Chapter 4 - The Shadow of the Underworld
I stayed. But my role in the mansion shifted completely. I no longer held a broom or dusted the endless shelves of the Russo estate. My only job was to be the bridge between three little girls and the world they had abandoned.
By the second month, the silence in the house didn't feel like a punishment anymore; it felt like a rehearsal.
Monday: Chloe asked for milk out loud, her voice a bit raspy but clear.
Wednesday: Mia sang three full lines of the butterfly song while drawing at the kitchen table.
Friday: Ava held her father’s hand for five seconds before running off to play.
Dominic started coming home earlier. He would sit in the corner of the playroom, a massive, lethal shadow trying to blend into a world of pink blocks and fairy tales. He didn't speak much, terrified of shattering the fragile progress, but his eyes never left his daughters. Or me.
But peace in Dominic Russo's world was always an illusion.
It happened on a rainy Thursday afternoon. The girls were napping upstairs, and I was in the library, looking for a book of fairy tales, when the front doors of the mansion were thrown open with a violent thud.
"Dominic!" a frantic voice shouted through the foyer.
I peeked through the library doors and saw Matteo, Dominic’s underboss and closest confidant, dripping wet and breathing heavily. Dominic stepped out of his study, his hand instinctively resting on the holster beneath his jacket.
"What is it, Matteo?" Dominic asked, his voice dead and cold.
"The Moretti family," Matteo panted, wiping rain and sweat from his forehead. "They know about the girls. They know they're talking again. They're saying you're getting soft, Dominic. They think the nanny you brought in is a vulnerability. They're planning to strike the house."
My breath hitched in my throat. A vulnerability. They were talking about me.
"Let them try," Dominic said, a terrifying, dark smile spreading across his face. "I buried the father. I have no problem burying the sons."
"It's not just a threat, boss," Matteo whispered, stepping closer. "They have someone on the inside. Someone leaked the girls' schedule. They know when the security detail rotates."
Dominic’s posture went completely rigid. The air in the foyer turned toxic. "Find them, Matteo. Lock down the perimeter. No one enters or leaves this estate without my direct authorization."
As Matteo hurried out, Dominic turned around slowly, his gaze locking onto the library door where I stood trembling. He walked over, pushing the door open, his eyes burning with a mixture of fury and a strange, desperate protectiveness.
"You heard," he stated.
May you like
"They're just children, Dominic," I whispered, tears stinging my eyes. "They just started talking. You can't let them go through that again."
"I won't," Dominic said, stepping into my space, his hands coming up to grip my shoulders. His touch was firm, but he wasn't hurting me. He was grounding himself. "I will burn this entire city to the ground before a single hair on their heads is touched. And that includes you, Clara."
