Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO CAME HOME
Damian did not take them to another mansion.
That was Clara’s first surprise.
The sedan left Providence through rain and headed south, away from Boston, away from the Costello estate, away from every road she expected a powerful man to choose. A second car followed behind. Clara sat in the rear seat with both twins, one sleeping against each side of her chest. Damian sat across from her, knees nearly touching hers, saying little.
Her mother was in the second car with a nurse Damian had summoned from somewhere.
Clara had refused to leave St. Anne’s until she saw her mother with her own eyes.
Margaret Hayes had looked at Damian Costello, then at the armored cars in the hospital loading area, then at Clara holding two babies beneath a borrowed coat.
“You’re going to explain this,” she had said.
“Yes, Mom.”
“Preferably before I die.”
“You’re not dying.”
“That is what everyone says right before somebody explains something terrible.”
Even Damian had almost smiled.
Now, two hours later, the convoy turned through a rusted gate marked PRIVATE MARINE RESEARCH PROPERTY.
Beyond it stood a low concrete building near the coast.
No lights.
No staff.
No marble.
Clara looked at Damian.
“What is this?”
“A place nobody connects to me.”
“That means you own it through six shell companies?”
“Eight.”
She stared.
He shrugged once.
“You asked.”
Inside, the building had been converted into a secure residence. The exterior remained ugly and industrial, but the interior held a kitchen, bedrooms, a small medical room, generators, communication equipment, and reinforced doors.
Clara noticed three men checking corners before anyone entered.
Damian noticed her noticing.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I will.”
She did not believe him.
A doctor examined the twins.
Smoke exposure was mild. No burns. No signs of injury.
Clara stood nearby throughout the examination.
Damian remained on the other side of the room.
When the doctor finished, he turned to Clara first.
“They’re very lucky.”
“Lucky?” Damian said.
The doctor corrected himself.
“They were protected quickly.”
Everyone looked at Clara.
She looked away.
An hour later, the twins were asleep in portable cribs.
Margaret was resting in the next room with a heart monitor beside her bed.
Clara finally sat at the kitchen table.
Her feet were elevated on another chair. Nora’s bandages had been replaced. Someone had found her sweatpants and a thick gray sweater.
Damian entered carrying coffee.
He placed one cup near her.
“I don’t drink coffee at midnight.”
“It’s four in the morning.”
“That is worse.”
He sat across from her.
For the first time she could study him without the mansion’s formality around them.
Damian Costello was forty, perhaps forty-one. Dark hair. Gray beginning at the temples. His face was controlled in a way Clara associated with men who had learned young that emotion was information. He wore no tie now. His shirt sleeves were rolled to his forearms.
There was a bruise near his wrist.
“You were attacked too,” Clara said.
He looked down.
“Boston meeting.”
“Was it a trap?”
“Yes.”
“How many died?”
His eyes returned to hers.
“Enough.”
She did not ask again.
Damian took a drink of coffee.
“You heard the men in the nursery say ‘Leave no Costello breathing.’”
“Yes.”
“Exact words?”
“Yes.”
“And they believed someone took the twins out the back.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“One of them guessed. The other said to burn the room.”
Damian’s hand tightened slightly around the cup.
“Did you recognize anyone?”
“No.”
“Voice?”
“No.”
“Accent?”
“Local. Maybe Boston.”
“That narrows it to three million people.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t taking notes.”
His mouth almost moved.
She realized she had spoken sharply to a man everyone else treated like a loaded gun.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.”
Clara looked away.
Damian leaned back.
“Good.”
“There’s that word again.”
“My employees are terrified of me.”
“I noticed.”
“They tell me what they think will keep them employed.”
“I need my paycheck too.”
“You risked your life for two children who aren’t yours.”
She met his eyes.
“That doesn’t mean I’m brave. It means I knew what would happen if I didn’t go upstairs.”
“It means the same thing.”
The compliment made her uncomfortable.
She changed the subject.
“Victoria.”
