Chapter 2 - THE BOYS WHO DECLARED WARThe triplets did not clean willingly.
They cleaned like political prisoners forced into labor by an unreasonable government.
“This is illegal,” Luca announced.
Emma handed him a towel.
“You should call your attorney.”
“My father has twenty attorneys.”
“Excellent. One of them can explain the legal consequences of weaponized spaghetti.”
Nico snorted.
Luca glared at him.
Matteo was kneeling beside the overturned bucket, examining Emma as though she were a newly discovered species.
“You really aren’t mad?”
“Oh, I’m mad.”
The boys exchanged looks.
“You don’t look mad,” Matteo said.
Emma wrung out another towel.
“That’s because grown-ups don’t have to throw tantrums every time they feel something.”
Nico stopped scrubbing.
“Dad does.”
From the doorway came a quiet sound.
Emma turned.
Adrian was still there.
Nico went pale.
Emma expected Adrian to reprimand him.
Instead, he said, “Continue cleaning.”
Then he walked away.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
For the next hour Emma discovered that the DeLuca triplets were not ordinary badly behaved children.
They were organized.
They communicated with looks.
They had systems.
Codes.
Diversions.
Escape routes.
Luca was the strategist.
Nico was the improviser.
Matteo observed everything before deciding which side offered the greatest entertainment value.
At exactly four fifteen, Luca attempted to convince Emma that the family chef had authorized chocolate cake before dinner.
At four twenty, Nico released two remote-controlled spiders beneath her chair.
At four twenty-eight, Matteo quietly switched the labels on the salt and sugar containers.
Emma caught all three.
“What happened to you people?” she asked.
Luca crossed his arms.
“We’re children.”
“You’re a tiny criminal syndicate.”
That made Matteo laugh.
By dinner, they had escalated.
Emma found toothpaste smeared on the bathroom door handle.
A rubber snake inside her dresser.
Her bedroom alarm clock had been set for 3:12 a.m.
And someone had put red dye inside her shampoo bottle.
She found that one before using it.
Barely.
That evening she sat with Rosa in the staff kitchen.
The housekeeper poured coffee.
“They’re testing you.”
“I gathered.”
“They’ll get worse.”
“How much worse?”
Rosa looked at her.
“The last nanny’s mattress ended up floating in the swimming pool.”
Emma stared.
“With her laptop.”
“Oh.”
“And before that they convinced another woman the house was haunted.”
“How?”
“Hidden speakers.”
Emma almost admired the commitment.
Almost.
“Why does their father tolerate this?”
Rosa’s expression changed.
“He doesn’t.”
“He certainly hasn’t stopped it.”
“That’s different.”
Emma waited.
Rosa glanced toward the doorway before lowering her voice.
“Their mother died five years ago.”
Emma’s irritation faded.
“They were three?”
Rosa nodded.
“Isabella was driving them back from the pediatrician. There was an accident. A truck ran a red light.”
Emma looked down at her coffee.
She understood suddenly.
Not everything.
But enough.
“Were the boys in the car?”
“Yes.”
“All three?”
“Yes.”
“They saw her die?”
Rosa didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
Emma sat quietly.
Three-year-olds.
Trapped in a wrecked car.
Watching their mother disappear.
The pranks looked different now.
Not acceptable.
Different.
“Why six nannies?”
“Mr. DeLuca tried relatives first. Tutors. Specialists. Child psychologists.”
“And?”
“The boys don’t trust people who are paid to love them.”
That sentence followed Emma upstairs.
At eight thirty she found the triplets sitting on Luca’s bedroom floor, building a fortress from wooden blocks.
“Bedtime.”
“No,” Luca said.
“That’s unfortunate.”
“We don’t sleep at eight thirty.”
“Nine, then.”
“We sleep when we want.”
Emma sat on the carpet.
“Why?”
Three faces looked at her.
“Why what?” Nico asked.
“Why don’t you sleep?”
Luca knocked over a tower.
“We’re not babies.”
“Never said you were.”
“Then leave.”
Emma remained seated.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Finally Matteo said, “What are you doing?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to get tired of pretending you don’t want someone here.”
Luca stood abruptly.
“Get out.”
Emma saw it.
Not anger.
Fear.
She had seen the same thing in her daughter Sophie after Daniel died.
Every time Emma left for work, Sophie became furious.
Not because she wanted Emma gone.
Because she was terrified Emma might never come back.
Emma stood.
“All right.”
Luca looked surprised.
She walked to the door.
Then stopped.
“I’ll be in the room across the hall.”
Nobody responded.
“I don’t disappear because people are rude to me.”
She left.
At 1:17 a.m., a scream woke her.
Emma was out of bed before her eyes fully opened.
She found Matteo in the hallway.
Barefoot.
Shaking.
“Luca,” he whispered.
Emma ran.
Luca was thrashing beneath his blankets.
“No!”
She switched on the bedside lamp.
His eyes remained closed.
“No! Mom! Mom!”
Emma froze.
