Chapter 3 - The Eyes in the Drawing
Dominic looked down at the tablecloth.
The child had drawn a row of uneven figures.
A woman with dark hair.
A small girl with a triangle dress.
A tall shape in black with eyes colored too carefully for a five-year-old drawing.
Black circles.
Gold flecks.
The crayon lines were clumsy, but the intention was not.
The child had drawn eyes like his before she ever looked up from the table.
Dominic’s hand froze over the linen.
Elena saw him notice.
She moved instantly, covering the drawing with her palm.
The gesture was too fast.
Too defensive.
Too practiced.
Dominic’s gaze snapped back to her.
“What is this?”
“A child’s drawing.”
“Of me?”
“She draws strangers.”
The child frowned.
“You’re not a stranger.”
Elena’s face tightened.
Dominic’s breath stopped.
The girl looked at him with innocent certainty, then turned to Elena as if asking why the adults were making something simple difficult.
Elena pulled her closer.
“Quiet, sweetheart.”
Dominic’s stare hardened.
“You told her about me?”
Elena’s lips trembled once.
Only once.
“No.”
The answer made the room colder.
If Elena had not told the child, then recognition had come from somewhere else.
A photograph?
A story?
A face in a dream?
Or blood?
He could not ask that question.
Not directly.
Not yet.
The prompt’s truth stayed unconfirmed, hanging between them like a blade.
Marco took another step forward, his eyes fixed on the child’s face.
He knew the Valenti look too.
He had seen it in Dominic’s father.
In Dominic’s brother.
In old framed portraits hidden in houses no one visited without invitation.
The same darkness.
The same gold.
The same impossible stare.
Elena saw Marco looking and turned the child’s face gently toward her shoulder.
“Do not study her like evidence.”
Marco’s jaw tightened.
Dominic turned his head slightly.
“Back up.”
Marco obeyed at once.
Elena noticed that too.
Her expression did not soften.
“You still command rooms before you understand them.”
Dominic leaned closer, voice low.
“And you still answer questions with knives.”
“Questions from you usually arrive after the damage.”
The words hit him somewhere private.
His fingers released the crayon slightly.
The child reached toward it.
“My purple.”
Dominic looked down.
The crayon was cracked, but not broken.
For one strange second, the mafia boss and the little girl both stared at the same small wounded object.
Then he placed it carefully on the edge of the table.
The child took it.
Elena watched his hand the entire time.
Distrust was not new between them.
But this was heavier.
May you like
This was fear wearing discipline.
Read Chapter 4 👉 Because Dominic could threaten entire rooms, but Elena’s fear was focused only on keeping him away from the little girl.
