Chapter 24
Lily was fifteen when she spent a summer in Milwaukee.
Not at Daniel’s house full-time.
Two weeks.
Her choice.
Raffaele handled it poorly.
Daniel found that funny.
“You let her travel internationally with school.”
“That was supervised.”
“She is fifteen.”
“Exactly.”
“She’ll have a room here.”
“I know.”
“You’ve seen the house.”
“I know.”
“Mason lives here.”
“I know.”
“Then what is the problem?”
Raffaele looked at him.
Daniel laughed.
“Oh.”
“What?”
“You’re the problem.”
Raffaele hated him.
The truth was simpler.
The Moretti estate had always made it easy for Raffaele to confuse availability with safety.
Security.
Drivers.
Staff.
Cameras.
Controlled gates.
Milwaukee meant ordinary streets.
Daniel going to work.
Mason driving now.
Neighbors whose names Raffaele did not know.
A house that could be entered without passing three layers of armed protection.
Lily wanted ordinary.
Raffaele experienced ordinary as exposure.
Dr. Carter had once told him that children were not healed by living inside increasingly sophisticated cages.
He remembered the sentence.
Lily packed.
Raffaele gave Daniel a page of emergency contacts.
Then another.
Daniel handed the second page back.
“No.”
“What?”
“She does not need four separate extraction teams.”
“It is contingency planning.”
“She is visiting Wisconsin, not invading a country.”
Raffaele glared.
Mason appeared behind his father.
“He does this.”
“I know.”
“You should see when Lily goes to school dances.”
“I have.”
Lily came downstairs.
“Daddy.”
“Yes?”
“Go home.”
They had not even left Illinois yet.
“I’m driving you.”
“No. Daniel is.”
“That was not—”
She raised one eyebrow.
Raffaele stopped.
Daniel took the suitcase.
“She’ll call.”
Lily corrected him.
“I might call.”
Raffaele placed one hand over his heart as though struck.
“Cruel.”
She hugged him.
That helped.
Two weeks later Lily returned sunburned, exhausted, and carrying three new shirts she claimed Mason had ruined by teaching her to wash them incorrectly.
“I did not,” Mason said.
“You used hot.”
“You chose hot.”
“You’re older.”
“That has not been a valid argument for twelve years.”
Daniel laughed.
The visit had gone well.
Not perfectly.
Lily and Mason fought on day four because Mason entered her room without knocking.
Lily shouted.
Mason left.
He apologized.
No adult made Lily accept it immediately.
On day nine, Lily borrowed his car charger and lost it.
Mason became furious.
Daniel told them to solve it.
Lily bought another.
Nobody converted ordinary conflict into evidence that the relationship was unsafe.
That mattered most.
At dinner after they returned, Raffaele asked Lily:
“Would you go again?”
“Yes.”
He looked wounded.
She smiled.
“You can visit.”
“How generous.”
Mason looked at Raffaele.
“You know she talks about you constantly.”
Lily kicked him under the table.
“Traitor.”
Raffaele said nothing.
Later Daniel found him alone on the terrace.
“She’s growing up.”
“I noticed.”
“You okay?”
“No.”
Daniel smiled.
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because if you were comfortable, I’d assume you replaced her with a robot.”
Raffaele looked toward the garden.
The hedge still grew where Mason had crawled underneath years earlier.
“What are they now?” he asked.
Daniel followed his gaze.
“You’re still asking?”
“I stopped for years.”
“And?”
“I’m curious.”
Daniel thought.
“They argue like siblings.”
“That is not an answer.”
“They choose each other like friends.”
“Also not an answer.”
Daniel shrugged.
May you like
“Maybe both.”
Neither man needed more.
