“He’s right.”
Sophia started toward her desk, then turned back.
“He also said you’re not scared of him.”
Emily glanced toward the doorway as if Nicholas Moretti might somehow be standing there.
“Did he?”
Sophia nodded proudly.
“I told him you’re brave.”
Then she skipped to her seat, pulled out her crayons and began arranging them by color.
Emily watched her place the purple crayon last.
The day before, an entire school had braced itself because the most feared man in Brooklyn was coming through its doors.
But in the end, Nicholas Moretti had not used his power to break a rule, threaten a teacher or demand special treatment.
He had used it to stop another man from sacrificing someone innocent out of fear.
And Emily had learned something too.
The quiet certainty in Sophia’s voice had never meant, My father will punish you.
It had meant something much simpler.
My father said he would come.
So he will.
For a six-year-old girl who had already lost one parent, that certainty was not power.
It was safety.
And when Nicholas appeared again at dismissal several days later, Sophia saw him through the classroom window and smiled without surprise.
Of course he had come.
He always did.