Damian’s face closed.
“What about her?”
“You believed me quickly.”
“I believed what I already knew.”
Clara stayed silent.
Damian looked toward the hallway where his sons slept.
“My marriage has been dead for years.”
“That’s not my business.”
“No.”
“Then why tell me?”
“Because you are involved now whether either of us likes it.”
She hated that sentence.
“Victoria loved the boys in public.”
“That is not the same as loving them.”
“Did she ever hurt them?”
“No.”
He answered instantly.
“If I believed that, she would not have been near them.”
Clara nodded.
Damian’s voice became quieter.
“She liked being photographed with them. She liked the attention. She liked what motherhood did to her reputation.”
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“What did fatherhood do to your reputation?”
He studied her.
Then he gave the first real smile she had ever seen from him.
It was brief and tired.
“Made half my competitors think I had weaknesses.”
“And the other half?”
“They already knew.”
Clara folded her arms.
“My mother is not staying here forever.”
“No.”
“I’m not staying here forever.”
His smile disappeared.
“We’ll talk about that when I know who is hunting the boys.”
“That sounds like a polite way to say I’m a prisoner.”
“If you were a prisoner, there would be guards outside your door.”
She looked toward the entrance.
“There are guards outside the building.”
“To keep people out.”
“That is a convenient distinction.”
He did not answer.
His phone rang.
One of the secure devices on the counter.
Damian picked it up.
“Costello.”
Clara watched his face change as he listened.
“When?”
A pause.
“Alive?”
Another pause.
“Bring him.”
He ended the call.
“Who?”
“Briggs.”
Clara sat straighter.
“They found him?”
“Washed onto a private dock two miles from the marina.”
“Washed?”
“Someone shot him and threw him into the water.”
“Is he alive?”
“Barely.”
Thirty minutes later, Briggs arrived on a stretcher.
The medical room filled with activity.
Clara stayed in the hallway.
Damian went inside.
She heard no shouting.
No interrogation.
Only the doctor giving orders.
After twenty minutes, Damian returned.
“He wants to see you.”
“Me?”
“He keeps asking for the maid.”
Clara entered.
Briggs looked twenty years older than he had in the hallway at the mansion.
His skin was gray.
A bandage covered his shoulder.
He saw Clara and started crying.
She had never seen a Costello guard cry.
“The boys?”
“Safe.”
His eyes closed.
“Thank God.”
“Victoria?”
Briggs swallowed.
“She lied.”
Damian stood near the wall.
Briggs looked toward him but could not hold his gaze.
“Mrs. Costello had it planned. The boat. The bag. Vale.”
Clara’s stomach dropped.
Damian did not move.
“Say everything,” he said.
Briggs breathed carefully.
“She told me three days ago there might be trouble during your Boston trip. Said you had enemies. Told me if anything happened, I was to take her to the east passage.”
“You didn’t ask how she knew?”
“I did. She said you told her.”
Damian’s face hardened.
“She had my voice authorization?”
Briggs nodded.
“Recording, maybe. I don’t know.”
Clara remembered modern security systems throughout the estate. Damian’s voice could unlock restricted routes.
Briggs continued.
“At the dock, two men were waiting. Not ours. I drew my weapon. Victoria told me not to.”
“What men?”
“Vale’s.”
“And then?”
“She got on the boat. One of them shot me.”
Briggs looked at Clara.
“I fell into the water. Before the boat left, I heard her ask if the nursery was done.”
Clara felt sick.
Damian’s voice was almost too quiet.
“Done?”
Briggs’s eyes filled again.
“She asked if the children were dead.”
The room went silent.
Even the doctor stopped moving for half a second.
Clara looked at Damian.
He had gone pale.
Not angry.
Not yet.
Something deeper.
A father hearing that the mother of his children had knowingly participated in an attack meant to kill them.
Briggs whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Damian walked to the bed.
Briggs flinched.
Damian placed one hand on his uninjured shoulder.
“You tried to get to them.”
“Yes.”
