Chapter 03 - The Name Behind the Wolf

The guards moved first.

One pulled me and Ellie behind the rehabilitation bench. The other drew his weapon and aimed at nothing in particular, because a voice coming through a wall cannot be shot. Dr. Harris backed against the medicine cabinet with both palms raised, though nobody had threatened him yet.

Dominic did not move.

He watched the wolf symbol glowing across the screens as if it were a ghost he had expected one day and still hated seeing.

“Rafael is dead,” one guard said.

Dominic’s eyes stayed on the screen.

“Apparently, he disagrees.”

The voice crackled again.

“You always did trust machines too much.”

Then the screens went black.

For three seconds, the entire room existed inside the sound of Ellie’s breathing.

The lights returned. The monitors reset. The doctor’s documents still sat on the table. The filed pin still gleamed inside Dominic’s brace like a tiny accusation.

Dominic turned to his guards.

“Sweep the internal network. Cut the rehabilitation system from the house servers. Find whoever opened that channel.”

“Yes, boss.”

He looked at Dr. Harris.

The doctor’s professional mask had cracked completely. Sweat shone at his temples. He swallowed twice before speaking.

“I had nothing to do with that.”

Dominic’s expression did not change.

“Convince me.”

“I swear. Someone told me to make certain adjustments, but not that. Not sabotage. They said you were resisting therapy. That the brace needed tension modifications to force proper alignment.”

“Who said?”

Dr. Harris looked toward me and Ellie.

Dominic’s voice cooled. “They stay.”

The doctor closed his eyes.

“Your aunt.”

The name that followed made both guards go still.

“Serafina Romano.”

Dominic’s hand tightened over the arm of his chair.

Serafina. I had heard that name in staff whispers. His father’s sister. The woman who ran charitable foundations in public and half the family’s clean businesses in private. Elegant. Smiling. Untouchable.

Dominic said nothing for so long that Dr. Harris began speaking too fast.

“She said if your recovery stalled, the board would appoint temporary oversight. She said the family needed stability. I didn’t know about Rafael. I didn’t know anyone planned an accident.”

“You just altered medical equipment because a woman in pearls asked nicely.”

The doctor flinched.

“She has my son’s records.”

There it was.

The fear beneath the greed. The hook in his mouth.

Dominic watched him for another moment, then turned his gaze toward me.

“You and your daughter are leaving this room with me.”

“No.”

It was the second time I had told him no, and this time my voice shook.

“We are going home.”

“You don’t have a home tonight.”

My stomach dropped.

“What does that mean?”

Dominic gestured to the guard by the door. The man handed him a phone. A few taps later, he turned the screen toward me.

I saw the door of my apartment hanging crooked from its frame.

My cheap couch overturned. Drawers pulled out. Ellie’s toy bin dumped across the floor. The little cardboard box that held Daniel’s old tools split open beneath someone’s boot.

For a moment I could not understand what I was seeing. The mind refuses certain pictures. It puts them behind fog because clarity would be too much.

Then Ellie whispered, “My bunny.”

Her stuffed rabbit lay facedown near the kitchen table.

I moved toward the screen, but Dominic pulled it back before I could touch it.

“My men went there after you said Daniel’s name.”

“You sent men to my apartment?”

“To make sure nobody else had.”

The anger came because terror had nowhere else to go.

“You had no right.”

“I agree.”

That stopped me.

Dominic looked down at his damaged brace.

“But the person who searched your apartment tonight had even less.”

Ellie’s hand slipped into mine. She did not cry. That was worse. She had become very still, the way children do when fear teaches them to listen more than speak.

Dominic noticed that too.

His voice changed when he addressed her.

“Your bunny is safe. My man picked it up before the police arrived.”

“Police?” I asked.

“The door was broken. A neighbor called.”

The room tilted under me.

We had nowhere to go. No apartment. No savings. No family close enough or safe enough. The world I had built carefully from duct tape and overdue bills had come apart because my daughter saw one backward lock.

Dominic removed the damaged pin from the brace and placed it in a small evidence bag one guard held out.

“Rafael D’Agostino was my father’s enemy,” he said. “He died seven years ago after a warehouse fire destroyed part of the south docks.”

My mouth went dry.

Daniel died in a workshop fire five years ago.

Dominic looked at me as if he had heard the thought.

“Your husband’s contract ended two weeks before that fire.”

“I never told you about the fire.”

“No.”

He held my gaze.

“But Rafael just did.”

I backed away without meaning to.

Dr. Harris suddenly made a movement toward the side table. The nearest guard caught him before his fingers reached the drawer. A small phone clattered to the floor.

Dominic looked at the screen.

One message glowed there, unsent.

SHE FOUND THE LOCK. THE CHILD KNOWS.

Ellie hid her face against my hip.

Dominic’s voice was quiet when he spoke.

“Take the doctor downstairs.”

The guard dragged Harris toward the door.

But before they crossed the threshold, the doctor twisted his head toward me.

“You should have kept her in the kitchen,” he said.

Then he smiled.

“Rafael wanted the child alive.”

And everything inside me went cold.