Chapter 4 - CLAIRE’S RULESClaire did not leave the following morning.
She hated herself slightly for that.
Dominic had arranged a hotel under another name.
Claire refused.
“A hotel is exactly where people go when they’re hiding.”
“My security team can secure an entire floor.”
“My daughter would know something is wrong.”
“She already knows something is wrong.”
Claire glanced toward the family room.
Lily sat between Nico and Matteo building a tower from wooden blocks while Luca pretended he was too old to participate.
“She knows men picked her up from school unexpectedly. That’s different from knowing somebody has been photographing her.”
Dominic lowered his voice.
“We need time.”
“How much?”
“Forty-eight hours.”
Claire almost laughed.
“That number has not been lucky for me lately.”
Dominic’s mouth twitched.
Then the seriousness returned.
“I’ll pay you.”
“This isn’t about money anymore.”
“I know.”
Those two words changed something.
Claire realized he meant them.
By noon, she had established what she called Claire’s Rules.
No guns visible around the children.
No whispered conversations that ended when they entered rooms.
No treating Lily like a prisoner.
And absolutely no telling the triplets they were in danger unless necessary.
Vincent objected to almost everything.
Dominic surprised him by agreeing.
The second day became strangely domestic.
Claire made pancakes.
Dominic ruined eggs.
The triplets laughed until Matteo fell out of his chair.
Lily taught Nico a card game.
For the first time since entering the mansion, Claire began to understand how deceptive ordinary moments could be.
A family could laugh at breakfast while men with weapons guarded every door.
That afternoon, Luca found Claire folding laundry.
“You’re staying.”
“For now.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
He pretended to study a sock.
“So you lied.”
“No.”
“You said forty-eight hours.”
“I said our original agreement ended after forty-eight hours.”
“That’s lawyer talk.”
“Your father probably has seventeen lawyers. Learn early.”
He didn’t smile.
“Are you scared?”
Claire stopped folding.
“Yes.”
That surprised him.
“Nannies always say they’re not scared.”
“Adults lie about fear too much.”
“Dad doesn’t get scared.”
Claire looked toward the doorway.
“Your dad gets scared constantly.”
Luca frowned.
“No.”
“Sure he does.”
“Of what?”
“Losing you.”
Luca’s expression changed.
Claire folded another shirt.
“The people who look least afraid sometimes have the most to lose.”
That night Luca knocked on Dominic’s office door.
Claire happened to be nearby.
“Dad?”
Dominic looked up.
“What is it?”
Luca stood awkwardly.
“Were you scared when Mom got sick?”
Dominic froze.
Claire quietly walked away.
The conversation belonged to them.
She never heard the answer.
But twenty minutes later Dominic found her in the kitchen.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For whatever you said.”
Claire kept slicing apples.
“You’re welcome.”
He leaned against the counter.
“My sons haven’t asked me about Elena in almost two years.”
“They probably thought you didn’t want them to.”
“I didn’t.”
Claire looked up.
“Exactly.”
He absorbed the hit.
“I thought protecting them meant keeping the pain away.”
“You can’t.”
“No.”
“You can teach them they’ll survive it.”
He stared at her.
“When did you become so wise?”
“When I became too poor for therapy.”
He actually laughed.
The sound startled both of them.
Then the kitchen window exploded.
Dominic grabbed Claire and pulled her down.
Glass showered across the floor.
An instant later alarms screamed.
Claire covered her head.
“What happened?”
Dominic pushed her behind the island.
“Stay down.”
Men rushed through the house.
Vincent shouted commands.
Claire crawled toward the hallway.
“The kids!”
Dominic grabbed her wrist.
“Security has them.”
“You don’t know that.”
She tore free.
They ran.
The children were in the library.
Three guards surrounded them.
Lily raced into Claire’s arms.
A bullet had entered through the kitchen window and lodged inside a cabinet.
A single shot.
No attempt to enter.
A warning.
Dominic stared at the damaged wall.
Then Vincent handed him a small object found beneath the broken window.
A silver pendant.
Dominic’s face changed.
Claire noticed immediately.
“You know it.”
He didn’t answer.
“Dominic.”
His voice became almost inaudible.
“It belonged to my brother.”
Claire stared.
“Belonged?”
“He died seven years ago.”
“Then why is it outside your window?”
Dominic closed his fist around the pendant.
“Because whoever is doing this wants me to know the past isn’t buried.”
Later that night, Claire learned about Gabriel Moretti.
Dominic’s younger brother.
The charming one.
The reckless one.
The brother who had wanted power before he had earned responsibility.
According to Dominic, Gabriel had betrayed him during a violent dispute seven years earlier.
A car exploded.
Gabriel was believed dead.
No body had ever been conclusively identified.
Claire stared.
“You’re telling me your dead brother might be threatening your children?”
“I’m telling you somebody wants me to believe that.”
“And if he’s alive?”
Dominic looked toward the security monitor displaying his sleeping sons.
“Then he has spent seven years becoming someone I no longer know.”
Claire sat opposite him.
“What happened between you?”
Dominic’s silence lasted too long.
Finally he said, “Our father planned to leave the organization to me.”
“Organization.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Gabriel believed it should be his.”
“And?”
“I won.”
Claire studied his face.
“You say that like you’re not proud of it.”
“I wasn’t always the man you’ve seen with my sons.”
“Are you now?”
He looked at her.
“I’m trying to be.”
The next morning Vincent brought news.
The abandoned vehicle outside Claire’s apartment had been found.
Inside was another photograph.
Dominic and Claire standing near the kitchen window.
Taken less than a day earlier.
Someone had been close enough to photograph them inside a guarded estate.
Claire felt ice travel through her chest.
Dominic took the photograph.
There were words beneath it.
YOUR NEW FAMILY LOOKS BEAUTIFUL.
Dominic crushed the picture in his fist.
Claire stared at him.
“We have someone inside the house.”
Vincent shook his head.
“Impossible.”
“No,” Claire said.
She looked around the mansion.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
And from upstairs came the sound of Matteo laughing with Lily.
Somewhere beneath that laughter, beneath the marble and cameras and armed guards, somebody had betrayed them.
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The question was no longer whether the Moretti estate could keep danger out.
The danger was already inside.
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