Chapter 2
The library became silent enough that I could hear the grandfather clock in the hall.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Luca held the note in one hand.
His gaze stayed on me.
“Julia.”
My stomach twisted.
Vanessa leaned against the edge of the table as if she were watching a movie she had paid to see.
“Yes, sir?”
“Why were you hired?”
I stared at the carpet.
The safe answer was simple.
Through an agency.
For housekeeping.
Because the previous maid quit.
All true.
None complete.
“Julia.”
His voice was softer the second time.
That was worse.
I looked up.
“I needed a job.”
Vanessa laughed.
Luca didn’t.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I was assigned through Bellmont Staffing.”
“I know.”
Vanessa’s smile faded slightly.
Luca held up the note.
“Why does someone think there’s more?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you recognize the handwriting?”
“No.”
“The packaging?”
“No.”
“The photograph?”
I looked at it.
“No.”
Luca studied me long enough to make my chest hurt.
Then the room tilted.
I reached for the back of a chair.
He moved immediately.
“Julia.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
I took one step.
My knees gave out.
Luca caught me before I hit the floor.
His arm went around my waist.
The other supported my back.
For one strange second everything stopped.
I was aware of heat.
Strength.
The clean scent of his shirt.
And the fact that Vanessa was staring at us.
I pushed weakly against his chest.
“I can stand.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I said—”
“Julia.”
His tone ended the argument.
He lifted me.
Vanessa’s eyes went cold.
“Oh, come on.”
Luca turned.
“What?”
“She’s a maid.”
I went rigid.
Luca’s jaw flexed.
“She’s injured.”
“She’s manipulating you.”
“With a concussion?”
“You don’t know that she has one.”
“Which is why the doctor is coming.”
Vanessa pushed away from the table.
“She drops your property, magically reveals a recorder, then a mystery box arrives naming her, and somehow she is still the victim?”
Luca looked at me in his arms.
Then back at Vanessa.
“Her face didn’t bruise itself.”
Vanessa smiled tightly.
“Keep telling yourself that.”
He carried me out of the library.
I hated every servant who saw us.
Not because of Luca.
Because of the way they looked at me.
Shock.
Curiosity.
Fear.
In a house like this, being noticed could destroy you faster than being ignored.
Luca took me to a sitting room near the east staircase.
He set me down carefully on a sofa.
“Stay.”
“I’m not a dog.”
He paused.
To my surprise, one corner of his mouth almost moved.
“Good. Then you understand sentences.”
Despite everything, I nearly laughed.
It hurt my lip.
I winced.
His almost-smile disappeared.
He crouched in front of me.
“Who did this?”
I looked away.
“You already asked.”
“And you already lied.”
My heart jumped.
“I didn’t.”
“You did.”
“How would you know?”
He pointed at my face.
“Because I’ve seen people fall.”
I swallowed.
“And I’ve seen people get hit.”
Silence.
I stared at my hands.
He noticed the long cut across the right one.
His expression changed again.
“What caused that?”
“I caught it on something.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Julia.”
I stood too quickly.
The room swayed.
Luca grabbed my elbow.
I jerked away.
“Stop asking me.”
He went still.
My breath came fast.
“I said I fell. Leave it alone.”
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then he nodded once.
“Okay.”
I hadn’t expected that.
He stood.
“But until I know who sent that note, you don’t leave the house either.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Not as a prisoner.”
“It sounds like one.”
“For protection.”
“I don’t need protection.”
“You can barely see out of one eye.”
“That happened in your house.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Luca’s face changed.
We both heard what I had really said.
That happened in your house.
Not outside.
Not before.
Here.
Luca took one slow step closer.
“Who?”
I shook my head.
“Forget it.”
“Julia.”
“No.”
The sitting-room door opened.
A silver-haired man in a charcoal suit entered carrying a medical bag.
Dr. Ellis.
Behind him came Marco.
Luca stepped back.
The doctor examined me for nearly forty minutes.
No fracture.
No internal bleeding he could identify clinically.
A mild concussion was possible.
The cuts were shallow but needed cleaning.
The bruising around my eye concerned him more than he said.
He asked how it happened.
I said I fell.
He looked at Luca.
Luca looked away.
