“Probably.”
Nico pointed at the ruined apple.
“Does she throw better than me?”
“Much better.
She also cleans up what she throws.”
Tommy finally asked the question the others had been avoiding.
“If she comes, do you leave us?”
Serena set down the pen.
“No.”
Tommy studied her face.
“You cannot know that.”
He was right.
Serena could not promise that nothing would ever change.
She could not promise illness would never come, courts would never interfere, or danger would never reach the Rinaldi estate.
The boys had probably heard too many permanent promises from adults who vanished.
So she gave him something more honest.
“I cannot promise I will stay forever,” she said.
“I can promise I will never disappear without telling you the truth.”
Tommy looked at his father.
Victor’s face had gone still.
“When Mama died,” Tommy said, “nobody told us she was not coming back.”
Marco kicked his brother beneath the table.
Tommy did not stop.
“They said she was resting.
Then they said she was away.
Then new women came and said they would take care of us.
They always left.”
Victor lowered his eyes.
For all his influence, he had not understood what his sons had built from those disappearances.
Their cruelty was not random.
Every shattered glass, thrown apple, and ruined dinner asked the same question: Would this person leave too?
By forcing people out first, the boys never had to wait for abandonment.
Serena signed the contract.
“I start tomorrow,” she said.
Marco looked at the clock.
“You already started.”
The next morning, Serena returned with one suitcase, Lucia’s framed photograph, and a binder from her lawyer.
The boys watched from the stairs as the housekeeper showed Serena to the cottage behind the main residence.
It was modest compared with the mansion, but it had two bedrooms, a small kitchen, secure locks, and a patch of grass beneath an old maple tree.
To Serena, it looked like safety.
She stood in Lucia’s future room and imagined her daughter sleeping without listening for arguments through apartment walls.
Then her phone rang.
Lucia’s father did not bother with a greeting.
“You took the job.”
Serena put the call on speaker only long enough to ensure the voicemail system captured his tone, then lifted the phone to her ear.
“You contacted my employer before I arrived.”
“I warned him.”
“You offered him money.”
Silence.
Then he laughed.
“You work for Victor Rinaldi now.
Do you honestly believe a judge will call that stability?”
“I believe the judge will consider evidence.”
“Rinaldi will not enter a courtroom for you.”
“I did not ask him to.”
Serena ended the call before he could drag her into an argument.
