Chapter 4 - The Anchor
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Dominic heard about the boy before he ever met him.
Marin rarely spoke about herself, but she spoke about Eli whenever Isabella asked about him through the board.
Nine years old. Asthma. Loved ocean documentaries. Hated onions. Asked too many questions. Called the mansion “the castle where nobody laughs.”
Dominic had almost smiled when he heard that. Almost.
Then Vivien Morrow arrived.
Vivien was the kind of woman men confused with destiny because she knew how to enter a room as though it had been built for her. She came from an old crime family disguised behind charitable foundations and European art boards. Her father controlled ports. Her uncle controlled judges. Her cousins controlled men who wore gloves for reasons no polite person asked about.
A marriage between Dominic Virelli and Vivien Morrow would join two families that had distrusted each other for twenty years. It would calm a war. It would secure the harbor routes. It would make every enemy in Rhode Island think twice before moving against either name.
That was what everyone said.
Dominic knew better than to believe in simple peace. Still, he agreed to the engagement because his empire was tired. His men were restless, and his mother had been too quiet for too long.
He told himself marriage was strategy.
Vivien was beautiful, educated, composed, useful. She did not demand tenderness from him. She seemed content with power.
When she kissed Isabella's cheek in front of Dominic and called her “Mama Isabella,” he allowed himself the smallest and most dangerous thing.
Relief.
He wanted peace in his house. He wanted to believe that one woman could sit beside his mother without becoming another threat he would eventually have to destroy.
But Isabella never touched Vivien willingly.
Dominic saw that too late. Marin saw it on the first day. Vivien saw Marin see it.
That was when the war between the two women began. Not with shouting. Not with open threats. At first, it came through small cruelties.
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Vivien would move Isabella's water glass two inches too far from her hand. She would ask Marin in front of others whether women of her size became tired more easily. She would touch Dominic's arm whenever Marin translated Isabella's refusal, as though reminding everyone in the room whose hand wore the ring.
Whenever Dominic left, Vivien's smile disappeared like a mask removed after a performance.
