Chapter 3 - THE SIX SILVER LIONS
There were six cufflinks.
Damian had given them out four years earlier after a failed assassination attempt.
Each numbered.
One through six.
Number 04 belonged to Leon Varga, deputy director of Costello estate security.
Leon had vanished the night of the attack.
His phone died at 8:14.
His wife claimed he was on a training assignment.
No assignment existed.
Nico wanted a warrant immediately.
Investigators preferred patience.
Damian was learning to hate patience.
The cufflink tied Leon to the hidden passage.
But still needed context.
Had he dropped it weeks earlier?
Months?
They checked renovation records.
The passage had been sealed after work three days before the attack.
Only maintenance and senior security entered.
Leon signed the final inspection.
Enough to matter.
Not enough alone.
Then Clara remembered something.
Not from the attack.
From the afternoon before.
Victoria had entered the nursery while Clara folded blankets.
She stood beside Oliver’s crib for almost a full minute.
Did not touch him.
Then Owen.
Same.
Clara assumed she was checking whether they slept.
Now the memory felt different.
“What did she say?” Damian asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No.”
Clara looked at him.
“She just watched them.”
Damian’s face closed.
“And then?”
“She asked whether you were definitely staying overnight in Boston.”
Silence.
Damian looked at Nico.
“She knew.”
Maybe.
Still not proof.
Clara continued:
“Then she asked me whether the nursery service passage still opened.”
That was proof of interest.
“Why didn't you think that was strange?”
Clara almost laughed.
“She lived there.”
Right.
Damian’s people had spent years treating questions from powerful people as ordinary.
Everything became suspicious only afterward.
An examination of Victoria’s finances revealed an account in Luxembourg.
Opened eight months earlier.
Balance:
$6.2 million.
Source obscured through four corporations.
One connected to Mercer Advisory.
Then another document surfaced.
A draft trust amendment.
If Damian died while his sons were minors, Victoria became temporary guardian of voting shares for 180 days.
Normal.
Except an attached proxy granted Adrian Mercer authority to execute “urgent commercial transactions” during that period.
Damian stared at Victoria’s signature.
Dated two months earlier.
His signature?
Missing.
The amendment had never become valid.
But apparently Victoria and Mercer believed Damian had signed another version.
Or planned to forge one.
Nico said:
“They need all three of you gone.”
Damian looked at him.
“Victoria too?”
“If she transfers the proxy first.”
That explained the dock.
Maybe Victoria had joined a conspiracy believing she would survive.
Mercer had made different plans.
Damian smiled without humor.
“Everybody was betraying everybody.”
Nico replied:
“Efficient.”
Then the phone rang.
Hospital nursery.
Oliver had developed a fever.
Nothing severe.
Possibly stress.
Still.
Damian arrived within eighteen minutes.
Clara happened to be there.
She had come to say goodbye before leaving for Providence.
Oliver cried in Damian’s arms.
Harder.
Damian looked helpless.
Clara held out her hands.
“May I?”
He passed Oliver over.
Within thirty seconds, the baby quieted.
Damian stared.
“That's insulting.”
Clara smiled despite herself.
“You smell like expensive cologne and panic.”
“I do not panic.”
Oliver began crying again the second Damian touched his blanket.
Clara raised an eyebrow.
Damian sighed.
“Apparently I panic.”
Owen woke.
Then also cried.
Clara ended up holding one while Damian awkwardly held the other.
For ten minutes there was no mafia.
No conspiracy.
Only two exhausted adults and two frightened babies.
Then Damian asked:
“Are you still leaving tonight?”
“Yes.”
He looked toward Oliver.
Then at her.
“I don't want you to.”
Clara’s body tightened.
Damian saw it.
Corrected himself.
“Not as an order.”
Better.
“I know.”
“You saved them.”
“Yes.”
“They know you.”
“Yes.”
“I…”
He stopped.
Clara waited.
“I don't know how to do this.”
That surprised her more than any threat ever could.
“What?”
“Raise them.”
Clara looked at him.
“You learn.”
“That simple?”
“No.”
May you like
She handed him Oliver.
“But you start.”
