Chapter 6 - The Night Watch
By ten o'clock that evening, the lowcountry heat had finally broken under a sudden summer thunderstorm that rolled in off the Atlantic. Rain lashed against the high leaded glass windows of the Bellini mansion, the wind rattling the heavy oak shutters on the third floor.
The rest of the house was dark.
In the second-floor nursery, a single low-wattage lamp burned on the side table near the armchair, casting a warm, amber glow across the dark rug.
Roman sat in the armchair, wearing a dark wool sweater and trousers. His feet were stretched out before him, his hands resting on his chest, his eyes fixed on the small white crib against the wall.
Nicholas was sleeping on his stomach, his head turned to the left, his small breathing making a faint, rhythmic sound against the monitor speaker resting on the table.
The oak door opened six inches, making no sound on its brass hinges.
Rachel stepped inside, carrying a small tray with a fresh pot of black coffee and two ceramic mugs. She was no longer wearing her gray smock; she was in her own clothes—faded jeans and a dark green cardigan she had brought from her car.
"I brought coffee, Mr. Bellini," she whispered, setting the tray down on the low table near his chair. "Martha went to her quarters in the carriage house."
Roman didn't look up immediately. "Where is Sophie?"
"She’s asleep in the small bedroom off the kitchen," Rachel said, sitting down quietly on the small footstool three feet from his chair. "I made a bed for her on the sofa. I hope that’s alright... the storm was so bad I didn't want to drive the old Honda across the marsh bridge in this wind."
"It's fine," Roman said.
He reached out, poured himself a cup of black coffee, and took a slow sip. His face looked tired in the amber lamp light, the dark lines around his eyes carved deeper by sixteen hours of tension and heat.
"She called me a patient," Roman said suddenly.
Rachel blinked, surprised. "Who?"
"Your daughter," Roman said, a faint, almost invisible trace of humor flickering in the corner of his mouth before disappearing into his dark beard. "When she came into my study this afternoon. She told me my baby was locked in a hot car. Then she told me I was making too much noise while she was checking him."
Rachel let out a quiet, nervous breath that turned into a tiny laugh. "She thinks everyone is a patient, Mr. Bellini. Last week she spent twenty minutes trying to put a band-aid on a fire hydrant near our apartment because she said it looked sad."
Roman looked into his coffee cup. "She has no fear."
"She doesn't know enough to be afraid yet," Rachel said softly. "I try to keep it that way for as long as I can."
Roman turned his head and looked at her. His hazel eyes caught the warm light of the lamp, looking less like cold stone now and more like clear, deep water.
"Claire was like that," Roman said softly.
It was the first time Rachel had ever heard him speak his wife's name aloud. In the four weeks she had worked in the house, Claire’s name had been a ghost—something mentioned in whispers by the housekeepers or written on legal documents by Charles Vane, but never spoken by the man who lived in the center of the estate.
"She wasn't afraid of anything," Roman continued, his voice dropping into a rhythmic, distant tone, as if he were speaking to the storm outside the glass. "Not of my father. Not of the men who came to our house at midnight. Not of the family name. When I told her what kind of life she would have if she married me... she just laughed and told me to buy better locks for the doors."
He paused, his thumb tracing the smooth rim of his ceramic mug.
"The night she died," Roman said, "the driveway was blocked because two cars from the Moretti group were sitting outside the main gate. My men thought it was an ambush. They didn't want to open the gates to let an ambulance in until they cleared the perimeter."
Rachel held her breath. She didn't move a single muscle, afraid that any sound would break the thin, fragile glass of his confession.
"I was the one who told them to use the rear road," Roman said, his words coming out very slowly, each one heavy with six months of unpayable debt. "The rear road was unpaved. It was muddy from the spring rains. The ambulance got stuck near the drainage creek for eleven minutes."
He looked toward the crib where his son lay sleeping.
"Eleven minutes," Roman repeated. "The doctor said it didn't matter. He said the aneurysm was too deep, that she was gone before she hit the floor in the hallway. But every time I look at Nicholas... I see those eleven minutes. I see the rear gate locked. I see the ambulance tires spinning in the mud."
"Mr. Bellini," Rachel said gently, her voice breaking the quiet dark of the room like a light coming on in an empty hallway. "You didn't lock the gate to hurt her. You locked it to keep her safe."
Roman didn't answer. He turned his face back toward the window, where the rain was beating against the glass in long, dark streaks.
"A man who cannot keep his wife alive," Roman whispered, "has no right to hold his son."
"That's not true," Rachel said, standing up from her footstool. She walked over to the crib, looked down at Nicholas for a long moment, then turned back to Roman with a quiet, fierce determination in her dark eyes. "That child doesn't know about ambulances, Mr. Bellini. He doesn't know about gates or lawyers or grand juries. He only knows whose chest he’s resting on when he's cold."
She picked up her tray with the coffee pot and walked toward the nursery door.
May you like
"He needs his father," Rachel said from the doorway. "Not your security guards. Not your lawyers. You."
She pulled the oak door shut behind her, leaving Roman alone in the warm amber light, listening to the rain and the steady, quiet breath of his sleeping son.
