dresses I had made for my daughter, saying girls dressed so finely and spoiled like that would find no man wanting them later.

She even said, "She'll be married off anyway. Why waste the money?"

Her words unsettled me, and still I kept her, out of gratitude for what she had done for Vincent.

Now I regretted it to the bone.

After I had washed my daughter and put her down, I leaned against the headboard and read her a fairy tale.

Once she was asleep, my most trusted Capo came in without a sound, carrying the surveillance from the day of the ambush on the heir's convoy.

When I looked at the footage on the tablet, I couldn't believe my eyes.

A chill ran straight through my heart.