Chapter 2 - The Architecture of Wolves
The room on the third floor was larger than the entire apartment I had rented in Astoria.
It had a vaulted ceiling with exposed oak beams, a king-sized bed covered in dark grey linen, and a bay window that overlooked the estate’s rear gardens—ten acres of manicured lawn, dark boxwood hedges, and a slate patio currently slick with the midnight rain.
I sat on the edge of the mattress with my shoes off, my feet tucked up under me, holding the heavy black receiver of the landline phone to my ear.
"She’s asleep, Serena," Mrs. Gable’s voice came through the wire, accompanied by the low static of an old landline. "She had her milk, she did her puzzle, and she asked if you were coming back before the sun came up."
"Tell her I’m building her castle," I whispered, pressing my hand over my mouth to keep the choke in my throat from becoming a sound. "Tell her she gets her own room with a window that looks at trees."
"Is it... bad there?" Mrs. Gable asked carefully. "The driver who picked you up looked like he had a pistol under his arm."
"He did," I said. "It’s fine, Mrs. Gable. The money is real. He’s putting three thousand a week into the account starting tomorrow morning. I can pay you for the last two months by noon."
"I’m not worried about the money, child. I’m worried about the name on the gate. The Rinaldis aren't people you leave when you get tired of the work."
"I'm not getting tired," I said, my gaze dropping to the legal papers spread out across the grey duvet.
The summons from the Queens Family Court sat in the center of the pile like a threat written on white paper. Cruz v. Valente. Julian was asking for sole legal and physical custody, citing my "unstable housing and lack of verified income." His lawyer was Arthur Vance—a man who spent his Tuesdays bribing county clerks and his Thursdays getting domestic violence warrants dismissed for men with thick wallets.
Julian didn't want Lucia because he loved her. He wanted her because she was the only leash he had left to pull on me. He wanted my father’s old restaurant in Little Italy—the one that had sat vacant since the fire three years ago—and he knew I wouldn't sign the deed over as long as I had a legal leg to stand on.
"I’ll bring her up on Friday," Mrs. Gable said softly. "You get that room ready."
"Thank you, Hannah," I murmured, and hung up the receiver.
I didn't sleep.
At 4:30 AM, I was down in the kitchen.
The house at night didn't feel like a luxury mansion; it felt like a submarine beneath three hundred feet of dark water. The stone floors were freezing against my thin socks. The only light came from the blue digital clock on the commercial range and the faint green LEDs of the security system mounted near the service door.
I was searching for the tea bags when I heard the footstep behind me.
It wasn't a child’s step. It was heavy, balanced, and deliberately quiet.
I didn't scream. I simply turned around with a silver spoon held between my fingers like a small, absurd weapon.
Victor stood in the entryway. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. He had on a dark charcoal sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, exposing thick, pale forearms scarred near the wrist. He held a crystal tumbler filled with three fingers of clear water—or gin.
"You're awake," he said.
"So are you."
"I don't sleep much," he said, walking to the central island. He set his glass down on the stone surface—the same surface Marco had covered in juice six hours earlier. It was now immaculate, polished until it reflected the blue light from the clock. "The boys were quiet after eight."
"They were tired," I said, putting a copper kettle on the small burner. "Adrenaline crashes hurt when you're little."
"They've been running on adrenaline for eighteen months," Victor said, his tone dry, almost clinical. "Since their mother died."
The air in the room shifted slightly. The file I’d read had mentioned Elena Rinaldi’s death in two short sentences: Died in a multi-vehicle collision on the Long Island Expressway, November 2024. No charges filed.
"They don't talk about her," I said.
"They're not allowed to," Victor replied flatly.
I stopped reaching for the tea leaves. I turned around and looked at him in the dim blue light. His face was a hard mask of angles and grey shadows, the scar above his brow catching the edge of the range light.
"That's a mistake," I said.
Victor’s eyes clicked toward me, cold as iron. "I didn't hire you for child psychology, Miss Valente."
"You hired me to fix what the last six nannies broke," I snapped back, my patience wearing thin under the double weight of exhaustion and fear for my daughter. "They didn't break because those boys are monsters. They broke because those boys are terrified that if they stop making noise, the house will go dead quiet, and they'll have to remember she's not coming back through the front door."
Victor took a single step toward me. He was broad—broader than he looked in a three-piece suit—and he brought with him the cold aura of a man who had spent his thirty-eight years deciding who lived in this city and who was buried beneath it.
"You are five feet four inches tall," he said softly, his voice dropping into that terrifying lower register that felt like a physical pressure against my throat. "You have thirty-six dollars in the bank. Your ex-fiancé is a small-time thug who is going to use a corrupt judge to take your daughter in fourteen days. And you are standing in my kitchen telling me how to handle my wife's memory."
I didn't back up until my spine hit the edge of the stove.
"Yes," I said, staring directly into his dark grey eyes. "I am. Because your money can buy a private security detail for every room in this house, Mr. Rinaldi, but it can't buy those boys a father who actually looks at them when they're in the room."
For three long seconds, I thought he was going to fire me. I thought he was going to reach out, take me by the elbow, and throw me out into the rain the same way the last nanny had gone.
Instead, his jaw worked once. A muscle near his scar twitched.
"Seven o'clock," he said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. "If the pancakes are cold, you leave."
He turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen, his dark sweater disappearing into the blackness of the grand hallway.
May you like
My knees gave out slightly, and I caught myself against the edge of the marble counter. My chest was heaving as if I’d just run three miles up a hill.
"Pancakes," I muttered to the empty room, wiping a cold drop of sweat from my temple with the back of my hand. "Fine. You want pancakes, you're getting buttermilk from scratch, you arrogant bastard."
