Chapter 3 - The Little Artist
By 3:00 a.m., Dr. Harrison had administered intravenous fluids and heavy antibiotics to Grace, confirming severe double pneumonia brought on by months of exhaustion and poor living conditions in the uninsulated annex.
Adrien had not returned to the main manor house.
Instead, he sat in a high-backed leather armchair in the corner of Grace’s newly upgraded east wing suite, a heavy encrypted laptop open on his knees, reviewing financial ledgers, shipping manifests, and security reports from the Chicago harbor.
The house was dead silent save for the steady, rhythmic beep of the IV pump and the soft breathing of Grace sleeping peacefully in the king-sized bed.
Across the room, curled on a velvet sofa with her teddy bear clutched tightly in her arms, Zoe was finally fast asleep. But scattered across the coffee table in front of her were a dozen sheets of heavy bond paper and a box of Crayola crayons Adrien had sent a guard out to fetch from a twenty-four-hour pharmacy at midnight.
Adrien closed his laptop. The numbers could wait.
He stood up, his joints popping slightly in the quiet room, and walked over to the coffee table. He looked down at Zoe’s handiwork.
Like most three-year-olds, her art was an explosion of chaotic energy—scribbles of blue crayon representing the sky, yellow circles for suns, and green triangles for trees. But as Adrien’s gaze drifted across the papers, one particular drawing caught his eye and made his entire body lock into absolute, predatory stillness.
It was drawn with a heavy black crayon, pressed down so hard the paper was nearly torn.
It showed a tall, blocky man standing by a gate with iron bars. But what made the blood run cold in Adrien’s veins wasn't the man.
It was the specific symbol drawn on the man’s wrist—a jagged, interlocking double-V shaped like a snake’s fang.
Adrien’s jaw tightened until the bone clicked.
The double-V.
The personal crest of Vincent Moretti.
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The New York syndicate boss who had supposedly "folded at noon" and signed a permanent peace treaty in Manhattan just fourteen hours ago.
Moretti’s men were inside the perimeter.
