Chapter 4 - The Unraveling
By 2:00 PM, the Rossi mansion had turned into a tactical command center, but not for a turf war.
Two private pediatric neurologists sat in the living room, whispering in hushed, nervous tones. Finn had finally collapsed from sheer exhaustion at eleven, his body limp on his bed, but his fever had spiked to a hundred and two, his breathing shallow and rattling.
"It's a severe sensory regression triggered by acute separation trauma," Dr. Aris, a high-priced specialist from Massachusetts General, explained to Victor as they stood in the study. "Mr. Rossi, your son is on the high-functioning end of the sensory processing spectrum. The former nanny wasn't just taking care of him; she was serving as his external emotional regulator."
"She was an employee," Victor growled, pacing behind his desk. "I pay you ten thousand dollars a month to manage his condition."
"And I manage his prescriptions!" Dr. Aris snapped back, refusing to be intimidated. "I do not sit with him for four hours in the dark while he processes acoustic overstimulation! Who built his sensory routines? Who tracked his dietary triggers?"
Victor paused, his brow furrowing. "The kitchen staff makes his meals."
Dr. Aris pulled a thick, hand-bound leather notebook from his briefcase and set it on Victor’s desk.
"Mrs. Gable found this in the pantry," Dr. Aris said quietly. "It’s Miss Bennett’s logbook."
Victor picked up the book.
He opened the cover. Written in neat, rounded penmanship were three hundred pages of meticulous notes.
Page 12: Finn cannot tolerate yellow foods on Tuesdays due to fatigue from speech therapy. Substitute apple slices with peeled pears.
Page 45: The sound of the HVAC turning on in the north wing produces a 60-cycle hum that triggers his ear pain. Keep a small white-noise fan running in his closet at all times.
Page 112: When Mr. Rossi comes home late and the security cars idle in the driveway, Finn hears the diesel engines. Do not tell him it’s security. Tell him it’s the big storm trucks cleaning the streets. He likes trucks.
Page 204: If Finn asks about his mother, show him the blue photo album on the second shelf. Do not let him see the black album. The black album contains the newspaper clippings of the accident. He is not ready.
Victor’s fingers froze on the page.
The black album.
Victor hadn't even known the black album was still in the house. He had thought he’d burned every record of his late wife’s tragic car crash five years ago. Harper had found it, sorted through it, protected his son from it, and kept the knowledge buried without ever bringing it to Victor’s attention or asking for a raise.
"Mr. Rossi," Frank Novak, Victor’s right-hand lieutenant, stepped into the study, his heavy face pale. "We have another problem."
Victor snapped the notebook shut, his jaw set. "What is it now, Frank?"
"The shipping terminal at Pier 9," Frank said nervously. "The union rep, O'Malley... he just shut down the loading cranes for the third shift."
Victor’s eyes flashed with anger. "O'Malley? I paid that union scum fifty grand last month to keep the dockworkers quiet! Why is he shutting down the cranes?"
"Because..." Frank swallowed hard, shifting his weight. "Because Miss Bennett isn't at her desk."
Victor stared at Frank as if his lieutenant had grown a second head. "What does Harper Bennett have to do with the Boston Port Authority?!"
"Boss..." Frank sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Miss Bennett was the one who remembered O'Malley’s daughter had leukemia. For the last year, every month, she personally packed a basket of organic produce, specialized medical toys, and a handwritten note from your office and had it delivered to O'Malley’s house. O'Malley thought you were doing it. He thought you were watching out for his kid. He told me twenty minutes ago that if Victor Rossi is too cold to send a birthday card to a dying girl, the dockworkers aren't lifting a single container for your ships."
Victor stood frozen behind his desk.
The silence in the room stretched out until it felt like a physical weight.
The dock strike at Pier 9 was costing his primary import business eighty thousand dollars an hour. The cargo sitting on those ships contained time-sensitive legal shipments that served as the primary money-laundering front for his entire North End operation.
And it was failing because a plus-size girl he had called "useful" wasn't sending fruit baskets to a union boss’s daughter.
"Get her back," Victor said, his voice dropping into a dangerous whisper.
May you like
Frank blinked. "Boss?"
"Find her," Victor commanded, his gray eyes burning with a sudden, frantic intensity. "Find where she went. Offer her double her salary. Offer her triple. Bring her back to this house before the sun sets!"
