Chapter 1 - The Glitter-Covered Rocket, the Interrupted War Room, and the Nanny Who Refused to Back DownTwenty-three minutes before Elena Brooks pointed a finger directly at one of the most feared mafia bosses in the city, Leo Reichi was sitting on the bottom step of the mansion’s grand staircase. He was still wearing his school clothes. A ridiculous silver party hat rested in his hands. He was pretending everything was fine.
Elena had found him there after bringing him home from school. She had carried his cardboard rocket inside while Leo carried the certificate he had received for his presentation. Normally, Leo talked constantly after school. He could turn a seven-minute drive into a forty-minute explanation of why sharks would make terrible pets. That afternoon, he said almost nothing.
Elena set the rocket down. “You hungry?”
“No.”
Suspicious. Leo was eight. In Elena’s experience, eight-year-old boys became hungry approximately seventeen minutes after eating.
“Want cake?”
“No.”
Now she was worried. Elena sat beside him. “Did somebody replace you at school?”
Leo finally looked at her. “What?”
“You rejected cake. This is either emotional distress or identity theft.”
A tiny smile appeared. Still alive. Elena bumped his shoulder gently. The smile disappeared almost immediately. Then Leo looked toward the front doors. “Is Dad home?”
Elena already knew the answer. Matteo had returned approximately twenty minutes earlier. Instead of finding Leo, however, he had gone directly into a security meeting. “Yes.”
Leo brightened. Then caught himself. “Oh.” Only that. Not Can I see him? Not Will he come downstairs? Leo already understood the likely answer. That bothered Elena more than tears would have. Children should not become experts at managing adult guilt. She looked at the certificate in his hands. “You were brilliant today.”
Leo shrugged. “The volcano kid was better.”
“The volcano kid nearly set his teacher’s sleeve on fire.”
“That was cool.”
“That was arson with baking soda.”
Elena smiled too. Then his attention moved toward the folded program sticking from his backpack. There were two copies. One for Leo. One he had saved for Matteo. At school, Elena had watched Leo place the second copy on the empty chair beside him. He had checked the classroom door every few minutes. The first time with hope. By the fourth, with less. By the end, he stopped looking. When Elena asked whether he wanted to bring the extra program home, Leo had shrugged. “Dad was probably busy.”
Probably. That word had almost gotten someone in Matteo’s house yelled at. Unfortunately, Matteo was currently protected by a conference-room door and several armed men.
Elena stood. Leo looked up. “Where are you going?”
“To make a terrible career decision.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.” She picked up the rocket. Leo’s eyes widened. “Elena.”
“Yes?”
“Dad’s in a meeting.”
“I know.”
“You can’t go in there.”
Elena stopped and turned. Even the eight-year-old knew that rule. Interesting. “Why?”
Leo considered it. “Because everybody says you’re not supposed to.”
“Everybody?”
He nodded. “Even Uncle Raphael.”
Elena looked down the corridor. “Excellent.”
Leo stared. “That doesn’t sound excellent.”
“It isn’t.” She started walking.
“Elena.”
“Yes?”
“Are you going to yell at Dad?”
She paused and looked over her shoulder. “No.”
Leo relaxed. Elena added: “I’m going to speak firmly.”
His eyes widened again. Apparently, that sounded worse.
The conference room stood at the opposite end of the mansion. As Elena approached, she could hear voices inside. Security. Routes. Vehicles. Personnel. She almost kept walking. Almost. Then she heard Stefano Greco, Matteo’s head of security, suggest assigning two additional guards to Leo. Elena stopped. Two more? She moved closer. Another man suggested changing Leo’s school transportation. Someone wanted secondary escort vehicles. Someone else mentioned limiting outdoor activities. Elena’s eyebrows rose. Limiting? The boy already could not sneeze without three men checking the wind direction. Then Matteo spoke. Calmly. “Do it.”
Elena stared at the door. Absolutely not. She reached for the handle. The guard stationed beside it stepped forward. His name was Antonio. Tall. Broad. With eyebrows so expressive that Elena had secretly begun calling him Eyebrows. He did not know that yet. “Miss Brooks.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Reichi is in a private meeting.”
“I can hear.”
“He can’t be disturbed.”
Elena smiled. “That’s unfortunate.”
Antonio shifted slightly in front of the door. Elena looked at him. Then the door. Then him again. “Are you stopping me?”
Antonio clearly had not expected the question. “Technically, yes.” A pause. “Professionally, yes.” Another. “Emotionally, absolutely not.” Then he looked down. He had noticed the glitter-covered rocket in Elena’s hands. His expression changed. He knew about space day. Apparently, everybody did except the man who should have been sitting there. Antonio exhaled. Then stepped aside. Interesting.
Elena smiled. “I knew I liked you, Eyebrows.”
He frowned. “What?”
Too late. Elena opened the door. Then walked straight into the meeting.
Twelve men in black suits sat around Matteo Reichi’s enormous conference table. Every one of them went silent. One man held a glass of water halfway to his mouth. Another stopped turning a page. A third stared at Elena with the horrified fascination of someone watching a woman casually pet a crocodile because she thought it looked lonely. At the far side of the room, Raphael lowered his coffee slowly. His expression said only one thing: This was going to be good.
