3No Nanny Survived Dinner With the Mafia Boss's Quadruplets—Until a Broke Stranger Walked In

The second day at the canyon estate began at five in the morning.

Elena awoke in her room on the east wing of the third floor. The room was grand, decorated in muted tones of cream and dark walnut, with a private balcony overlooking the misty pine trees of Topanga Canyon.

She dressed in a simple dark turtleneck and black trousers, pulled her long brown hair into a neat knot at the nape of her neck, and headed downstairs.

The ground floor was silent. The heavy footsteps of armed guards echoed faintly outside on the gravel drive, but inside, the house felt like a mausoleum.

Guided by the faint scent of old wood and metallic strings, Elena wandered down the west wing until she found the music room.

It was a magnificent space with double-height vaulted ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the misty valley, and a magnificent nine-foot Steinway Model D grand piano sitting at the center of a raised mahogany platform.

Elena walked toward it, her heart fluttering. She hadn't touched a instrument of this caliber in five years.

She lifted the fallboard, sat on the leather bench, and gently pressed a single middle C.

Thud.

The key stayed down, completely lifeless. She pressed D. Thud. E flat. Thud.

Elena raised an eyebrow. She reached into her tote bag, pulled out a small keychain flashlight, and lifted the heavy wooden music desk off the piano frame to peer inside the action.

The hammers were choked with fine wire and small wooden wedges—deliberately wedged into the repetition levers to render the instrument completely unplayable.

"It took Mateo two hours to install those," a quiet voice said from the doorway.

Elena didn't look up. "He has good fine-motor skills. If he put this much effort into learning scale fingerings, he’d be a prodigy."

Valentina walked into the room. She was wearing an oversized beige sweater that swallowed her small frame, her bare feet making no sound against the Persian rug.

Elena pulled a pair of small tweezers from her bag and began carefully extracting the wooden wedges one by one.

"Why are you fixing it?" Valentina asked, standing three feet away, her hands tucked deep into her sweater sleeves. "Nobody plays it."

"A piano isn't meant to sit in a dark room looking pretty, Valentina," Elena murmured, her fingers working with surgical precision. "It's built to breathe. If you don't play it, the wood suffocates."

"My mother played it," Valentina said flatly.

Elena stopped. She laid the small wedge on the mahogany rim and looked up at the young girl.

"She played Chopin," Valentina continued, her voice trembling slightly before she forced it back into a cold, flat line. " Nocturne in C minor. Every night before we went to sleep. Then three years ago, bad men came to our house in Mexico City. My mother didn't finish the song."

The silence in the room became absolute.

"I'm sorry, Valentina," Elena said softly, her pale green eyes swimming with genuine warmth. "Loss is... a very heavy sound. It stays in your ears for a long time."

"Dad thinks if you teach me to play, I'll be happy again," Valentina whispered, stepping closer to the raised platform. "But I don't want to be happy. Being happy makes you forget."

"Music doesn't make you forget," Elena said gently, plucking the last piece of wire from the internal action and replacing the music desk. She pressed middle C again.

Ring...

A clear, resonant, gorgeous bell-like tone flooded the room, vibrating through the floorboards.

"Music helps you remember without screaming," Elena said.

She scooted over on the wide leather bench and patted the space beside her. "You don't have to play a concerto. Just sit with me."

Valentina hesitated. She looked toward the doorway, as if expecting her brothers to burst in and catch her showing weakness. But the hall was empty.

Slowly, step by step, Valentina climbed onto the platform and sat beside Elena.

Elena lifted her hands and placed her fingers softly on the keys. She began to play—not a grand, loud piece, but a soft, breathing arrangement of a simple lullaby. She kept her touch light, letting the warmth of the Steinway fill the cold room.

Beside her, Valentina’s small frame relaxed slightly. Her right hand rose, her small index finger hovering above the keys, wanting to touch, terrified to try.

From the shadow of the doorway, hidden from view, Ricardo stood leaning against the doorframe.

He watched Elena's hands move over the keys with effortless, expressive grace. He watched his daughter—who hadn't sat near that piano in three long, brutal years—lean her shoulder against Elena's arm.

Ricardo’s hand tightened around the frame of the door. A deep, agonizing ache bloomed in his chest—a sudden, violent resurgence of feelings he had buried under ice and blood three years ago.