I'll process this now. The Song That Broke the Silence

I stood in the library with the phone in my hand and read the message three times.

*You weren't supposed to come home early, Dominic.*

No name.

No number.

But whoever sent it knew I was home.

That meant they were close — inside the property, or watching it from somewhere near enough to matter.

I looked at Grace.

"Take the girls upstairs.

Lock the playroom door.

Do not open it for anyone except me."

"Mr.

Romano—"

"Now, Grace."

She didn't argue.

She gathered all three girls with one quiet motion, the way she seemed to do everything — without drama, without wasted movement.

Nora went first, reaching up for Grace's hand without being asked.

Sophie followed.

Olivia paused at the doorway and looked back at me.

Her eyes were serious.

Too serious for a six-year-old.

"Go with Grace," I said.

She went.

I called Vincent.

He picked up on the first ring.

Fourteen years with me.

He always picked up on the first ring.

"Marco left the house twenty minutes ago," I said.

"He told the staff I called him in.

I didn't."

A pause.

Short but real.

"I know," Vincent said.

My hand tightened on the phone.

"You know."

"Dominic, I was going to—"

"How long?"

Another pause.

Longer this time.

"I started suspecting three weeks ago.

I didn't have anything solid.

I didn't want to bring you something that wasn't solid."

"Three weeks."

"I know how that sounds."

"Do you."

I walked to the library window.

The back lawn was empty.

The garden gate was closed.

The afternoon light was flat and gray, the kind that made distances hard to judge.

"Where would he go?" I asked.

"His brother has a place in Flushing.

He also has a woman in Astoria he thinks nobody knows about."

"You have an address for Astoria?"

"I can have it in ten minutes."

"Get it."

I ended the call and stood at the window another moment.

Fourteen years.

Vincent had been with me since I was thirty-two years old, since before the Long Island house, before Isabelle, before any of this.

He had stood at my wedding.

He had carried flowers to the hospital when Olivia was born.

And he had spent three weeks sitting on this.

I heard a sound from the hallway.

Not footsteps.

Something softer.

I turned.

Grace was standing in the doorway.

Alone.

"I thought I told you to take the girls upstairs."

"Mrs.

Donnelly is with them." She stepped into the library.

"I need to tell you something.

Before you do whatever you're about to do."

"Grace—"

"He came to me," she said.

"Two weeks ago.

Marco.

He found me in the kitchen when I was alone and he told me that if I ever heard the girls say anything about their mother, I should come to him first.

Not you."

The room was very quiet.

"He said it was for their protection.

That some things were better handled quietly." She held my gaze without flinching.

"I didn't go to him.

I didn't know what to do with it, so I did nothing.

I should have told you.

I know that."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I didn't know who else in this house might be listening." She paused.

"I still don't."

I looked at her for a long moment.

She was right to be careful.

She was right about all of it.

And she had still chosen to tell me now, standing in a room where the walls might have ears, because she had decided the risk of my ignorance was greater than the risk of her own safety.

"Go back upstairs," I said.

"Stay with the girls.

Don't tell Mrs.

Donnelly what you just told me."

"Do you trust her?"

It was a fair question.

Twenty-two years Mrs.

Donnelly had managed this house.

I had never once asked myself that question about her.

I asked it now.

"I don't know," I said.

"So say nothing."