By Friday, something had changed inside the Rossy mansion.
It wasn't dramatic enough for anyone outside the household to notice.
Mateo still used his wheelchair.
He still woke from nightmares.
He still refused certain meals and sometimes spent an hour staring silently through the bedroom window.
But now there were sounds.
Arguments.
Mostly between Mateo and Clara.
"You cheated."
"I absolutely did not."
"You moved two spaces."
"I rolled a six."
"You rolled a five."
"Prove it."
Vincent stood outside Mateo's bedroom one afternoon, listening.
Inside, Clara and Mateo were playing a board game.
Vincent hadn't entered.
He had started doing that recently.
Standing outside.
Listening.
Before Clara arrived, entering Mateo's room had become unbearable. Vincent never knew what to say.
How was your day?
Meaningless.
Are you feeling better?
Insulting.
Want to talk?
Apparently not.
So he usually kissed his son's forehead at night and left.
Clara seemed to have no such problem.
"You're a terrible loser," she told Mateo.
"I'm eight."
"Exactly. Old enough to lose with dignity."
"You're mean."
"I've been called worse."
Vincent heard Mateo laugh.
He closed his eyes.
For a moment he could almost imagine Sofia standing beside him.
Go in, she would have said.
He opened the door.
The laughter stopped.
Mateo's smile disappeared.
Vincent felt the loss physically.
"Am I interrupting?"
"No," Clara said.
Mateo looked down at the game.
Vincent nodded.
"I'll come back."
He closed the door.
Behind him, Clara followed.
"Mr. Rossy."
Vincent turned.
"What?"
"You can't keep doing that."
His expression hardened.
"Doing what?"
"Walking into your son's room like you're entering a funeral."
Nobody spoke to Vincent that way.
Nobody except Sofia ever had.
"You should remember who employs you."
"And you should remember who his father is."
His voice dropped.
"Be careful."
Clara didn't retreat.
"He watches your face every time you enter."
Vincent said nothing.
"He thinks you're sad because of him."
The sentence landed like a bullet.
"That's ridiculous."
"He's eight."
"He knows what happened."
"Knowing facts isn't the same as understanding grief."
Vincent glanced toward the closed door.
Clara softened her voice.
"You lost your wife. Mateo lost his mother, his mobility, his independence, and the version of his father he remembers."
Vincent looked at her sharply.
"You know nothing about the version of me he remembers."
"No. But he does."
She returned to the bedroom.
Vincent remained in the hallway.
That evening Dominic entered the office carrying a folder.
"Hayes."
Vincent opened it.
"Anything?"
"Maybe."
Dominic pointed to the employment gap.
"Two years are practically blank."
"No tax filings?"
"Minimal. No permanent address for part of it."
"Medical?"
"Nothing accessible."
Vincent turned pages.
"Family?"
"Parents dead. No siblings listed."
"Debt?"
"Some."
"Criminal record?"
"Clean."
"Relationships?"
"Nothing useful."
Vincent frowned.
A person with no history bothered him more than a person with a bad one.
"Keep digging."
Dominic nodded.
"Boss?"
"What?"
"The kid likes her."
Vincent looked up.
Dominic had worked for him seventeen years.
He had carried Vincent bleeding out of an alley in 2016.
He had held Mateo outside the emergency room while doctors tried to save Sofia.
Few men were allowed to speak freely.
Dominic was one.
"That's exactly why I'm digging."
The next morning Vincent watched monitor four.
Clara rolled Mateo toward the bedroom window.
"Physical therapy."
"No."
"Yes."
"I hate it."
"I know."
"It doesn't do anything."
Clara crouched until their eyes were level.
"It's not supposed to magically make you walk."
Mateo's expression darkened.
Vincent leaned forward.
Every previous caregiver had avoided the word walk.
Clara didn't.
"Then why do it?"
"Because the body you have deserves care."
Mateo stared at her.
"Even if it doesn't work the way it used to."
Something changed in the boy's face.
Clara continued.
"You don't exercise because you're waiting to become somebody else. You exercise because you're Mateo right now."
Vincent looked away from the screen.
He had spent fourteen months treating rehabilitation as a war against paralysis.
Every therapy.
Every specialist.
Every experimental consultation.
Every trip.
Everything had carried the same unspoken message:
We have to fix you.
What if Mateo had heard something else?
You're unacceptable until you're fixed.
Vincent stood abruptly.
He went upstairs.
When he entered the bedroom, Mateo and Clara looked at him.
This time Vincent forced himself not to wear the face he used at funerals.
"What are you doing?"
"PT," Mateo said.
Vincent nodded.
"Can I help?"
Mateo looked surprised.
Clara handed Vincent an exercise band.
"Sit."
Vincent Rossy, who commanded men across three states, sat on the carpet.
For twenty minutes, Clara instructed him.
"No, support the ankle."
"Like this?"
"No."
"I am supporting it."
"You're holding it like you're interrogating it."
Mateo laughed.
Vincent stared at Clara.
She smiled.
He almost smiled back.
Almost.
That night, Mateo asked Vincent to stay.
They watched an old dinosaur documentary.
Mateo corrected the narrator twice.
Vincent pretended to understand why.
At ten, the boy fell asleep.
Vincent remained beside him.
He looked at his son's face.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
Mateo didn't wake.
Vincent touched his hair.
"I thought saving you meant making everything go back."
His throat tightened.
"I don't know how to do this without her."
He didn't know that Clara stood outside the half-open door.
She heard every word.
And when she quietly walked away, tears filled her eyes.
Because Vincent Rossy wasn't the only person in that mansion carrying a grave inside him.
Clara had one too.
And if Dominic discovered who was buried there—
she knew she would have to leave.
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