No one believed me.
But no one forced me to say more.
After Dr. Ellis left, Marco came in carrying a tablet.
“We copied the recorder.”
Luca stood by the fireplace.
“And?”
“There are twenty-three audio files.”
Vanessa appeared at the doorway.
Nobody had heard her approach.
“Twenty-three?” Luca asked.
Marco nodded.
“Recorded over approximately five months.”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“That proves nothing.”
Marco continued.
“We isolated three distinct voices. Ms. Bellini appears to be one. The male voice from the first file appears in fourteen recordings.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Can you identify him?”
“Not yet.”
Vanessa exhaled.
Then Marco looked at me.
“There’s a third voice.”
I frowned.
“A woman.”
Luca asked, “Who?”
Marco tapped the tablet.
A recording played.
Static.
Footsteps.
Then a woman whispering.
“He can’t know she’s here.”
A man answered.
“She won’t remember.”
The woman said, “That isn’t what I’m afraid of.”
Luca looked at Marco.
“When was that recorded?”
“Six weeks ago.”
My skin went cold.
Six weeks ago.
The week I started working at the Moretti house.
Marco looked at me again.
“There’s more.”
He pressed play.
The same woman whispered,
“If Julia sees the north room, move her.”
The room disappeared around me.
Luca turned sharply.
Vanessa stared at me.
“What north room?” he asked.
I couldn’t answer.
Not because I didn’t know.
Because suddenly I did.
A locked door at the end of the third-floor corridor.
A room staff were told never to enter.
Except once.
Three weeks ago.
When Vanessa had handed me a key and said she needed a silver jewelry case from inside.
I had opened the door.
I had seen the room.
And I had seen a wall covered with photographs.
Photographs of Luca.
His mother.
His father.
Marco.
Vanessa.
And me.
Pictures of me taken before I ever worked there.
Outside my apartment.
At the grocery store.
At my mother’s building.
I had convinced myself I imagined them.
Because the next day, when I went back,
the wall was empty.
Luca asked me to start from the beginning.
So I did.
I told him about the first photograph I noticed. Me outside a grocery store, carrying a paper bag with oranges visible at the top. I remembered the day because it had rained and the bag split before I reached my apartment.
The picture had been taken from across the street.
Then another. Me waiting for a bus. Another of my mother outside her building. Another of me talking to a man from the staffing agency on my first day.
"How far back?" Luca asked.
"At least a year. Maybe more."
Marco's eyes hardened.
"Then the surveillance started long before her placement here."
Vanessa scoffed.
"Or she saw ordinary photographs and invented the rest after hitting her head."
I turned on her.
"Why are you so desperate for him not to believe me?"
For one second, she looked tired instead of cruel.
"Because belief is dangerous in this family."
Luca's gaze sharpened.
"Explain that."
Vanessa looked at him, then at me.
"No."
"You don't get to say mysterious things and walk away."
"Watch me."
She turned toward the door.
Luca did not stop her this time.
That surprised me.
When she was gone, he said quietly, "People who think they're trapped reveal more when they believe a door is open."
I stared at him.
"That's manipulative."
"Yes."
At least he didn't pretend otherwise.
Marco received a message and stepped closer.
"Bellmont Staffing changed ownership eleven months ago. Purchase was made through a shell company. Beneficial owner hidden. But their legal representative was Caruso & Vale."
Luca's expression changed.
"Daniel Caruso's firm."
Marco nodded.
The dead lawyer again.
I wrapped my arms around myself.
"So a company connected to your dead attorney bought the agency that sent me here."
"Yes."
"And somebody photographed me before that."
"Yes."
"And there's a room in your house with those photographs."
The thought made my injured hand shake. Luca noticed but said nothing. For once, his silence felt less like pressure and more like room to breathe.
Luca looked toward the third-floor corridor.
"There was."
That correction mattered.
Because whoever had cleared the room knew the investigation had begun.
Which meant we were not uncovering an old secret.
We were chasing someone who was still moving.
“Julia?” Luca said.
I looked at him.
My throat closed.
“I’ve been in the north room.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
Luca stepped toward me.
“What did you see?”
I whispered,
May you like
“Me.”
I knew that much.
