Chapter 2 - The Green Light
Domenico sent Ruby upstairs with Teresa, the housekeeper who had worked for him since before his marriage to Isabella.
“Stay with her,” he said.
Teresa nodded once. “I won’t leave her.”
Valentina scoffed. “You’re acting like I’m some kind of criminal.”
Domenico looked at the steel panel.
“I don’t know what you are yet.”
Marcus wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.
“You’re going to regret that sentence.”
“Get out of my house.”
Marcus laughed.
“You think this is still your house?”
That stopped Domenico.
Valentina shot Marcus a warning look.
Too late.
Domenico stepped closer.
“What did you just say?”
Marcus looked away.
Domenico picked up his phone and called his security director, Mateo Ruiz.
“Lock the gates. Nobody leaves until I tell you.”
Valentina’s eyes sharpened.
“You cannot hold us here.”
“I can ask my own security team to secure my own property while I figure out why there’s surveillance equipment hidden behind my daughter’s nursery wall.”
“It isn’t surveillance equipment.”
Domenico looked at her.
“Then tell me what it is.”
She said nothing.
Mateo arrived with two technicians and a ring of old property keys.
The panel opened on the fourth key.
Inside sat a hardwired recorder no larger than a paperback book, a nest of cables, and a black storage drive secured in a metal bracket.
Mateo stared at it.
“I didn’t install this.”
“How old?” Domenico asked.
“One part is old. The wiring could be from the renovation Isabella ordered years ago. But that recorder?” He pointed. “Maybe six months. A year at most.”
Valentina folded her arms.
“Anybody could have put that there.”
Mateo glanced at her. “The wall was resealed recently.”
Domenico thought of Ruby’s suitcases.
“You moved her out of this room today.”
Valentina sighed. “Because she was becoming impossible.”
“Or because you needed access to that panel.”
She stared at him.
Marcus started toward the hall.
One of Mateo’s men blocked him.
“Move.”
“No.”
Domenico looked at Mateo. “Can you read the drive?”
“Not here. I want it isolated from the network first.”
“Do it.”
Twenty minutes later, they were in Domenico’s study.
Ruby slept upstairs with Teresa.
Valentina and Marcus sat on opposite ends of the leather sofa while Mateo connected the drive to an offline laptop.
Folders appeared.
DATES.
HOUSEHOLD.
RUBY.
Domenico felt something cold slide through him.
“Open Ruby.”
Mateo hesitated. “You sure?”
“Open it.”
Hundreds of short clips filled the screen.
Ruby crying at breakfast.
Ruby refusing to put on a dress.
Ruby throwing a toy after Valentina took it away.
Ruby waking from a nightmare.
Every clip had labels.
AGGRESSION.
DEFIANCE.
EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY.
RISK EVENT.
Domenico’s hands curled at his sides.
“They were filming her.”
Valentina spoke softly. “For her own good.”
He turned.
“Say that again.”
“She needs help.”
“She needs a home where she isn’t secretly cataloged like a defendant.”
Marcus leaned back. “That depends what the catalog is for.”
Domenico looked at the screen again.
A subfolder sat beneath the clips.
LEGAL.
Mateo opened it.
There were scanned documents.
Behavior reports.
A private evaluator’s letter.
A draft petition with Domenico’s name across the top.
Domenico read the first page twice.
PETITION FOR EMERGENCY CHILD PROTECTIVE PLACEMENT.
“What is this?”
Valentina stood.
“Domenico, listen to me.”
He scrolled.
The petition described him as volatile, frequently absent, and physically aggressive.
It cited the incident with Marcus.
Tonight’s incident.
A document created three days earlier already had a blank space waiting for the date.
Domenico looked at Marcus.
“You came at me on purpose.”
Marcus smiled through his swollen lip.
“You hit me on purpose.”
Then Mateo opened the final page.
The request was not only to remove Ruby from Domenico’s care.
It named a proposed temporary guardian.
Valentina Rossi.
Domenico stared at the page.
Valentina’s voice went very quiet.
“You were never supposed to see that tonight.”
---
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