Chapter 2
The brass key disappeared into Vanessa’s fist.
I should have kept walking.
Instead I stopped.
Luca noticed immediately.
“What?”
I looked over my shoulder.
Vanessa was already moving toward the west hallway.
Not toward the stairs.
Not toward her suite.
Toward Luca’s office.
“Mrs. Moretti has a key.”
Luca turned.
Vanessa froze.
For a second nobody spoke.
Then she smiled.
“Of course I have keys. I live here.”
Luca’s eyes moved to her closed hand.
“Show me.”
Her smile tightened.
“This is humiliating.”
“Show me.”
She opened her palm.
The brass key lay in the center.
Luca’s expression hardened.
“That’s my office archive key.”
“I told you, I had copies made.”
“You copied that one too?”
“We’re getting married.”
He walked toward her.
She did not move.
“What’s in the archive that you needed?”
“Wedding documents.”
“No wedding documents are kept there.”
She shrugged.
“Then I must have confused it with another key.”
Luca took it from her hand.
He studied the teeth.
“No.”
Vanessa exhaled.
“This is insane.”
“What did you take?”
“Nothing.”
“What were you going to take?”
“Nothing.”
“Matteo,” Luca said without looking away from her, “stay with Claire.”
The boy moved closer to me.
Luca looked at the security man near the ballroom doors.
“Marco.”
The man stepped forward.
“Sir.”
“Lock the office.”
Vanessa scoffed.
“It’s already locked.”
“I mean lock the corridor. Nobody goes in until I do.”
Marco nodded and moved immediately.
Vanessa’s composure cracked.
“You are treating me like a criminal.”
Luca looked at her.
“You forged access to a private archive, destroyed something belonging to Sarah, hid a letter from me, removed my son from wedding materials, and injured a member of my staff.”
“I did not injure her.”
“You admitted she was snooping before anyone said why she was hurt.”
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
Luca turned away.
“Library.”
He motioned to Matteo and me.
We followed him through the north corridor.
My arm pulsed under the bandage.
The cuts on my hands had begun to sting.
Matteo walked close enough that his sleeve brushed mine.
At the staircase, Luca stopped.
He looked at my face.
Then my arm.
“No stairs for you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding through your cuff.”
I glanced down.
He was right.
A dark red line had soaked through the white fabric.
“It looks worse than it is.”
“That sentence is banned in this house tonight.”
Matteo almost smiled.
Almost.
Luca noticed.
“You think that’s funny?”
Matteo shrugged.
“A little.”
“Good. You’re allowed.”
For one brief second, the room softened.
Then Luca called Rosa and asked her to bring the first-aid kit to the library.
We moved there instead.
The library had always been my favorite room.
Dark wood.
Tall windows.
A fireplace nobody used until winter.
Sarah’s portrait had once hung over the mantel.
Vanessa had replaced it with an abstract painting six months earlier.
Matteo stared at the blank space beneath it.
Luca saw that too.
“Where’s your mother’s portrait?”
Matteo looked at him.
“Storage.”
“Who moved it?”
He didn’t answer.
Luca’s jaw flexed.
“Vanessa?”
A nod.
“When?”
“January.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Matteo’s shoulders lifted.
“She said you agreed.”
Luca closed his eyes.
I could see the guilt hit him.
Not because he had moved the portrait.
Because he had been made absent inside his own home without realizing it.
Rosa arrived.
She was sixty-two, Sicilian-American, and had worked for the Moretti family since Luca was a teenager.
She took one look at my arm.
“Madonna.”
“I’m okay.”
“Sit.”
Apparently everyone in that family gave orders.
I sat.
She removed the bandage.
Luca swore under his breath.
The slash was long but shallow, red and angry where broken glass had dragged across the skin.
“It doesn’t need stitches,” Rosa said. “But it needs cleaning.”
She looked at my bruised cheek.
“And that?”
“I hit—”
“No,” Luca said.
I stopped.
He was standing by the fireplace.
“No more camera stands. No doors. No service carts. No imaginary stairs.”
My stomach tightened.
Rosa looked between us.
Matteo sat on the edge of a leather chair.
Luca’s voice softened slightly.
“Claire, did Vanessa do that too?”
I stared at my hands.
“Yes.”
Rosa froze.
Matteo looked furious.
Luca did not move.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“How?”
“She slapped me.”
Rosa whispered something in Italian.
Luca’s eyes darkened.
“Why?”
“She thought I had shown Matteo one of the old programs.”
“I had found it myself,” Matteo said quickly.
I looked at him.
He was trying to protect me.
Again.
Luca crouched in front of his son.
“Listen to me.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
“You never have to lie to protect an adult in this house. Not Claire. Not me. Nobody.”
“I wasn’t lying.”
“I know.”
Luca placed a hand on his shoulder.
“But I need you to understand something. If someone scares you, tells you to keep secrets from me, or makes you think telling me will hurt someone else, you tell me anyway.”
Matteo looked toward me.
“What if it does hurt someone?”
“Then I deal with it.”
“What if you’re angry?”
“I can be angry and still love you.”
Matteo’s eyes filled.
He looked down.
Luca stayed crouched.
“What has Vanessa told you not to tell me?”
My heart stopped.
Matteo went completely still.
Luca saw it.
“So there is something.”
Matteo whispered, “A lot.”
Rosa’s hands paused over my bandage.
Luca’s voice became very careful.
“What kind of things?”
Matteo swallowed.
“That you were stressed.”
“About what?”
“Me.”
Luca’s face changed.
“She said when I had problems at school, you couldn’t sleep.”
“I couldn’t.”
“She said you wished I was more independent.”
“I wished you’d stop pretending you didn’t need help with algebra.”
A weak smile touched Matteo’s mouth.
