Mr. Buttons and the Sound Beneath the Stitches
Chapter 06 - Mr. Buttons and the Sound Beneath the Stitches
A child’s toy should not sound like a machine.
The beep was small, almost polite. In a house full of alarms, locks, cameras, and men with earpieces, it should have meant nothing.
But every adult in the pantry turned toward Sophie’s worn white rabbit.
Sophie looked offended on its behalf.
“Mr. Buttons has hiccups.”
Claire crossed the room and lifted the toy from her daughter’s arms. Her hands were steady, but her face had changed into something I had not seen before.
Fear, yes.
But beneath it, recognition.
“Sophie,” she said softly, “did anyone touch Mr. Buttons today?”
Sophie thought about it.
“The flower lady patted him.”
“Bianca?”
“The pretty crying one.”
Claire looked at me.
Raffaele was still on the phone.
“You’re quiet, cousin,” he said. “That usually means you have begun to understand.”
I ended the call without answering.
Marco held out his hand for the rabbit. Sophie immediately shook her head.
“No. He gets scared.”
“Sophie,” Claire said, kneeling. “Mr. Buttons might be carrying something important. We have to check his tummy.”
The child’s mouth trembled.
“Will it hurt him?”
“No,” Claire said. “We’ll fix him after.”
I did not move. I have seen grown men betray brothers for less than the trust Sophie placed in her mother at that moment.
Mrs. Alvarez found sewing scissors. Claire turned the rabbit over and searched the clumsy old seam along its side. I noticed then that one set of stitches did not match the others. New thread. White instead of cream.
My eyes went to Claire.
“You didn’t sew that.”
“No.”
She opened the seam carefully.
Inside the stuffing was a small plastic packet wrapped in tape.
Marco took it.
Inside was a memory card.
No one spoke.
Sophie watched with solemn concern.
“Can Mr. Buttons have his tummy back now?”
Mrs. Alvarez gathered the toy and thread at once. “I’ll make him better, baby.”
Sophie took Nico’s hand as if he were the one who needed courage.
“Emergency cake helps.”
The children were led away under guard to the warmest kitchen in Illinois.
Claire remained in the pantry, looking at the card in Marco’s hand as if it had risen from a grave.
“My brother,” she said.
I waited.
Her voice thinned. “Evan. He gave Sophie that rabbit.”
“Where is he now?”
She pressed her lips together.
“He disappeared two days after your shooting.”
The pantry seemed smaller.
“I was told Evan Bennett moved to Arizona,” Enzo said slowly.
“He didn’t,” Claire said. “He drove for a warehouse contractor tied to Raffaele. He called me the night before he vanished and said if anything happened to him, I should keep Sophie’s rabbit close.”
“And you never opened it?” Marco asked.
“It was her comfort toy. Her father had already walked away before she was born. My brother was the only man who showed up for her. I wasn’t going to cut open the last gift he gave her because he sounded paranoid on a bad phone connection.”
Her voice broke on the last word.
She turned away quickly.
I pretended not to notice because dignity is sometimes the last thing one person can protect for another.
Marco had a laptop brought from the security office. The pantry became a command room: crates of champagne for desks, linen boxes for chairs, white roses wilting in buckets near the door.
The memory card contained three files.
One photograph.
One audio recording.
One scan of a bank transfer.
The photograph appeared first.
It showed me two years earlier outside the Cicero restaurant, moments before the ambush. I was standing beside my car in a black coat, unaware of the rain-slicked street behind me.
A red circle had been drawn around the side entrance.
There, half hidden in shadow, stood Raffaele.
The bank transfer was next.
Two million dollars from a development shell company tied to Don Ferretti.
Recipient: RV Consulting.
Raffaele Vitali.
Then came the audio.
Static.
Rain.
A male voice I recognized as my cousin’s.
“He doesn’t need to die. He needs to be seen broken. A dead man becomes a martyr. A chair becomes a message.”
Claire made a strangled sound.
The recording continued.
A second voice asked, “And the girl from the clinic?”
Raffaele laughed.
“Clara Bennett? If she talks, take the child first.”
The room went still around Claire.
I did not realize I had moved until my chair struck the crate in front of me.
A weaker man would have shouted.
I became very quiet.
“Marco.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find Raffaele.”
Claire turned toward me.
“No.”
Every eye moved to her.
She swallowed, then lifted her chin.
“If he wants me,” she said, “then we stop chasing shadows.”
May you like
She looked at the memory card.
“We make him come here.”
