Chapter 3

In our world, killing is just part of life. But the more blood a man has on his hands, the more he starts believing in ghosts when no one's watching.

Orso was no different. The thing he feared most was the curse of murdered blood. He'd earned that fear honestly. Years ago, a cousin who stood between him and the old don's favor died in a "boating accident." I used to think it was bad luck. Now I knew better. Orso had cleared him out of the way to kill off a rival — the same way he later cleared out my children.

With Ottilie covering for me, getting the equipment was easy. A set of tiny directional speakers, each one smaller than a fingernail. While Orso was away at a meeting, I hid them. One in the study vent. One under the bed. One in the armored car he drove most.

The show started three nights later, at two in the morning.

Orso had just come back from Renata's room. He thought I was asleep and lay down quietly beside me.

The second his head hit the pillow, a baby started crying. Faint. Broken. Coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.

His eyes snapped open. His whole body went rigid. He shot up, switched on the lamp, and looked around the room.

"Saveria. Do you hear that?" He shook my shoulder.

I rubbed my eyes like I'd just woken up. "Hear what? Orso, why are you sweating like that?"

"Crying. A baby crying." He stared at the ceiling, his voice shaking.

"You're imagining things. There's nothing." I rolled over and went back to "sleep."

The crying stopped. He lay back down, telling himself it was nothing.

The moment he closed his eyes, it came again. Louder this time. Right against his ear.

"Daddy... I'm so cold..."

It was a recording I'd made and run through filters, laid over the sound of waves. In the dark, it didn't sound human.

Orso screamed. He scrambled off the bed, yanked the gun from under his pillow, and pointed it at the empty room like a madman.

"Who's there? Who's doing this?"

"Stay back. I didn't hurt you. It wasn't my fault." The words tumbled out of him. He was shaking head to toe.

I watched him from the bed, cold all the way through. Some quiet, ugly part of me felt good.

This was only the start.

Over the next week, Orso came apart. He heard babies laughing while he worked in the study. He heard water bubbling when he shut his eyes in the car. He stopped sleeping. He couldn't stand to be alone in a closed room.

His eyes sank into his face. His temper turned vicious. At a family meeting, he pulled his gun over nothing and shot one of his own men in the leg.

"Has he lost his mind?" Ottilie said when I met her at the safe house. She slid a folder across the table, smiling thin. "The elders are not happy with him. While he's been jumping at shadows, I took over two of his smuggling routes."

"He's walking into it, step by step." I kept my face still. "I want him worn down. I want him too sick to think about anything else."

Renata wasn't happy either.

I heard them later, through the speaker in the study. She'd cornered him.

"What is wrong with you?" she snapped. "You can't even handle one woman?"

"Shut up. You have no idea what I'm dealing with." His voice cracked, half a shout, half a sob. "They came back. The little ones. They're in this house."

There was a sharp slap.

"You're useless," Renata hissed. "The coronation is next week. If you don't deal with Saveria before then, we are finished. Both of us."