His broad hands fumbled with the harness buckle. He had never unbuckled a car seat before. He had left all those details to nurses, to housekeepers, to people he paid to keep his son safe behind stone walls.
“Come here,” Roman rasped, his voice breaking.
He slid his fingers under Nicholas’s small arms, supporting the baby’s head with his palm, and lifted him into the sunlight. Nicholas let out a thin, weak cry, his damp face pressing against Roman’s shirt. His skin felt like a warm stone left in the sun.
Roman held the child against his chest with both arms locked tight. He looked at Evelyn by the oak tree, her breathing fast, her hand clutching her pearl necklace.
“If I ever see your car inside my gates again, Evelyn, I won’t call Charles Vane. I will call the sheriff, and I will tell him you tried to take an infant across county lines without a legal order. Now get out.”
He didn’t wait to see her leave. He walked back toward the house, his eyes fixed on the small, warm head against his collarbone.
Nico’s tiny fist was clenched around the top button of Roman’s shirt.
Roman felt the small, rapid heartbeat against his own ribs — fast, light, frantic, like a bird trapped in a cage.
And for the first time since the night Claire died, Roman Bellini did not feel cold.
Inside the main house, Martha hurried out with a wet cloth and cold rehydration solution. “Mr. Bellini! Is he alright?”
“Get the doctor,” Roman ordered, sitting on the hallway bench, keeping Nicholas on his lap, his arms forming a wall around the tiny body. “Call Sterling. Tell him to get here now.”
“Dr. Sterling is in Columbia until four, sir—”
“Then call someone else!” Roman roared.
Martha flinched.
Sophie pulled her thumb out of her mouth. She didn’t look scared by the shout — she looked annoyed, the way she looked when adults made unnecessary noise during her cartoons.
She let go of her mother’s hand and walked straight across the marble floor toward the bench.
“Sophie, no!” Rachel whispered — but Roman held up one hand, freezing her in place.
Sophie stopped between Roman’s knees. She looked at Nicholas — eyes half-closed, breathing in short, feverish hitches.
She put the blue ear tips of her red plastic stethoscope into her own ears and reached out with the round red disc.
“Move your hand,” Sophie commanded Roman.
Slowly, Roman pulled his hand back two inches, uncovering the baby’s ribs.
Sophie pressed the red disc against Nico’s chest. Five seconds. Head tilted. Eyebrows pulled together in profound concentration.
“He’s hot,” Sophie announced.
“I know he’s hot,” Roman said through a strained rasp.
“He needs the cold juice,” she said, pointing at Martha’s tray. “Not the cloth. The cloth makes his shirt wet. My mom gives me the cold juice in the little cup when I have the hot forehead.”
Rachel stepped forward. “She means the rehydration solution, Mr. Bellini. Room temperature works better than ice-cold — too cold cramps their stomachs when they’re overheated.”
For the first time in four weeks, Roman actually looked at Rachel’s face — not as domestic equipment, but as a human being who had raised a child through the night without three nurses standing by.
“Do it,” Roman said.
Rachel poured two ounces into a cup and sat on the edge of the bench. “Hold his chin up a little, Mr. Bellini. Just a quarter inch so he doesn’t choke.”
Roman adjusted his hand behind Nico’s neck with extreme care. Rachel brought the cup to the baby’s lips. Nicholas hesitated, then began to drink — small, greedy gulps.
Sophie sat cross-legged on the marble floor at Roman’s feet, holding her stethoscope in her lap like a surgeon awaiting the recovery report.
“See?” Sophie said, looking up with supreme confidence. “I fixed him.”
Roman looked down at the little girl, then at his son drinking from the cup.
“Yes,” Roman said quietly. “You did.”
By three o’clock, the house had returned to an uneasy quiet — a different kind of quiet than before.
Nicholas slept in his crib, his face back to its normal color, breathing deep and even. Roman sat in the rocking chair six feet away. He hadn’t moved in forty minutes.
Downstairs, Rachel sat at the kitchen counter while Sophie drew monsters on a grocery receipt. The side door opened, and Marco walked in.
“The lawyer left,” Marco said, pouring himself water. “He tried to talk to Roman about the filing again. Roman told him to throw Evelyn’s papers in the incinerator.”
“Is Mrs. Whitmore going to bring the police?” Rachel asked nervously.
Marco made a dry sound. “The sheriff owes Roman three favors from the last election. Nobody’s coming through those gates with a warrant unless it comes from federal court in Atlanta, and that takes three weeks.”
Then his expression sharpened. “You’ve been here three weeks, right?”
“Four.”
“Your ex-husband. Terry Miller. Works at a boat repair yard in West Ashley. Owes forty-two thousand to a gambling operator on Rivers Avenue.”
Rachel’s hand froze around her glass. “How… why do you know that?”
“Everybody who works inside this house gets looked at. When you brought the kid in today, my team pulled your file again.”
He leaned closer. “Terry tried to sell your address to two guys from Wilmington three weeks ago. Thought he could get ten grand telling them where Roman Bellini’s new housekeeper lived.”
Rachel felt the floor give way beneath her. “Oh God—”