Chapter 3 - The Ghost at the Table
By the end of her first week at the estate, Nora had transformed the house without altering a single piece of furniture.
The constant tension that had gripped the staff since Helena's departure began to dissipate, replaced by a surreal, quiet rhythm. Leo no longer screamed through the night. Under Nora’s strict regimen—goat milk formula, timed naps in a room stripped of artificial noise, and long, quiet walks through the gated gardens—the baby had gained two pounds. His skin was no longer flushed with stress; his eyes were bright, curious, and calm.
But as Leo settled, Dominic’s obsession with Nora grew.
He watched her on the security monitors from his office. He watched the way she checked the locks on the windows whenever she entered a new room. He watched how she never sat with her back to an open door. He watched how her eyes scanned the treeline at the edge of the estate every time she took the baby outside.
She wasn't just a medic. She was a tactical operative.
On a rainy Thursday evening, Dominic instructed the kitchen staff to clear out. When Nora brought Leo down to the sunroom for his evening feed, she found a single place setting laid out at the long dining table.
Dominic was sitting at the head, wearing a crisp black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the dark ink of syndicate tattoos tracing down his wrists.
"Sit," he said, gesturing to the chair at his right.
Nora looked at the table, then at him. "I eat with the baby in the nursery."
"Tonight, you eat here," Dominic said. "The baby is asleep in his portable bassinet right beside you. Sit down, Nora."
She didn't argue. She placed the bassinet on a padded bench near her chair and sat down with graceful precision.
A quiet dinner of roasted lamb and dark wine was served. For twenty minutes, neither of them spoke. The only sound was the rain lashing against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the gloomy Sound.
"Interpol got back to me today," Dominic said smoothly, cutting a small piece of meat.
Nora didn't stop her fork. "Did they?"
"They said the thumbprint I sent them didn't belong to Nora Vance," Dominic continued, his tone light, conversational. "They said it belonged to a woman named Captain Eleonora Rostova. Former intelligence officer for the Ukrainian Defense Forces. Declared deceased two years ago after an airstrip bombing in Donetsk."
Nora set her fork down softly. She didn't panic. She didn't look for the exit. She merely leaned back in her chair, her gray eyes locking onto his with the cold intensity of an iron scope.
"Interpol's database is notoriously out of date," she said quietly.
"You died two years ago," Dominic repeated, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the table. "So tell me, Captain. How does a dead ghost end up taking a job as a nanny for a mobster’s son in New York?"
Nora looked down at the sleeping infant in the bassinet. Her expression softened—just for a fraction of a second—before hardening back into steel.
"When you spend your life surrounding yourself with war," she whispered, "you eventually realize that the only thing worth saving is the innocence that gets caught in the crossfire. My unit was ambushed. Everyone died. I was given a choice: stay dead and be hunted by the men who betrayed us, or disappear into the grey market."
"And why my house?" Dominic pressed. "Out of all the rich men in the world who need caretakers, why come here?"
Nora looked up, her gaze piercing right through him.
"Because three weeks ago, a man named Viktor Moretti bought a shipment of tactical-grade weaponry on the black market in Europe," she said softly. "The same weaponry that destroyed my unit. And my sources told me that Moretti was planning to use those weapons to wipe out your syndicate... starting with this house."
Dominic’s breath hitched. His hands clamped onto the edge of the table. "Moretti?"
"He doesn't want your territory, Dominic," Nora said, using his first name for the first time. "He wants you broken. He knows your wife left you. He knows you're vulnerable. And he knows that if he takes your son, you will tear your own empire apart looking for him."
She stood up, picking up the bassinet with one steady hand.
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"I didn't come here to hurt your child, Mr. Vance," she said, looking down at him with an expression that was dangerously close to pity. "I came here because your son is the target. And I am the only person in this house who knows how Moretti’s men think."
Before Dominic could process her words, the glass windows of the sunroom shattered inward in a violent explosion of rain, steel, and deafening thunder.