Then disappeared.
“She said the wedding would make things easier for you if I gave you space.”
Luca looked toward the floor.
“What else?”
“She said Sarah’s things upset you.”
The use of his mother’s first name sounded unnatural in Matteo’s mouth.
Like somebody had taught him to make her smaller too.
“What things?”
“Her pictures. Her clothes. The old videos.”
Luca’s eyes lifted.
“She told you I wanted those gone?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why the storage room is full,” Matteo said. “I moved them myself.”
Luca stood slowly.
I saw pain in his face.
Real pain.
“You moved your mother’s things because you thought seeing them hurt me.”
Matteo nodded.
“I didn’t want you sad before the wedding.”
Luca turned away.
For a moment he looked at the dark windows.
Then he pressed one hand against the back of his neck.
The tattoos moved with the muscles beneath his skin.
“When your mother died,” he said quietly, “I put half those things away because I couldn’t walk into a room without feeling like I couldn’t breathe.”
Matteo listened.
“But I never wanted you to believe she had to disappear.”
He turned back.
“Never.”
Matteo wiped his eyes quickly.
Luca crossed the room and hugged him.
Not a polite shoulder hug.
Not the kind powerful men gave in photographs.
He pulled his son against his chest and held him.
Matteo broke.
His face disappeared into Luca’s vest.
“I thought you wanted a new family.”
Luca shut his eyes.
“You are my family.”
“But the program—”
“I didn’t approve it.”
“She said you did.”
“I didn’t.”
“The room?”
“No.”
“The portraits?”
“No.”
Matteo’s hands gripped his father’s jacket.
Luca held him tighter.
I looked away.
Rosa finished wrapping my arm.
Neither of us spoke.
Then Marco entered.
“Sir.”
Luca looked over Matteo’s head.
“What?”
“We checked the office.”
Vanessa appeared behind him.
I hadn’t heard her approach.
Her face was composed again.
Too composed.
“I told you there’s nothing there.”
Marco ignored her.
“The archive door was open.”
Luca released Matteo slowly.
“I thought you locked the corridor.”
“I did.”
“So how?”
Marco looked toward Vanessa.
“There’s another entrance.”
Luca frowned.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Marco held up a photograph on his phone.
A narrow panel behind the built-in shelves.
“Old service access. Probably original construction.”
Luca stared.
“I didn’t know that existed.”
Rosa did.
Her face changed.
Luca saw.
“You know it.”
Rosa hesitated.
“Your father used it.”
The room became silent.
Luca’s father had been dead for nine years.
“What for?”
“Private meetings.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“With who?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco continued.
“The panel connects to the west dressing room.”
Vanessa’s dressing room.
Luca looked at her.
She folded her arms.
“I didn’t build the house.”
“No,” he said. “You just found the tunnel.”
“I found an old door.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
“And never mentioned it.”
“It wasn’t important.”
Marco shook his head.
“It was important enough to run a cable through.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Luca looked at him.
“What cable?”
“We found a miniature camera inside the archive.”
My skin went cold.
Marco handed Luca his phone.
A photograph showed a small black device tucked into carved wood above the document shelves.
“Wireless?”
“Hardwired through the panel.”
“Recording what?”
“The desk. Safe. Archive cabinet.”
Luca looked at Vanessa.
She said nothing.
Marco continued.
“We traced it to a storage unit behind the dressing-room wall.”
“What’s in the unit?”
“A drive.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“How much?”
“Looks like months.”
Vanessa laughed suddenly.
“This is ridiculous. That camera isn’t mine.”
“You knew about the passage,” Luca said.
“So did Rosa.”
Rosa stiffened.
“Do not put this on her,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
I regretted speaking.
Vanessa smiled.
“There she is. The loyal maid.”
Luca’s gaze shifted to me.
Not angry.
Almost curious.
Then back to Vanessa.
Marco held up another item.
A small envelope.
“We also found this inside the wall.”
Luca took it.
His name was written across the front.
In Sarah’s handwriting.
Matteo stood.
“Another letter?”
Luca opened it.
There were three pages.
He read the first.
His face went still.
Then he looked at Vanessa.
“What?” she asked.
He read silently for another moment.
Finally he said, “Sarah knew about the passage.”
Rosa crossed herself.
Luca continued reading.
His eyes slowed near the bottom.
Then he stopped.
“What does it say?” Matteo asked.
Luca looked at him.
Then at me.
Then at Vanessa.
His voice was controlled.
“Your mother believed someone in this family was stealing from the trust.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes.
“She was sick at the end. She suspected everyone.”
Luca’s gaze snapped to her.
“How do you know what she suspected?”
Vanessa froze.
A tiny pause.
Fatal.
Because Luca had not said when the letter was written.
He folded it.
Very carefully.
Then he looked at Marco.
“Get the drive.”
Marco nodded.
Vanessa stepped forward.
“You have no right.”
Luca’s expression turned cold.
“It’s in my wall.”
“That dressing room is mine.”
“Not anymore.”
Her face went pale.
“What?”
“Pack a bag.”
The room stopped.
“Luca.”
“Pack.”
“You are not throwing me out two days before our wedding.”
He looked toward Matteo.
Then my bandaged arm.
Then Sarah’s letter.
“The wedding is no longer the thing you should be worried about.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“Are you cancelling it?”
Matteo stopped breathing.
So did I.
Luca looked at the woman he was supposed to marry in forty-eight hours.
And before he could answer, Marco’s radio crackled.
A guard’s voice came through.
“Mr. Moretti, we found something on the drive.”
Marco lifted the radio.
“What?”
A pause.
Then:
“Video from Sarah Moretti’s room.”
Luca went white.
May you like
The guard continued.
“The night before she died.”
