Chapter 9
Winston's Perspective
I left the reception hall earlier than most.
I'd fulfilled every obligation a funeral demands—paid my respects, said the right words—and the rest of the time belonged to the Kensingtons and whatever dirty laundry they needed to sort through among themselves. I had no interest in watching.
My car was parked at the far end of the church lot. Damian sat in the driver's seat, one hand resting on the steering wheel, engine off.
He didn't move when I got in.
In the rearview mirror, his gaze lingered on my face for two seconds before he ventured to speak.
"Boss, would you like me to have a word with Leo?"
I lifted my eyes and met his in the mirror.
Damian quickly elaborated. "Leo spent the entire service at Tiffany's side. Leaving Serena alone like that—it was too much."
"That's not what you were saying a few days ago." My voice was flat. "As I recall, you stood in front of me analyzing how problems in their marriage could affect both families' business interests, and recommended I arrange an intervention to keep the whole process under control."
Damian fell silent for two seconds.
In seven years of working for me, he'd rarely been at a loss for words.
"What Leo did was... indecent," he said. "And—" He paused. "I asked about the wound on Serena's temple. They said she fell from upstairs. Needed stitches."
My fingers tightened involuntarily against the armrest.
"If she'd stumbled and tumbled down the stairs, the injuries would be scattered—scrapes on the knees, bruises on the elbows. But..." Damian's eyes found mine again in the rearview mirror. "Serena's wounds are concentrated on her temple and the back of her head. That's what happens when someone loses their balance all at once and hits the ground directly. Boss, what I'm saying is—someone pushed her."
The image of Serena flashed through my mind. Just moments ago, in the colonnade, she'd demanded to know why I'd kept Leo and Tiffany's affair from her. She'd asked what she was to me. Her eyes had gone red, but the tears never fell.
She'd said everything—except that she'd been hurt.
"Look into it. Find out what actually happened."
"Understood."
Damian started the engine but didn't pull out of the parking lot. He sat there for several more seconds, watching me in the mirror. "Boss, are you... really not going to talk to Leo?"
This question came even more carefully than the last.
I leaned back into my seat, my gaze drifting to the crown of a palm tree outside the window. The wind flipped its fronds upward, exposing the pale undersides.
"I already did," I said. "Just now."
Damian's hand stilled on the steering wheel.
"I told him that spending the entire service looking after Tiffany while completely neglecting Serena was too far."
"What did he say?" A note of urgency crept into Damian's voice.
"He said it was a private family matter." I pulled my gaze back, the corner of my mouth twitching into something that didn't quite qualify as a smile.
"But I reminded him—Serena was married into his family as an alliance with the Harringtons. His behavior today was a slap in the face to our house."
Damian blinked, then understood.
Within the rules of the five families, that statement carried more weight than any expression of concern ever could.
Leo could afford to disregard his wife's feelings. He had a whole framework of self-justification for that—he could even tell himself with a clear conscience that this was a domestic matter, something between him and Serena alone. But he could not afford to disregard the Harringtons' position.
Kensington's casino access ran through our hands. Chicago's joint security operations depended on our people. A third of the funding structure for the Ocean Drive project was Harrington money.
He knew all of this.
So when I laid those words before him, he didn't push back.
"Consider it a warning," I said. "If he wants to mistreat Serena, he'd better think twice about the Harrington family first. Maybe things will be easier for her going forward."
Damian nodded.
I hadn't said the things Serena needed to hear. She hadn't heard a single one of them.
When she appeared in the colonnade, she'd probably only caught the second half—heard me leveraging Harrington dignity to pressure Leo, heard me mock him in that casual tone for touching his own brother's wife.
Then she came to confront me.
She asked why, if I'd known all along, I'd still agreed to let her marry into that family.
She asked what she was to me.
She stood before me with her chin raised, eyes rimmed red, jaw clenched to keep the tears from falling, her voice trembling, every word forced from her throat as if it took everything she had.
I explained nothing.
What could I have said?
That when I'd voiced my opposition to the marriage, Lydia had called that very evening—using that tone as mild as if she were discussing the weather—to remind me I was perhaps overstepping my bounds?
I could hear what was buried beneath those words.
Lydia never needed to make her meaning explicit.
If I had forced the marriage to stop, Serena would have been sent back to the old estate.
What happened inside those walls—I knew better than anyone.
So I let go.
I let her marry Leo. At least Leo wouldn't hit her. Wouldn't lock her in an attic for three days without food. Wouldn't leave those marks on her body that she thought no one knew about.
Damian must have seen something in my expression through the rearview mirror, because he didn't press the subject further. Instead, he shifted direction.
"Boss, the preliminary results on Noah's cause of death are in."
My attention snapped back. I looked at Damian and signaled with my eyes for him to continue.
"The medication Tiffany administered to Noah that night wasn't his regular prescription." Damian slowed his pace. "I pulled the pharmacy records and found that this batch was purchased through an anonymous procurement channel two weeks before Noah's death. The buyer information was fabricated."
"Did you trace the channel?"
"Still working on it. So far we've tracked it back to a middleman in West Palm Beach, but by the time our people got there, the place had been empty for three days. Phone number disconnected, bank account cleared out the day after the drugs were delivered." Damian paused. "The trail's gone cold for now."
Gone.
And cleaned up very thoroughly, very professionally.
A middleman who procures pharmaceuticals for other people wouldn't have that level of exit capability. Someone was arranging his disappearance from behind the scenes.
I was silent for several seconds.
"Keep digging," I said. "If the middleman ran, find out where he ran to. Trace his money. Track down everyone he's been in contact with over the past three months."
"Understood." Damian hesitated, as if weighing whether to say the next thing.
"Boss, there's one more matter." He spoke. "The quarterly family dinner is coming up in a few days. It overlaps with your Chicago trip. Do you need me to reschedule?"
I frowned slightly.
"Since when do I attend family dinners?"