Nico stood in the doorway.
His lower lip trembled.
Emma sat beside Luca.
She didn’t grab him.
People waking from nightmares could panic harder if touched unexpectedly.
“Luca.”
Nothing.
“Luca, listen to me.”
His breathing came in broken gasps.
“You’re home.”
“No!”
“You’re safe.”
His eyes opened.
For one horrifying second, he did not know where he was.
Then he saw Emma.
Humiliation replaced terror.
“Get out.”
Emma stayed.
“I said get out!”
She lowered her voice.
“No.”
He shoved at her arm.
“You’re fired!”
“You don’t sign my paycheck.”
“I’ll tell Dad!”
“Go ahead.”
“I hate you!”
That one sounded practiced.
Emma nodded.
“Okay.”
Luca stared.
“Okay?”
“You’re allowed.”
That confused him.
Emma pulled the blanket back over his legs.
“You don’t have to like me tonight.”
His eyes filled before he turned his face away.
“You’ll leave anyway.”
There it was.
Emma’s chest tightened.
She understood children who expected abandonment.
“I may leave someday,” she said.
All three boys went still.
She would not lie to them.
“But I won’t leave because you put spiders in my shoes. I won’t leave because you scream at me. And I won’t leave because you have nightmares.”
Luca looked at her.
“What would make you leave?”
“Your father stops paying me.”
Nico laughed unexpectedly.
Matteo joined him.
Even Luca’s mouth twitched.
Then someone spoke behind them.
“That can be arranged.”
Adrian.
He stood in the doorway wearing a white dress shirt and dark trousers.
No jacket.
No tie.
For the first time he looked less like the man whose photograph appeared in financial magazines and more like an exhausted father who had been awakened by his son’s screams.
Luca immediately wiped his eyes.
“I’m fine.”
Adrian’s expression closed.
“Of course.”
Emma disliked that answer.
She stood.
“Actually, he isn’t.”
Adrian’s gaze snapped toward her.
Luca looked horrified.
“Emma!”
She ignored him.
“He had a nightmare.”
“I know.”
“And apparently everybody in this house has decided pretending those nightmares don’t exist is the best treatment.”
Silence.
Nico whispered, “Oh, boy.”
Adrian walked into the room.
“My study. Now.”
Emma looked at the boys.
“Try sleeping.”
Then she followed their father.
The moment the study door closed Adrian said, “You will not discuss my children’s psychological condition in front of them.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“That works on employees who are scared of you.”
His eyes hardened.
“You should be.”
Emma folded her arms.
“Then fire me.”
For several seconds neither moved.
Finally Adrian said, “My sons have seen eleven therapists.”
“Maybe they don’t need another therapist.”
“What exactly do you think they need?”
Emma thought about Luca screaming for his mother.
Nico’s joke.
Matteo watching everything.
“You.”
Something shifted in Adrian’s face.
Emma continued.
“They need their father to stop acting like loving them makes him vulnerable.”
His voice became dangerously quiet.
“You have been inside this house for less than one day.”
“And it took me less than one day to notice your sons are terrified everyone they love eventually disappears.”
Adrian looked away.
She should have stopped.
She didn’t.
“Maybe they keep driving nannies away because that’s easier than waiting to be abandoned.”
His shoulders went rigid.
“They lost their mother.”
“So did you.”
That struck harder.
Emma saw it.
Adrian turned toward the window.
For the first time, she realized his coldness might not be indifference.
It might be survival.
“I loved my wife,” he said.
“I’m sure you did.”
“You know nothing about her.”
“No.”
Emma softened.
“But I know grief.”
He turned.
Emma touched the wedding ring she still wore on a chain beneath her sweater.
“My husband died two years ago.”
Adrian’s eyes dropped toward the chain.
“Our daughter spent six months testing whether I would leave too.”
“How?”
“She became impossible.”
He almost smiled.
“What did you do?”
“Stayed.”
A long silence.
Then Adrian asked, “Do you actually think you can help them?”
Emma considered him.
“No.”
He frowned.
“I think they can help themselves if somebody stops running long enough to let them.”
Adrian walked toward the door.
Emma assumed the conversation was over.
Then he said, “Mrs. Hayes.”
“Emma.”
He paused.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“My sons will become more aggressive once they realize you intend to stay.”
She smiled faintly.
“I was hoping they’d run out of spaghetti.”
He opened the door.
“Don’t count on it.”
The next morning, Emma discovered all four tires on her car were flat.
On the windshield, written in washable red marker, were four words:
LAST CHANCE. GO HOME.
She stared at the message.
Then looked up.
Three faces watched from the second-floor window.
Emma slowly smiled.
She took out her phone.
She photographed the car.
Then she texted the image to Adrian.
Your sons owe me four tires. Add it to their tab.
Upstairs, the triplets watched their seventh nanny call a tow truck instead of quitting.
May you like
And for the first time since their mother died, their campaign had encountered something they did not understand.
A woman with nowhere easier to go.
Related Stories
