🐰 The Stuffed Rabbit and the Mafia Boss’s Secret Ledger

Chapter 07 - The Duchess

They did not run.

Running in public created panic, and panic fed predators. Sebastian took the red file, Jasper lifted Nori without asking, and Hannah followed so close her coat brushed Sebastian’s sleeve.

A man in a gray beanie waited near the vending machines pretending to read train schedules.

Another stood by the east doors with both hands in his pockets.

A third, younger and more nervous, watched Hannah instead of Sebastian.

That was his mistake.

Sebastian stopped beside him.

The man looked up too late.

“Who sent you?” Sebastian asked.

The man swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Sebastian leaned closer. He did not touch him. Touching was often less useful than allowing imagination to do the work.

“You looked at the woman before you looked at me. That means your instructions included her face. Who gave them?”

The man’s eyes darted toward the east doors.

Jasper adjusted Nori against his shoulder. She blinked sleepily at the stranger.

“Bad guy?” she asked.

The man’s face collapsed with the absurd humiliation of being judged by a toddler.

Sebastian almost smiled. “Possibly.”

They made it to the SUV through a service exit. One of the men followed and stopped when he saw Jasper’s driver with a hand already inside his jacket.

Hannah buckled Nori in with fingers that would not stay steady.

“She met Daniel,” she said.

Sebastian knew who she meant.

“My mother met many people.”

“Don’t do that.”

He turned.

“Do what?”

“Make it sound ordinary because you are afraid it isn’t.”

The words landed cleanly.

Sebastian said, “My mother has not involved herself in business for fifteen years.”

“Maybe you stopped looking.”

Jasper opened the driver’s door and then paused, wisely choosing silence over survival.

Sebastian looked at Hannah for a long moment.

“She is seventy-one.”

“So was Salvatore Romano when he hid payroll fraud inside a church donation account,” Hannah said.

Sebastian stared.

“My husband read case files for fun,” she said. “Widows remember what men read aloud when they were too nervous to sleep.”

That was the first time he truly understood Daniel Carter had not died alone in spirit. He had taken his fear home, and Hannah had carried it after him without being invited into any ledger.

Sebastian ordered the driver to take them to his mother’s residence.

The Vale townhouse sat on a quiet street lined with old elms and newer cameras. Evelina Vale owned the block through three charities and one company named after a saint no one in the family had ever prayed to.

She received them in a sitting room with blue silk walls and a fire burning too neatly to feel warm.

“Sebastian,” she said, offering her cheek.

He did not kiss it.

Her eyes moved to Hannah, then to Nori.

For a fraction of a second, Evelina Vale’s composure shifted.

Not at the file in Sebastian’s hand.

At the rabbit.

Hannah saw it too.

“Mrs. Vale,” Sebastian said, “did you meet Daniel Carter before he died?”

His mother walked to the tea table and lifted a porcelain cup.

“You have come into my house with a maid and a child before eight in the morning. Either you are unwell, or someone has trained you to be rude.”

“Answer me.”

Evelina took one sip.

“Yes.”

Hannah’s breath caught.

Sebastian stepped closer. “Why?”

“Because he asked for protection.”

“And did you give it?”

His mother finally looked at him. Her eyes were as dark as his and twice as tired.

“I tried.”

The answer was not what anyone expected.

Evelina set down the cup.

“Daniel Carter was killed because he discovered your brother was alive.”

Sebastian’s jaw tightened. “Where is Matteo?”

“Closer than you think.”

Nori slid off Hannah’s lap and toddled toward the fireplace before anyone could stop her. She pointed at a framed photograph on the mantel.

“Bunny man,” she said.

Sebastian turned.

The photograph showed a family garden party from years ago. In the background, half-hidden near the hedges, stood a man with burn scars along his cheek.

Matteo.