“You told her to go back.”
“Yes.”
“Then you did your job.”
Briggs stared at him.
Damian stepped away.
Outside the room, Clara followed.
“What happens now?”
“I find Victoria.”
“And Vale.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
Damian stopped.
His eyes were empty.
“You don’t want to know.”
“I think I do.”
“No, Clara.”
His voice did not rise.
“That part of my world is exactly why you should never have been forced into this.”
She looked at him.
“But I was.”
He rubbed a hand across his face.
For a moment, he did not look like a mafia boss.
He looked like a man whose house had burned while his marriage died inside it.
Then a baby cried.
Both of them turned.
Oliver.
Clara started toward the nursery.
Damian moved too.
They reached the door at the same time.
Clara stopped.
“So what now?”
Damian looked through the doorway at his son.
“Now I learn how to keep them alive.”
“That isn’t the same as raising them.”
His eyes moved to her.
“No.”
“You have nannies.”
“Three resigned after the attack.”
“Smart women.”
“Apparently.”
Clara stepped into the room and lifted Oliver.
The baby quieted against her almost instantly.
Damian watched.
“You know him.”
“I’ve worked in your house since before they were born.”
“Victoria changed staff around them every few weeks.”
“She didn’t change me.”
“No.”
Something in his voice made her look up.
Damian stood in the doorway, watching Oliver grip Clara’s sweater.
“What?”
He hesitated.
“I need you to stay.”
Clara’s chest tightened.
“For how long?”
“Until they’re safe.”
“That could mean anything.”
“I’ll double your salary.”
“This isn’t about money.”
“Triple.”
“You really don’t listen when people speak to you, do you?”
He almost smiled again.
Then he became serious.
“They know you took the boys. Even if you leave, you remain a target.”
“Then protect me somewhere else.”
“I can.”
“Good.”
“I won’t.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The part where you stop asking.”
Damian entered the room slowly.
Oliver was half asleep between them.
“I am asking.”
“And if I say no?”
His expression changed.
Not threatening.
Afraid.
It was so unexpected she nearly missed it.
“If you say no,” he said, “I’ll keep you and your mother safe somewhere else.”
Clara waited.
“But?”
“But I am asking you not to.”
“Why?”
Damian looked at his son.
“Because when I walked into that hospital loading dock, my children looked at you before they looked at me.”
The words hurt in a way she did not understand.
He continued.
“They know your voice. Your hands. Your heartbeat.”
Clara looked down at Oliver.
“That’s because I was there.”
“Yes.”
“And you weren’t.”
The truth landed hard.
Damian accepted it.
“I know.”
For the first time, Clara saw what power could not repair.
Time.
Missing nights.
Delegated affection.
A father who had hired an army to protect his sons but had not been home enough for them to know the sound of his footsteps.
Damian looked toward Owen’s crib.
“I can change that.”
Clara said nothing.
“I’m not asking you to raise my children for me.”
“Then what are you asking?”
“To help me become someone they’re not afraid of.”
She studied him.
“That is not a maid’s job.”
“No.”
“What is the salary for teaching a mafia boss how to hold his own babies?”
He smiled tiredly.
“Apparently triple.”
Clara almost laughed.
Almost.
Then Damian’s phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
The warmth disappeared from his face.
“What is it?”
“A message from Victoria.”
Clara’s arms tightened around Oliver.
Damian showed her the screen.
One sentence.
GIVE ME MY CHILDREN, OR CLARA HAYES LOSES HER MOTHER.
Clara stopped breathing.
Then a second message arrived.
A photograph.
Margaret’s empty bed.
Clara turned toward the hallway.
The nurse came running.
“Mr. Costello—”
Damian was already moving.
“What happened?”
“The power went out in Mrs. Hayes’s room for less than thirty seconds.”
Clara shoved Oliver into Damian’s arms and ran.
Her mother’s room was empty.
The window was open.
May you like
On the pillow lay a single diamond earring.
Victoria’s.
