Chapter 5 - A Quiet Table
By midnight, the storm outside had settled into a steady, whispering rain.
In the vast commercial kitchen on the ground floor of the Duca mansion, the world had turned upside down.
Chef Jean-Pierre, a volatile Frenchman who usually threatened under-cooks with copper pans if they dared speak above a murmur during dinner prep, was currently on his knees beside the central butcher block, carefully cutting crusts off a piece of brioche toast with a small silver knife.
Sitting on a tall mahogany stool, swinging her small legs in brand-new wool stockings that Mrs. Dora had found in the town boutique, was Noel.
She was wearing a soft cream cashmere sweater that was far too large for her, the sleeves rolled up four times. In front of her sat a bowl of warm chicken velouté, three butter cookies, and a glass of milk with a striped paper straw.
"More butter?" Jean-Pierre asked with exaggerated seriousness, offering a small silver dish.
Noel pushed her pink glasses up her nose, examined the butter, and shook her head solemnly. "The bread is already yellow, silly."
Mrs. Dora stood nearby, folding napkins with precise, rhythmic motions, a faint twitch at the corner of her lips that might have been a smile on any other human being.
The heavy door to the kitchen swung open.
The room went instantly dead silent. Jean-Pierre scrambled to his feet, smoothing his white apron. Mrs. Dora straightened her spine.
Raphael walked into the kitchen.
He had changed out of the ruined wedding suit. He wore a simple black cashmere sweater and dark trousers, his dark hair damp from a shower. The tension in his frame had not dissolved, but it had altered—shifted from the cold lethality of a syndicate boss into something raw, watchful, and intensely focused.
Noel did not stop swinging her feet. "Did Mama wake up?"
Raphael walked across the stone floor, stopping beside her stool. He looked down at the empty bowl of soup, then at the single butter cookie remaining on the plate.
"She woke up," Raphael said, his voice surprisingly gentle in the cavernous kitchen. "She asked about you. The doctor gave her medicine to make her sleep again so her heart can rest."
"Her heart is tired," Noel nodded sagely, taking a bite of the cookie. "It beats funny. Like this: *tap... tap-tap...... tap.*"
Raphael’s expression darkened for a split second before smoothing out. "The doctors are going to fix it. A big doctor is flying here on an airplane tomorrow morning."
"Can airplanes fly in the rain?"
"This one can," Raphael said. "I bought the airplane."
Noel considered this with the gravity of a supreme court justice. "You have a lot of stuff."
"Not as much as you think," Raphael murmured.
He turned to Mrs. Dora. "Milo has reported from the harbor. Marcus Vance survived the surgery on his shoulder. He is currently in the custody of our associates at Pier 4. His lawyers have already filed three emergency injunctions, but the district attorney’s office has suddenly found twenty years of tax evasion records that Vance forgot to incinerate."
"And the rest of the family?" Mrs. Dora asked quietly.
"Julianna has left the state," Raphael replied coldly. "Her brother, Thomas, is attempting to pull together Vance’s private security contractors. He thinks he can storm this house and retrieve the ledgers we seized from their townhouse."
Mrs. Dora didn't flinch. "The iron gates are locked, Mr. Raphael. The perimeter has thirty men."
"Make it sixty," Raphael commanded. "Nobody sleeps tonight."
He turned back to Noel, who had finished her cookie and was now leaning her chin against the edge of the marble butcher block, her eyes heavy behind the thick plastic lenses of her glasses.
Without a word, Raphael leaned down, scooped the little girl into his arms, and lifted her off the stool.
Noel did not protest. She immediately wrapped her thin arms around his neck, resting her head against the hollow of his shoulder where his collarbone met his neck. She smelled of lavender soap, sweet butter, and child-safe shampoo.
"You smell like rain," Noel mumbled into his sweater.
Raphael carried her out of the kitchen, through the long, echoing corridors of the house that had stood empty and lifeless for fifteen years. As he carried her up the grand marble stairs, past the oil paintings of stern ancestors who had ruled the Boston docks with iron and blood, Raphael realized something that made his throat tighten.
His mother had told him he would never be able to buy someone who could look at him without seeing the gun.
This child had never seen the gun. She saw only the man who carried her to bed.
He carried her into the adjoining suite next to his own bedroom, tucking her beneath the heavy duvet. Noel rolled onto her side, clutching her one-eyed cloth horse against her chest, her breathing slowing into the deep, rhythmic sleep of the innocent.
Raphael stood by the door for a long time, watching her chest rise and fall.
Then he walked into his library.
On the oak table sat the dust-covered bottle of Barolo.
Raphael picked it up. He did not pour a glass to look at in the dark. He carried the bottle back to the master bedroom, set it on the nightstand beside the three pebbles and the rusted tin box, and sat down in the armchair beside Clara’s bed.
May you like
He closed his eyes, listening to the monitor, and waited for the dawn.
***