The Man Dominic Forgot

Chapter 02 - The Man Dominic Forgot

Silas Rinaldi arrived through the east garden gate forty-three minutes later.

He wore an old wool coat, a gray scarf, and the wary expression of a man who had survived by entering rooms only after memorizing every exit. Once, he had run half of Adrian’s intelligence network. Officially, he had retired after a bullet shattered his knee two winters earlier.

Unofficially, Adrian had kept him alive by letting everyone believe Dominic no longer needed to worry about him.

That morning, Silas entered Adrian’s bedroom without knocking and looked first at the cup.

Not at Maria.

Not at Lily.

Not at Adrian sitting on the edge of the bed for the first time in months without the gray cast of exhaustion beneath his skin.

The cup.

“Who touched it?” Silas asked.

“Dominic brought it,” Adrian said.

“After him?”

“No one.”

Lily raised her hand. “I smelled it.”

Silas’s gaze lowered to her.

She was sitting cross-legged in an armchair, wearing one of Adrian’s clean undershirts over her yellow nightdress because Maria had been too stunned to fetch proper clothes. The shirt fell to her knees. Her rabbit sat beside her like a witness.

Silas looked at Adrian.

“This the source?”

“This,” Adrian said, “is Lily.”

Lily waved politely.

Silas, who had once interrogated a federal informant for nine hours without blinking, softened by half an inch.

“Good morning, Miss Lily.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“No.”

“Then don’t touch the tea.”

His mouth twitched.

“I won’t.”

Maria stood near the window, arms folded tight across her waist. She had said almost nothing since finding her daughter in Adrian’s room. Fear had emptied the color from her face, but not her spine. Adrian noticed that.

He noticed too much that morning.

The way Maria kept herself between Lily and every man who entered. The way she flinched when Dominic’s name was mentioned, then tried to hide it. The way she watched Adrian not like an employee watching an employer, but like a mother measuring whether a dangerous animal might decide to become merciful.

“You should both leave the room,” Adrian said.

Maria shook her head. “No.”

Silas lifted an eyebrow.

Adrian turned toward her slowly.

“No?”

Maria swallowed, but she did not retreat.

“If my daughter saw something, she may remember more if she hears the right question.”

“This is not a conversation for children.”

“She is three, Mr. Moretti, not furniture.”

The words landed in the room sharper than anyone expected.

Lily looked from her mother to Adrian.

“I’m not furniture.”

“No,” Adrian said quietly. “You are not.”

Silas removed a glass vial from his coat pocket and transferred a small amount of tea into it. Then he sealed the vial, bagged the cup, and studied the residue clinging to the porcelain.

“This needs a lab.”

“Use Dr. Neri.”

Silas’s expression changed.

“Dr. Neri died last year.”

Adrian stared at him.

“What?”

Silas went still.

Maria looked down.

Adrian’s pulse slowed, then hardened.

He had sent a gift to Neri’s retirement party six months ago. Dominic had handled the arrangements. Dominic had said Neri moved to Naples.

“Who told me he retired?” Adrian asked.

Silas did not answer.

He did not need to.

Adrian stood. The room tilted slightly. Maria noticed before anyone else and reached instinctively toward him, then stopped herself.

He saw that too.

“Sit down,” she said before remembering who he was.

Silas looked fascinated.

Adrian ignored both of them and walked to the desk. His phone lay beside the framed photograph of his parents and Dominic as boys. In the picture, Dominic was eight, smiling with all his teeth, holding Adrian’s wrist as if Adrian might drift away without him.

There had been a time Adrian would have died for him.

There had been many times he nearly had.

“Where is Dominic?” Adrian asked.

Silas checked his phone.

“Breakfast room. With Councillor DeMarco and your attorney.”

Adrian’s eyes lifted.

“My attorney?”

“Yes.”

“I had no meeting scheduled with Levine.”

“Dominic does.”

Silas hesitated, then added, “There’s a board packet on the agenda for noon. Temporary delegation of executive authority. Medical grounds.”

Maria inhaled softly.

Adrian looked toward the untouched tea.

Three years of sleeplessness.

Three years of trembling hands.

Three years of Dominic gently taking meetings off his calendar, signing papers he was too tired to read, telling allies Adrian needed rest.

A little girl with a lion book had seen more clearly than everyone paid to protect him.

“Mommy,” Lily said suddenly.

Maria turned. “What, baby?”

“Uncle Dominic had a silver bottle.”

Adrian’s eyes shifted to her.

Maria crouched by the chair. “What kind of silver bottle?”

Lily pinched her fingers together. “Tiny. Like the one Grandpa used for his heart drops.”

Maria’s face went completely still.

Adrian looked at her.

“Your father used medicine drops?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

Maria hesitated.

There it was again. That flinch at the edge of truth.

“Mrs. Carter,” Adrian said.

She looked at him, and for the first time since entering the room, he saw something that was not fear.

Guilt.

“My father was a pharmacist,” she said. “He compounded medications for private families.”

“Which families?”

Maria did not answer fast enough.

Silas’s phone vibrated.

He read the message and his expression hardened.

“The lab courier is on the way. Also, your brother just asked security to locate Lily.”

Maria’s hand closed around her daughter’s shoulder.

Adrian’s voice dropped.

“Why?”

Silas looked at the screen.

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“His exact words? ‘Find the little girl before she talks.’”

In the armchair, Lily hugged her rabbit and whispered, “I already talked.”