Elena marched to the table and placed Leo’s crooked cardboard rocket directly on top of confidential documents. Matteo stood at the head of the room. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed entirely in black. Of course. Elena had worked in the mansion for three weeks and was increasingly convinced the man believed other colors were a government conspiracy. His face did not move. That was the alarming part. Matteo did not need to shout.
The silence in the room stretched so tight it felt as though a violin string were about to snap. Matteo’s gaze drifted down from the impassive slope of his own jawline to the crude, paper-and-glitter rocket resting over a multi-million-dollar arms acquisition manifest. His slate-grey eyes narrowed imperceptibly, carrying the frozen weight of a man who routinely decided the fate of men who crossed him in the dark alleys of Brooklyn and Manhattan.
“Miss Brooks,” Matteo’s voice was a low, velvet baritone that vibrated straight through the floorboards. “You are interrupting a security directive.”
“And you,” Elena fired back without blinking, crossing her arms over her chest, “are interrupting your son’s childhood.”
Raphael choked loudly on his coffee, coughing into a fist while several capos pretended to find the grain of the mahogany table immensely fascinating. Stefano Greco’s hand twitched toward the holster beneath his arm, but a single, icy flick of Matteo’s wrist kept him frozen in place.
“My son is safe,” Matteo said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the dangerous promise of absolute authority. “He is surrounded by the best protective detail in the tri-state area. He has a secure perimeter, armored transport, and twenty-four-hour surveillance. He lacks for nothing.”
“He lacks a father who sits in the front row when he gives a presentation about space,” Elena retorted, stepping closer to the head of the table, entirely unbothered by the aura of terror that usually made grown men wet their pants. “He spent forty minutes folding an extra copy of his school program today, Matteo. He placed it on the chair beside him, and every five minutes he checked the door hoping you’d walk in. By the fourth time, he stopped looking. Do you know what it does to an eight-year-old boy when he learns to expect disappointment from the only man he idolizes?”
Matteo’s jaw tightened. A muscle twitched once along his cheek. “You presume a great deal about my responsibilities, Elena. The Reichi family is currently engaged in sensitive territorial negotiations with the North Side syndicate. If I let my guard down for a single afternoon, my son becomes a target.”
“Your son is already a target of your absence!” Elena snapped, her patience finally evaporating completely. She slammed her hand down on the table next to the rocket, making the water glasses rattle. “You think locking him inside a fortress and surrounding him with armed men in black suits is keeping him safe? You’re turning him into a prisoner in his own home! He doesn't need another bodyguard, Matteo! He needs a father who knows what grade he’s in, who eats pancakes with him on Saturday mornings, and who doesn't treat his parenting like a side-project managed between hits and extortion schemes!”
Every man in the room stopped breathing. Nobody spoke to Don Matteo Reichi that way. Not rival bosses. Not senior capos. Not even the city officials who took his brown-paper envelopes on rainy Tuesday nights. To speak to him with such raw, unfiltered fury inside his own war room was practically a suicide note written in bold ink.
Stefano Greco slowly closed his eyes, preparing for the inevitable order to have the insolent nanny dragged out, zip-tied, and thrown into the trunk of a Lincoln Continental.
Matteo stared at her. For ten long seconds, he didn't move a muscle. His dark, impenetrable eyes searched her flushed face, mapping every line of defiance, every trace of righteous anger, and the deep, abiding care for his son that burned behind her eyes. Slowly, deliberately, Matteo reached out. His large, calloused fingers brushed against the crooked silver tip of the cardboard rocket.
“Was it a good presentation?” Matteo asked softly.
The entire room blinked in unison. Raphael nearly dropped his coffee mug a second time.
Elena blinked, thrown entirely off balance by the sudden shift in tone. “...What?” “The presentation,” Matteo repeated, looking up from the rocket to meet her eyes directly. “Did he do well?”
“He explained why sharks would make terrible pets for twenty minutes,” Elena muttered, her defensive armor softening just a fraction. “He got an A-plus.”
Matteo slowly stood up from his chair, pushing back the leather seat. He didn't look at his capos. He didn't look at Stefano. He reached down, carefully picked up the glitter-covered rocket with two fingers, and cradled it as if it were a priceless Faberge egg.
“Meeting adjourned,” Matteo commanded, his voice carrying absolute finality.
Twelve capos scrambled out of their chairs faster than convicts escaping a prison riot, fleeing the room as if the air itself had turned toxic. Within thirty seconds, the massive conference room was completely empty, leaving only Matteo and Elena standing across from each other in the quiet hush of the late afternoon.
Matteo walked around the table, stopping just inches away from her. Up close, his towering presence was overwhelming, smelling faintly of gunpowder, expensive cologne, and dark espresso.
“You have a dangerous habit of speaking your mind, Elena,” Matteo murmured, his slate-grey eyes scanning her face with an intensity that made her breath hitch.
“Someone had to,” she whispered, standing her ground. “Before you accidentally turn him into a stranger.”
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Matteo looked down at the cardboard rocket in his hand, then back up at her, a rare, ghost-like smile touching the corners of his lips. “Tomorrow... I’m clearing my afternoon schedule. You’re going to tell me every single thing I’ve been missing.”
And for the first time since she had walked into the mansion, Elena realized that the terrifying mafia boss wasn't entirely unreachable after all.
