Chapter 06 - The Wolf in the Warning

I did not sleep.

The room Dominic gave us was not a room so much as a private apartment hidden behind a paneled wall on the east side of the penthouse. It had a bed wide enough for six people, a sitting area, a small kitchen, and a bathroom with heated floors I refused to step on with shoes because poverty trains strange manners into a person.

There were no cameras inside. I checked.

Then I checked again.

Ellie slept with Bunny under her chin and Daniel’s brass key clutched in one hand. I sat in the armchair by the door with the tool box open on my lap until dawn turned the skyline silver.

If they come for Ellie, take her to the wolf.

Daniel had written that. My Daniel. The man who once drove back across town because the grocery clerk forgot to charge us for bananas. The man who cried quietly the first time Ellie called him Dada. The man who told me, again and again, that powerful men were all the same and safety meant staying far away from them.

Yet his note pointed to Dominic Romano.

At six-thirty, there was a knock.

I opened the door with a screwdriver in my hand.

Dominic looked at it, then at me.

“If you plan to defend yourself with that, aim for the eye.”

“I was thinking throat.”

“A reasonable second choice.”

He stood with crutches today, the temporary brace secured beneath tailored black trousers. Pain made him paler, but not smaller. Nothing seemed to make Dominic Romano small.

Behind him, a guard held a breakfast tray.

“I didn’t order food,” I said.

“Your daughter did not eat dinner.”

“My daughter was busy preventing your leg from collapsing.”

“Yes.”

The simple agreement disarmed me.

He nodded to the guard, who set the tray inside and left. Pancakes. Eggs. Fruit cut into small flowers. Coffee for me. Chocolate milk for Ellie. The kind of breakfast that assumed children should be delighted, not merely fed.

Ellie woke to the smell and sat up blinking.

“Is that for us?”

Dominic answered before I could.

“Yes.”

She looked at his crutches.

“You didn’t fall.”

“No.”

“Good.”

Then she picked up a strawberry and began eating as if mafia bosses delivered breakfast every morning.

I followed Dominic into the sitting area, the key and note folded in my palm.

“I need answers.”

“So do I.”

“Mine first.”

He lowered himself carefully into a chair.

“Ask.”

“Are you the wolf?”

Something passed across his face.

“My family crest is a wolf.”

“Your tattoo?”

“My grandfather wore it first. My father made it a threat. I have spent my life deciding which parts of inheritance deserve to survive.”

That was not an answer, and yet it was more honesty than I expected.

I held up the key.

“Do you know what this opens?”

“No.”

“You looked like you did last night.”

“I looked like I recognized your husband’s fear.”

That silenced me.

Dominic leaned back, jaw tight with pain.

“Daniel came to this house once.”

I stopped breathing.

“When?”

“Six years ago. Before Ellie was born?”

“She was a baby.”

“He requested a meeting with my father. I was not supposed to be there, but I heard part of it from the hallway.”

“What did he want?”

“He said someone inside Romano Recovery was selling medical-device modifications to men who wanted accidents to look natural.”

My fingers went numb around the key.

“Why didn’t your father listen?”

“He did listen.” Dominic’s eyes darkened. “Then he accused Daniel of being the seller.”

“That makes no sense.”

“My father rarely needed sense once he had chosen a convenient enemy.”

I hated how calmly he said it. I hated more that the calm sounded like shame.

“Did you believe him?”

“I was twenty-nine and trying to become the kind of son my father would not destroy.”

“That is not an answer.”

“No.”

He looked at me directly.

“I believed enough to do nothing.”

The words landed between us and stayed there.

Ellie hummed over her pancakes in the next room. That small ordinary sound kept me from breaking apart.

Dominic continued.

“Three months later, Daniel’s workshop burned.”

“And you still did nothing.”

“I looked for the file after my father died. It was gone.”

“Convenient.”

“Yes.”

Again, no defense. No polished excuse. Just a terrible truth placed on the table like a weapon he had no right to ask me to hold.

Before either of us could speak again, Dominic’s phone buzzed.

He checked it and became very still.

“What?” I asked.

“My men traced the symbol from last night.”

“And?”

“It was not sent from outside.”

The room cooled.

Dominic looked toward the hallway.

“It came from inside this residence.”

Ellie appeared in the doorway with chocolate milk on her upper lip.

“Mommy?”

In her hand was the brass key.

“I know where it goes.”

I stood too quickly.

“What?”

She pointed toward the built-in bookshelf across the sitting room.

“The wolf has a keyhole.”

Dominic turned.

Carved into the dark wood, almost invisible among the vines and scrollwork, was a small wolf’s head with one brass eye.

The eye was shaped exactly like the key.

And when Ellie pressed it in, the wall behind the bookshelf clicked open.