Chapter 4 - The Customs of the Castle
The Bellandi mansion ran on a schedule that felt less like a household and more like a clockwork mechanism where every gear was oiled with silence.
By seven in the morning, the triplets were at the kitchen island. Leo was eating his eggs with a small silver fork that he insisted on wiping with a napkin between every bite. Nico was staring into his milk as if he could see the future in the white bubbles, and Mia was busy sticking three different butterfly stickers onto my apron.
"Miss Ward," Leo said, his mouth slightly full. "Father says we are going to the conservatory today. To see the ferns."
"The ferns are boring," Mia reported, her chin covered in honey. "I want to see the monkeys."
"There are no monkeys at the Garfield Park Conservatory, Mia," Leo said with the exhausted patience of a schoolmaster. "It is a botanical facility, not a zoological collection. Tell her, Miss Ward."
"Sometimes there are invisible monkeys," I said, sitting down on the stool next to Nico. "They only live in the highest palm trees and they only eat the yellowest leaves. You have to look very carefully through the glass."
Mia’s eyes went wide. Nico stopped staring at his milk and looked up, his small face brightening. "Do they have tails?"
"Long ones," I said. "Like ropes."
"A ridiculous hypothesis," Leo muttered, though he immediately began eating his toast twice as fast, his eyes darting toward the door as if he wanted to reach the conservatory before the invisible monkeys vanished.
Dante entered the kitchen at seven thirty.
He was fully dressed for the city—a dark gray coat with a velvet collar, leather gloves tucked into his breast pocket, and a leather folder under his arm. He didn't sit down. He took a single cup of black espresso from Enzo, drank it standing by the counter, and watched us.
"The car will be ready in ten minutes," Dante said. "Enzo will accompany you to the conservatory. There will be two guards in the secondary vehicle."
"Is that necessary?" I asked, looking at the triplets, who were now arguing about whether the invisible monkeys wore hats. "For a trip to see ferns?"
"In Chicago, everything is necessary, Miss Ward," Dante said. He walked over to the island and laid a hand on Leo’s shoulder. The boy immediately went still, his posture straightening into a tiny copy of his father’s. "Listen to Miss Ward today, Leo. If your brother or sister steps away from the path, you call the guard."
"Yes, Father," Leo said.
Dante looked at me. His gaze lingered on my hair, which I had tied back with a simple green ribbon I’d found in the nursery drawer. "Your grandmother's patterns are in the library, Evelyn. Enzo retrieved them at dawn."
My heart gave a small, grateful thump. "Did Sebastian's people... did they say anything?"
"They didn't see anyone," Dante said. He gave a short, cold smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Enzo took three men and the flatbed. They didn't use the service lane. They used the front drive and took the garage door off its hinges because the manager could not find the key quickly enough. The Cranes have spent the morning calling the police, but the captain of the eighteenth district is a cousin of mine. The report has been filed under 'administrative confusion.'"
May you like
I stared at him, my mouth slightly open. "You broke their garage door for some paper patterns?"
"A Bellandi does not use the back door to collect what belongs to his household," Dante said. He turned to leave, his long coat swinging around his boots. "Enjoy the monkeys, Mia."
