Chapter 13: Lights Out

Britta's POV

The deputy came to the gate at noon with Rocco's warrant.

Rocco stood behind him in his camel coat, smiling, while the paper shook a little in the deputy's hand.

"Ma'am," the deputy said to Fiorella, "this orders the minor returned to his co-guardian, Mr. Venturi."

Fiorella stood at the iron bars with her hands folded.

"I am his other guardian," she said. "I'm his mother, and I say he stays."

The deputy looked at the fading print on her cheek, and then at the paper.

"Two guardians who disagree is a matter for family court," he said. "I won't take a boy out of his mother's house on one signature."

"Deputy, she isn't well," Rocco said.

Aurelio came down the drive with his cane.

"I'm Aurelio Venturi," he said. "The boy is my grandson, and this is my son. I will take him home myself."

"Father..."

"Get in the car, Rocco."

For the first time in three years, I watched my husband obey without a joke.

The flat-nosed bodyguard held the sedan door for them both.

Through the back window Rocco looked at me and mouthed: Friday.

Then he laughed, and I could see all of it through the glass.

The lights went out at ten that night.

The whole house went black at once, and the refrigerator shuddered and stopped.

A radio crackled in the hall.

"Power line's cut at the road pole, boss. A truck's pulling away. We can't catch it on foot."

"Hold the fence," Brennan said. "Nobody leaves."

He found a camping lantern in the pantry and set it on the kitchen island.

It made a small yellow circle on the stone, and the rest of the room was black.

Fiorella and Elio were asleep in the guest wing, behind a locked door, with a guard in the hall.

"That's Rocco," Brennan said. "He wants us sitting in the dark, afraid."

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