Chapter 3 - The First Lesson
Luca Pellagrini did not speak during breakfast. He sat in a high, high-backed chair of dark oak that made his five-year-old body look like a doll, his small fingers holding a heavy silver fork with the family crest stamped into the handle.
The dining room in the family wing was smaller than the state room downstairs, but it was brighter, with three pairs of glass doors that looked out over the northern terrace and the long, rolling lawns that led down to the high stone walls of the perimeter. The pool—the blue, terrible circle of water—was visible through the trees, its surface perfectly still under the morning sun, looking like a piece of glass dropped onto the grass.
Anthony sat at the head of the table. He was reading a thick legal brief printed on heavy cream paper, his black coffee steam rising up to touch the gold leaf on his cuff links. He hadn't looked at me once since I came into the room at six-forty-five to trim the edges of Luca’s eggs.
"He doesn't like the yolk when it's runny," Anthony said, his eyes never leaving the page.
"I didn't leave it runny, Mr. Pellagrini," I said, standing by the sideboard with a linen napkin over my arm. I was wearing the new uniform the housekeeper had left for me—a dark grey wool skirt that hit my knees and a white silk blouse that felt too light, like it would tear if I moved too quickly. "I checked the center with the knife."
Luca looked up from his plate, his gray eyes—the exact shade of his father’s, but wider, softer—fixing on my face.
"Elena," he said.
"Yes, Luca?"
"The water was black," he whispered, his fork dipping into the white of the egg without moving it. "When I was under. I saw the big fish at the bottom."
Anthony’s hand stopped moving. The cream paper of the brief didn't rustle, but the silence that fell over the table was so heavy that the sound of a bird outside the glass sounded like a shot.
"There are no fish in the pool, Luca," Anthony said, his voice dropping into that quiet, dark register he had used by the water yesterday.
"I saw them," the boy insisted, his lip trembling slightly as he looked at me, as if I were the only person in the room who could verify his monsters. "They had big teeth. They were holding my shoes."
Anthony set the paper down. He didn't look at his son; he looked at me. His gray eyes were dark, tracking the line of my jaw where the grey uniform collar met my neck.
"Elena," he commanded. "Take him to the conservatory. The music teacher from the conservatory is waiting for his scales."
"Yes, sir," I said.
I stepped toward the high chair, my hand reaching out to help Luca down, but before his small boots could touch the floor, Anthony stood up. He walked around the long table, his boots clicking with a slow, deliberate cadence that made me back up until my spine hit the walnut frame of the sideboard.
He didn't touch his son. He reached out and caught my left wrist—the one where the skin was still slightly red from where I had ground it against the concrete edge of the pool while dragging Luca out. His grip wasn't tight enough to break the bone, but it was absolute, his fingers meeting around the joint like a pair of steel handcuffs.
"Marco tells me you stayed up until midnight watching the molding," Anthony said, his voice low enough that Luca, who was already running toward the terrace doors with his silver fork, didn't turn around.
"I was looking at the camera, Mr. Pellagrini," I said, looking directly into his face because poverty had taught me that looking down only gave men like him permission to hit harder. "The plaster was still wet on the floor."
Anthony’s mouth twisted into a small, dangerous line that might have been a smile if his eyes hadn't stayed so cold.
"The cameras are for the people who come through the gate without an invoice, Elena," he murmured, his thumb moving over the red line on my skin, his warmth soaking into my wrist until my blood felt heavy. "If I wanted to watch you sleep, I wouldn't use a wire. I'd use the door."
He let go of my wrist, his hand dropping back to his side as he turned to look out at the pool.
"The Moretti family has three sons," he said, his voice dropping another octave. "The oldest one spent ten years in federal prison because his maid carried a ledger out of the house in a grocery bag. In this house, Elena, we don't have grocery bags. We have loyalty. Or we have the concrete. Do you understand the lesson?"
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"I understand that you're afraid of a woman who cleans windows, Mr. Pellagrini," I said.
Anthony didn't answer. He turned his back on me, picking up his coffee cup as he walked out through the terrace doors into the sun, leaving me alone with the silver fork Luca had dropped on the rug.
