Chapter 4 - The Paper Star in My Pocket
Life inside the Moretti estate began changing.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
I started coming home for dinner twice a week.
Then three times.
I stopped taking calls during Elena's bedtime.
Marco learned not to schedule meetings after seven unless someone was bleeding.
And Elena kept speaking.
Not much.
But enough.
“Juice.”
“Again.”
“Daddy.”
“Lena.”
Every word felt stolen from death.
Lena never celebrated too loudly.
She understood something the rest of us didn't.
If Elena believed speaking made everyone stare at her, she might disappear again.
So when Elena spoke, Lena simply answered.
Like it was normal.
Like nothing had ever been broken.
One Saturday morning, I discovered them in the kitchen.
Flour covered the counter.
Flour covered Elena.
Flour somehow covered one of my guards.
I stopped in the doorway.
“What happened?”
The guard looked miserable.
Lena pointed toward Elena.
“Your daughter attacked him.”
Elena giggled.
The guard looked at me.
“With flour, boss.”
“I gathered that.”
Elena held out a wooden spoon.
“Daddy help.”
Marco, standing behind me, whispered, “I'd rather get shot.”
I removed my watch.
Then my jacket.
“Give me the spoon.”
For forty minutes, Damian Moretti—the man prosecutors had spent fifteen years trying to imprison—made terrible pancakes with his daughter.
Lena watched from across the kitchen.
At one point our eyes met.
Something passed between us.
Something warm.
Dangerous in an entirely different way.
Later, Elena gave me a paper star.
Dark blue.
“For you.”
I put it inside my suit pocket.
That night, I carried it into a meeting with six men who controlled half the criminal freight moving through New York.
One noticed the corner sticking from my pocket.
Nobody asked.
Smart men.
But happiness made me careless.
And careless men in my world didn't stay happy for long.
May you like
Three days later, Elena disappeared.
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