The red light glowed on the keypad.

Clara's hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold Leo. Behind them, at the far end of the house, she heard shouting. Furniture breaking. Dante's voice, roaring.

"Leo." She set him down in front of the door. "Leo, look at me. Mommy's room. Do you know the song?"

Leo stared at her, white-faced.

"The song Mommy sang. With the numbers. Can you sing it for me?"

His lower lip trembled.

Footsteps. Coming closer. Somewhere in the house, a man's voice: "Where'd she go?"

Clara made herself breathe. Slowly. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

Leo watched her. His breathing slowed with hers.

Then, in a tiny, shaking, perfectly in-tune voice, he began to sing.

"Two little birds sat on a wall..."

Clara pressed 2.

"Seven little fishes swim to the hall..."

Seven.

"One for Mommy, one for me..."

One. One.

"Four for Daddy, and home we'll be."

Four.

The red light turned green.

The door clicked.

Clara wrenched it open, pulled Leo inside, and slammed it behind them. She heard locks engage—heavy, mechanical, one after another—thunk, thunk, thunk.

Then silence.

---

The stairs led down into a small room with gray steel walls and soft lighting.

There was a narrow bed with a quilt. Shelves of bottled water and canned food. A first-aid kit. A tiny refrigerator humming in the corner. A row of monitors showing black-and-white images of the house—the front gate, the foyer, the back hallway.

On the bed sat a stuffed rabbit and a hand-knitted blanket.

And on the wall, taped beside a black telephone, was a photograph of Elena Moretti holding a newborn Leo, both of them laughing.

Leo ran to the bed and grabbed the rabbit.

"Mommy's room," he said.

Clara picked up the phone. Her fingers knew the number now.

He answered on the first ring.

"Clara—"

"Nico's here. With Sal. They hurt Dante. We're in the room below. Leo sang the song."

A sound came through the line that she had never heard a man make.

"I'm coming," Rico said. "Ruiz is with me. Stay there. Don't open that door for anyone. Not for anyone."

"Dante—"

"Ruiz is calling it in. Ambulance and every unit in the precinct." She heard a car door slam, an engine roar. "Clara. Is Leo okay?"

She looked at the little boy on the bed. He was sitting very straight, holding the rabbit against his chest with both arms, staring at the photograph of his mother.

"He's scared," she said. "But he's breathing."

"Put him on."

Clara held out the phone. Leo looked at it, then at her. She nodded.

He took it in both hands, the way he held his milk.

"Daddy?"

Clara couldn't hear what Rico said. But she watched Leo listen, his small face very serious, nodding at things his father couldn't see.

"Okay," Leo said. "Okay. Breathe like Clara."

He handed the phone back.

"He says he loves me," Leo reported. "He says be brave. He says he's coming really fast."

"He is."

"Faster than the Escalade?"

Despite everything, Clara laughed. It came out shaky and wet. "He's in the Escalade, baby."

Leo considered this. Then he climbed off the bed, walked to Clara, and sat down in her lap with his back against her chest.

"We wait," he said. "Like Mommy said. We wait and nobody gets in."

Clara wrapped her arms around him and rested her chin on top of his head.

"We wait," she agreed.

---

On the monitor, she saw Nico come down the back hallway.

He was alone. There was blood on his shirt that didn't look like his. He stopped in front of the steel door and stared at the keypad.

Then he pressed the button beside it. A small speaker crackled to life in the safe room.

"Clara."

His voice was calm. Almost gentle.

Clara put her finger to her lips. Leo, clutching the rabbit, nodded.

"Clara, I know you're in there. Elena showed me this room once. She was so proud of it." He laughed softly. "She thought she was so smart."

He leaned his forehead against the door.

"I didn't want it to be her," he said. "You have to understand that. Tommy wanted Rico. Rico was the deal. I gave them the night. I gave them the address. But Rico stayed late with the accountants, and Elena went alone." His voice cracked. "She knew about the money. She'd figured it out. She was going to tell him that week, and when Tommy's guys saw it was her and not him, they—they did it anyway. Said it was a message. Said I was lucky they didn't send one to me."

Clara pulled Leo against her and covered his ears with her hands.

"I sold the car," Nico said. "I carried her coffin. I held that kid at the funeral, and he looked up at me, and I knew he'd seen. So I told him. I told him to keep quiet or his daddy would go away. And he did. Good boy." He laughed again—a broken, terrible sound. "Four hundred grand, Clara. That's what she was worth to me. Four hundred grand."

He straightened. He looked straight up into the camera.

"Open the door, and I'll just take the kid to Tommy. Insurance, that's all. Nobody else has to get hurt."

Clara pressed her lips against Leo's hair.

She didn't answer.

On another monitor, in black-and-white, she saw the front gate burst open. Cars. Flashing lights. A woman in a dark coat with a badge on her belt.

And in front of all of them, running, Rico.

---