Chapter 7

Nadia cried, she tried not to, Ava could tell, but her eyes went red the moment she opened the apartment door and saw the bag in Ava's hand and Leo standing beside her with his dinosaur backpack on and his shoes on the right feet this time, which meant Nadia had redone them before she answered the door.

"Okay," Nadia said, crouching down to Leo's level. "You be good."

"I'm always good," Leo said.

"You're usually good," Nadia said, which was exactly what Ava always said, and Leo grinned at her with all his teeth.

Nadia stood up and looked at Ava and kept her voice low. "Call me. Okay? Not just when something goes wrong. Just…. call me."

"I will," Ava said.

"Promise."

"Nadia."

"Promise me."

"I promise," Ava said, and meant it, and then picked up the bag before she could stand there any longer feeling the specific weight of leaving a person who had held things together for her when she couldn't hold them herself.

In the car Leo lasted approximately four minutes before the questions started.

"Is it far?"

"Forty minutes."

"Is it really a mansion?"

"It's a big house."

"How big?"

"Big."

He looked out the window at the city moving past. "Bigger than the school?"

"Much bigger than the school."

He processed this. "Bigger than the park?"

"Leo."

"I'm trying to get a sense of it."

"It's big," she said. "You'll see."

He was quiet for almost two minutes, which was a long time for him, and she was starting to think he might actually settle when he said, "Mom. Why did you marry him?"

She looked at her hands in her lap.

Because a man clicked a gun safety behind me in a corridor and I was holding a veil that didn't belong to me and I couldn't find the exit.

"It's complicated," she said.

"Did you love him?"

"It's not always that simple, bug."

"Marcus at school says his mom says you should only marry someone you love."

"Marcus at school is five."

"So am I," Leo said, like this proved his point.

She looked out the window and said nothing and after a moment Leo went back to watching the city and she was grateful for it, the particular mercy of a child who asked the question that cracked you open and then moved on before you had to answer it properly.

The mansion came into view at the end of the driveway and she watched Leo's face when he saw it.

His mouth opened.

He pressed both hands against the car window.

"Mom," he said, very quietly for him. "Mom."

"I know."

"It has towers."

"I know."

"Actual towers."

The car stopped and the door opened and Leo was out before anyone could do anything about it, his backpack bouncing, his head tilted all the way back to look at the roofline, and Ava got out after him and said his name and he didn't hear her because he was already moving toward the front door with the energy of a child who had decided that whatever was inside that building was going to be excellent and he intended to find out immediately.

"Leo." She kept her voice low because she could already see one of Rafe's men watching from the side of the house. "Leo, wait—"

He was already through the door.

Of course he is.

She caught up with him in the entrance hall where he had stopped for approximately four seconds to look at the chandelier and was now moving down the corridor to the left with the purposeful stride of a child following curiosity, and she followed him and said his name twice more and he turned a corner and she turned it after him and he was gone.

She stood in the corridor and listened.

Silence from the left. She went left. Another corridor, doors on both sides, all closed, and at the far end one door that was slightly open, warm light coming through the gap.

No.

She pushed the door open.

Dante's office. She knew it was Dante's office because she had clocked it on her first walk of the house, had noted the position of it and the weight of the door and the quality of the quiet around it that meant it was used and used seriously.

Leo was in the chair.

Dante's chair, behind the desk, the big one, the one that sat in front of the shelf that ran along the entire back wall and was lined with things that were old and expensive and absolutely not for five-year-old hands. Leo had turned the chair around to face the shelf and was reaching for something on the second shelf, a small dark object she couldn't identify from the door, his backpack still on, his feet not reaching the footrest, completely absorbed.

"Leo," she said, very quietly. "Get down."

He turned around in the chair. "There's a thing on this shelf."

"I see that. Get down."

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Get down right now."

"It looks old."

"Leo—"

"Can I hold it?"

"Absolutely not, get out of that chair this second..."

The door opened behind her.

She turned around.

Dante was in the doorway with his phone against his ear, mid-sentence, already walking into his own office the way a man walks into a room that belongs to him without having to think about it, and he got three steps in before he stopped.

He looked at Leo in his chair.

He looked at Ava standing between them.

The voice on the other end of the phone kept talking.

Dante said, "I'll call you back," and lowered the phone.

The office went completely quiet.

Leo looked at Dante with the open uncomplicated attention he gave everything new, starting from the bottom, working his way up, taking his time about it. Then he looked at the desk between them and the chair he was sitting in and then back at Dante.

"Sorry," Ava said. "He got away from me, I was just….”

"Is this your chair?" he said with his backpack on and his feet dangling and his hand still resting on the arm of it like he had no particular intention of getting up.

Dante looked at him.