Chapter 6 - THE STUFFED RABBIT AND THE SILENCE
Leo turned his head slowly, looking past his mother’s shoulder toward the man towering above them.
He did not flinch from his father’s imposing size. He had grown up watching three-hundred-pound bodyguards step aside when Julian walked into a room; he had watched politicians lower their voices when Julian entered a dining salon. To Leo, Julian was not just a father; he was an unshakeable, terrifying force of nature.
Yet today, the little boy did not run to him.
He gently unclasped his mother’s fingers from his jacket, stepped through the small swinging wooden gate of the bar, and walked into the well of the courtroom.
He stopped directly in the center of the floor, standing on the polished mahogany floorboards halfway between his mother’s table and his father’s table.
He held Barnaby with both arms, his small fingers burying into the worn, matted plush of the rabbit’s belly. His little burgundy bow tie was slightly askew against his white collar, his knees straight in his navy trousers.
Across the room, Judge Norris leaned forward over the elevated wooden bench, his gavel resting untouched on the green felt blotter.
"Son," Judge Norris said, his voice surprisingly gentle, pitched in a quiet, non-threatening register that acknowledged the child's tender age. "What is your name?"
"Leo Thomas Vance, sir," the boy answered clearly, his voice small but perfectly audible across the vast, high-ceilinged room.
"And do you know where you are, Leo?" Norris asked.
Leo nodded once, his soft brown curls shifting. "I'm in the judge's house. Where people tell the truth."
A low, collective murmur passed through the gallery. Several attorneys in the second row exchanged quick, uneasy glances. Julian Vance stood entirely motionless, his large, tattooed hands hanging at his sides, his chest rising and falling in shallow, measured breaths.
Julian’s gaze flicked down to the beige stuffed rabbit clutched in his son's arms.
He recognized that rabbit. He had purchased it in a boutique in Milan six years ago, on the morning Leo was born. He had watched Leo sleep with that toy every single night of his life.
Suddenly, an ugly, cold premonition twisted in Julian’s gut.
A memory flashed unbidden across his mind: two weeks ago, on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, he had been in the private third-floor library of their estate in Ladue. He had believed the house was empty; he had believed Audrey was at the hospital for her non-stress test, and that Leo was with his tutor in the east wing carriage house.
He had met Clara in the library.
They had argued. They had talked about the trust accounts. They had talked about the divorce.
And then...
Julian’s breath caught in his throat.
He looked at Leo’s small, unblinking face. He looked at the way the boy’s fingers were clutching the frayed seams of the rabbit's back.
"Leo," Julian whispered, taking half a step forward, his voice cracking with a rare, desperate urgency that broke through his mafia exterior. "Whatever you think you heard... you don't understand adult business, buddy. Let Daddy take you outside. We can go get ice cream. We can go to the hangar and look at the jets."
Leo looked up at his father.
He didn't smile at the mention of the jets. His dark brown eyes—so heartbreakingly identical to Julian's—were filled with an ancient, solemn grief that no six-year-old child should have ever carried.
He tightened his grip on Barnaby.
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His small lips parted, his voice ringing through the silent courtroom like a funeral bell:
"Daddy... should I tell the judge..."
