Chapter 6 - The Night Eli Found His Voice
By sunrise, Dominic knew three things.
The principal had disappeared.
Someone had accessed Eli’s transportation schedule.
And the betrayal around his son was larger than Victor.
Eli did not go to school.
Dominic canceled everything.
Ava found father and son eating pancakes in the kitchen at nine.
Eli looked delighted.
Dominic looked like a man who had been personally insulted by pancake batter.
Dad burned the first ones, Eli signed.
Dominic frowned.
“I understood that.”
Ava smiled.
“Good.”
They looked like hockey pucks.
“I understood that too.”
Eli laughed.
Ava poured coffee.
It was almost domestic.
That frightened her more than danger.
She was becoming comfortable here.
With Eli.
With Dominic.
With mornings where a man feared by half the city stood barefoot in his kitchen arguing with an eight-year-old about blueberries.
Ava knew temporary happiness could be cruel.
She had learned that with Sophie.
If you loved something, you gave fate a target.
So she kept distance where she could.
Dominic noticed.
Of course he did.
After Eli went upstairs, Dominic said, “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’m standing six feet away.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s your second lie.”
She put down her coffee.
“You keep track?”
“Only yours.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“Ava.”
She looked at him.
He stepped closer.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Victor.”
“No.”
She hated that he saw through her.
“You.”
That stopped him.
Ava forced herself to continue.
“Not because I think you’ll hurt me.”
“Then why?”
“Because I like your son.”
“He likes you.”
“That’s the problem.”
Dominic waited.
“And I’m starting to care about you.”
There.
Said.
Impossible to retrieve.
His eyes changed.
Ava looked away.
“I know what losing people feels like. I’m not interested in volunteering for another lesson.”
Dominic’s voice softened.
“Neither am I.”
He stepped closer.
“But refusing to care never saved anyone.”
“You sound suspiciously wise for a criminal.”
“I contain multitudes.”
She laughed despite herself.
Then he kissed her.
Not suddenly.
He gave her every opportunity to step away.
She didn’t.
His hand touched her cheek.
The kiss was quiet and careful and somehow more dangerous than everything she had heard about Dominic Russo.
Because Ava wanted another.
When they separated, Eli stood in the doorway.
Both adults froze.
Eli’s eyes widened.
Then his hands flew.
FINALLY.
Ava covered her face.
Dominic stared at his son.
“You knew?”
Eli nodded enthusiastically.
Everybody knew.
Ava laughed so hard she had to lean against the counter.
The moment lasted perhaps thirty seconds.
Then Anthony entered.
His expression ended it.
“We found the principal.”
“Alive?” Dominic asked.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“New Jersey.”
The principal, Charles Morrow, surrendered through an attorney that afternoon.
His story broke open the conspiracy.
Victor had been paying him for access to Eli’s records.
Schedules.
Therapy reports.
Security information.
Nothing had happened to Eli because Victor had never intended to hurt him physically.
Fear was more useful.
Victor wanted Dominic unstable.
Angry.
Violent.
He wanted Dominic to abandon the transition toward legitimate businesses and return to the old organization, where Victor controlled key crews and accounts.
Elena had discovered it.
So Victor had silenced her.
The investigators found another connection.
The mechanic who serviced Elena’s car before the crash had received $80,000 from a company Victor controlled.
Dominic read the report alone.
Then he walked into his study and locked the door.
Ava found him there an hour later.
A glass sat untouched beside him.
“You should be with Eli.”
“I know.”
“He needs you.”
“I know.”
She sat opposite him.
Dominic stared at Elena’s letter.
“I spent two years thinking I failed her because I wasn’t there.”
Ava said nothing.
“Now I know I failed her because I didn’t listen when she told me Victor worried her.”
“That isn’t the same as causing what happened.”
“It feels close.”
“Grief likes rewriting history so we can blame ourselves.”
His eyes lifted.
“Sophie?”
Ava nodded.
“She called me the night she died.”
Dominic waited.
“I was working. I saw the call and thought I’d call her back.”
Her voice tightened.
“I never got to.”
“Ava.”
“For years, I thought if I had answered, maybe she would have stayed somewhere another five minutes. Maybe she wouldn’t have reached that intersection when she did.”
“You know that isn’t rational.”
“Yes.”
“Does knowing help?”
“No.”
Dominic nodded.
Exactly.
Ava reached across the desk.
He took her hand.
They sat with their separate ghosts between them.
Then Dominic’s phone rang.
Anthony.
Dominic answered.
His face changed immediately.
“What?”
Ava stood.
“What happened?”
Dominic listened.
Then he looked at her.
“Eli.”
Her heart stopped.
“He’s gone.”
The next minutes became fragments.
The security guard at the rear entrance unconscious but alive.
A service door opened.
One vehicle missing.
A federal protection officer shouting into a radio.
Dominic moving through the house with terrifying calm.
Ava grabbed his arm.
“Dominic.”
He turned.
“Think.”
“They took my son.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to kill—”
“That’s what Victor wants.”
Dominic stopped.
Ava held his gaze.
“He has spent years trying to make you become the man Elena wanted you to stop being.”
“My son is gone.”
“And Eli needs his father thinking, not raging.”
Those words reached him.
Barely.
But enough.
Anthony entered carrying Eli’s tablet.
“They left this.”
A video appeared.
Victor Russo sat in a dark room.
Eli was visible behind him.
Unhurt.
Terrified.
Victor smiled into the camera.
“Cousin.”
Dominic’s hands curled.
“You always wanted to be better than us. Elena wanted that too.”
Victor leaned closer.
“Come alone to Pier Forty-One at midnight. Bring Elena’s originals and the federal cooperation agreement.”
His smile disappeared.
“If I see police, you lose the one person you were trying to save.”
The video ended.
Ava stared at the screen.
Then she noticed something.
“Play it again.”
Dominic did.
“Again.”
“What?”
“Eli’s hands.”
Behind Victor, Eli’s hands rested in his lap.
Except they weren’t resting.
His fingers were moving.
Tiny movements.
Deliberate.
Ava moved closer.
Dominic saw it too.
“What is he saying?”
Ava watched.
Again.
Then her breath caught.
“He knows Victor is watching.”
“What is he saying?”
“Not words.”
She stared.
“He’s using our practice game.”
Weeks earlier, Ava had taught Eli finger-spelling exercises using abbreviations.
Three letters.
B.
R.
K.
“Brick,” she whispered.
Another sequence.
W.
A.
T.
“Water.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
Ava watched the background.
Exposed brick.
Dripping water.
A faint rhythmic vibration visible in a hanging chain.
Eli had felt machinery through the floor.
Then his fingers moved again.
Ava’s heart jumped.
“Train.”
Anthony stepped forward.
“Brick, water, train.”
Dominic understood.
“The old Red Hook warehouse.”
Anthony nodded.
“It sits beside the freight spur.”
Victor had made one mistake.
He thought deaf meant helpless.
He had never understood that Eli had spent his whole life learning to notice what hearing people ignored.
Dominic grabbed his coat.
Ava blocked him.
“You cannot go alone.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
“You’re staying here.”
“No.”
His eyes hardened.
“Ava.”
“Eli is communicating with me.”
“He is my son.”
“And I’m the person most likely to understand him if he tries again.”
“I won’t put you in danger.”
“You don’t get to decide whether I care.”
Dominic stared at her.
She stepped closer.
“Elena told you to learn his language.”
May you like
Ava pointed at the frozen image of Eli’s moving hands.
“Tonight that language is going to bring him home.”
