Chapter 7 - Pancakes Under GuardNormal began with pancakes.
Dominic Caruso had negotiated with union leaders, corrupt politicians, hostile investors, and men who considered betrayal a family tradition. None of it prepared him for Rafa refusing breakfast unless the pancake had a face.
“It needs eyes,” Rafa said.
The chef, a former Navy cook with a scar along his jaw, looked at Dominic as if awaiting permission to invade a small country.
Dominic stared at the pancake.
Then he looked at Elena.
She crossed her arms.
“Normal,” she reminded him.
Dominic turned to the chef.
“Blueberries.”
The chef nodded gravely.
Nico added, “And a mouth.”
“Banana slice,” Dominic said.
Rafa frowned.
“Happy mouth.”
Dominic looked at the chef.
The chef looked back.
Neither man had ever faced such pressure.
Elena bit the inside of her cheek, trying not to laugh.
Finally, the chef cut the banana slice into a curve and placed it beneath the blueberry eyes.
Rafa inspected the result.
“Good.”
Dominic exhaled.
Marcus, standing near the door, muttered, “We survived.”
Elena heard him and smiled despite herself.
For half an hour, the world narrowed to syrup, dinosaur cups, sticky fingers, and Rafa explaining that Mr. Buttons did not eat pancakes because rabbits preferred invisible soup.
Nico asked Dominic questions with quiet precision.
“Can you sleep in your chair?”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because moving to bed hurts some nights.”
Nico considered this, then offered him a piece of pancake.
“Sugar helps.”
Dominic took it as if accepting communion.
“Thank you.”
Elena watched him from across the table.
Dominic did not know how to be casual with children. He spoke to them as if they were small board members whose approval could determine the future of his company. But he listened. Truly listened. When Rafa told a rambling story about a dog, a firetruck, and a moon made of cheese, Dominic followed every word.
It hurt Elena to see it.
That was the part she hated.
It would have been easier if he were cold. Easier if the sight of him with the boys proved she had been right to keep them away.
Instead, it proved something worse.
That all three years had been stolen.
After breakfast, Dominic arranged for the boys to play in the therapy center’s courtyard. It had high walls, cameras, and a small garden. To Nico and Rafa, it had rocks, puddles, and one suspicious squirrel.
Elena sat on a bench while Dominic parked his chair at the edge of the walkway.
Nico brought him a leaf.
“It looks like a hand,” the boy said.
Dominic accepted it.
“It does.”
“Your hands are big.”
“Yes.”
“Were you big when you were little?”
“No.”
Nico frowned.
“Then how?”
“I grew.”
Rafa ran over with mud on his shoe.
“I’m growing too. Mommy says too fast.”
Dominic looked at Elena.
“She is right.”
Elena’s expression shifted.
He had missed all of it.
The first steps.
The first words.
The first fever.
The first time Rafa laughed so hard he fell over.
The first time Nico said something too serious for his age and made Elena cry in the bathroom because he sounded like Dominic.
Dominic had missed everything.
And there was no weapon in the world that could punish him more than time already had.
Marcus approached the bench.
“Walsh called.”
Elena stiffened.
Dominic turned.
“The window man lawyered up?”
“No. He talked.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“And?”
Marcus glanced at Elena.
She stood.
“Say it.”
“He was paid to confirm the children were yours. Not take them.”
Dominic went cold.
“Then why the window?”
“He was supposed to get hair samples. Toothbrush. Something for DNA.”
Elena’s face drained.
“Who hired him?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Not Victor directly. A woman.”
Dominic’s gaze hardened.
“What woman?”
Marcus swallowed.
“Bianca Moretti.”
Elena looked confused.
Dominic did not.
Bianca Moretti had once been promised to him in the old world’s quiet way—an alliance, not a marriage. He had refused her after meeting Elena. Bianca had smiled when he told her.
Then she had kissed his cheek and whispered, “Women like that get tired of monsters.”
Elena saw Dominic’s expression.
“Who is she?”
“A mistake I did not make,” he said.
Marcus added, “Her family controls parts of Milwaukee.”
Elena’s voice sharpened.
“So not only your uncle.”
Dominic looked at his sons chasing each other through the courtyard.
“No,” he said. “Everyone who wanted my chair empty now has a reason to want my sons claimed or removed.”
Elena stepped close to him.
“You are going to fix this.”
“Yes.”
“No speeches. No strategy. No old-world nonsense. You are going to fix it in a way that lets them go back to dinosaur rugs and muffins.”
Dominic looked up at her.
“I swear it.”
She leaned down, close enough that only he could hear.
“You swore things before.”
He deserved that.
So he did not defend himself.
Across the courtyard, Rafa slipped in mud and landed on his backside.
For one second, everyone froze.
Then Rafa laughed.
Nico laughed.
Even Marcus smiled.
Dominic watched Elena run to them, wiping mud from Rafa’s hands, kissing his forehead, scolding and soothing in the same breath.
A nurse stepped beside Dominic.
“Mr. Caruso?”
He turned.
She held out an envelope.
“This was delivered to the front desk. No return name.”
Marcus snatched it before Dominic could touch it.
Inside was a photograph.
Not from the RiverWalk.
Not from the brownstone.
This one showed Elena in a hospital bed three years earlier, holding two newborns against her chest.
May you like
On the back, someone had written:
You were not the only one watching her.
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