Chapter 3
Luca didn’t ask what I meant.
He understood enough from my face.
“Marco,” he said.
Marco was already moving.
“North room. Now.”
Vanessa blocked the doorway.
“That room belonged to your father.”
Luca stared at her.
“And?”
“You know your mother doesn’t want anyone in there.”
“My mother doesn’t live here.”
“That doesn’t make it less private.”
Luca walked toward her.
She didn’t move.
For a moment they stood almost nose to nose.
Then he said quietly,
“Move.”
Vanessa held his gaze.
Then stepped aside.
We went upstairs.
I shouldn’t have followed.
Dr. Ellis had told me to rest.
My head was pounding.
But the north room had been following me in my dreams for weeks.
I needed to know whether I had actually seen those photographs.
The third-floor corridor was darker than the rest of the house.
No family portraits.
No fresh flowers.
Only old wall sconces and thick carpet that swallowed footsteps.
The door at the end looked ordinary.
Dark wood.
Brass handle.
Locked.
Marco tried a master key.
It didn’t fit.
Luca frowned.
“Who changed the lock?”
Marco shook his head.
“Not security.”
Vanessa stood several feet behind us.
“I told you. Your mother wanted privacy.”
Luca looked at her.
“Did she tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
“What day?”
Vanessa blinked.
“What?”
“What day?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember everything.”
“Not everything revolves around your paranoia.”
Luca turned to Marco.
“Open it.”
Marco used a compact pry tool.
The lock gave after less than a minute.
The door opened.
The room was empty.
Completely empty.
No photographs.
No furniture.
No rugs.
Bare walls.
Bare floor.
Even the curtains were gone.
My stomach sank.
“I swear—”
Luca raised one hand.
“I believe you saw something.”
Vanessa laughed.
“How convenient.”
I turned toward her.
“You gave me the key.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“Julia, I’ve never been in this room.”
“You told me to get a silver jewelry box.”
She shook her head slowly.
“You’re confused.”
“I’m not.”
“You have a concussion.”
“That happened today.”
Vanessa’s face tightened.
Luca noticed.
“So you admit something happened today.”
Her eyes cut toward him.
“I didn’t say that.”
Marco walked around the room.
He crouched near the wall.
“Sir.”
Luca joined him.
I followed.
Near the baseboard were tiny square marks.
Cleaner rectangles against dusty paint.
Dozens of them.
Something had been hanging there.
Luca touched one mark.
Vanessa said nothing.
Marco looked at the floor.
“Furniture was moved recently.”
“How recently?”
“Days. Maybe less.”
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“You have a house full of staff. Someone could have used the room.”
Luca stood.
“Check every security camera covering this floor.”
Marco hesitated.
“That’s the problem.”
“What?”
“The third-floor cameras stopped recording four nights ago.”
Luca’s eyes hardened.
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
“System reported a software fault. It was scheduled for service tomorrow.”
Luca looked at Vanessa.
She lifted her hands.
“Don’t look at me.”
A buzzing sound broke the silence.
My phone.
I pulled it from my apron pocket.
Unknown number.
One message.
LEAVE THE HOUSE BEFORE MIDNIGHT.
I stopped breathing.
Luca saw my face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Julia.”
I locked the screen.
He held out his hand.
“No.”
“Show me.”
“No.”
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“Maybe your secret admirer.”
I stared at her.
Luca looked between us.
Then my phone buzzed again.
Another message.
THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING.
My fingers shook.
Luca took the phone from my hand before I could stop him.
He read the messages.
His expression changed.
“Marco.”
Marco came over.
Luca handed him the phone.
“Trace it.”
“It may be masked.”
“Try.”
Vanessa moved toward the door.
“I’m done with this circus.”
Luca spoke without turning.
“Where were you four nights ago?”
She stopped.
“At home.”
“You were here.”
Vanessa looked over her shoulder.
“You have no proof.”
Luca’s face stayed calm.
“You slept in my bed.”
Nobody spoke.
Vanessa’s eyes flashed.
“You want to discuss our private life in front of staff?”
“No.”
He looked at the empty wall.
“I want to know what you did after I fell asleep.”
She stared at him.
Then walked out.
Marco started to follow.
Luca stopped him.
“No.”
Marco frowned.
“Sir?”
“Let her think she has space.”
That sentence frightened me more than if he had ordered guards around her.
We searched the room.
Nothing.
Until I noticed a small scratch near the fireplace.
A vertical line in the wood paneling.
I touched it.
The panel shifted.
“Luca.”
He came over.
Together we pressed the edge.
A narrow compartment opened.
Inside was a flat black folder.
Luca removed it.
The folder contained photographs.
Not the ones I had seen before.
These were older.
Much older.
A young Luca with his father.
His mother at a charity gala.
A group of men standing outside a courthouse.
And one photograph of a woman holding a baby.
On the back, someone had written:
ELENA AND HER DAUGHTER — 1999.
I stared at it.
The woman in the picture had dark hair.
Brown eyes.
A small crescent-shaped scar near her chin.
My hand flew to my own chin.
I had the same scar.
Luca noticed.
He looked at the photograph.
Then at me.
“No.”
I couldn’t speak.
He turned the picture over again.
Elena and her daughter.
1999.
My mother’s name was Elena.
And I was born in 1998.
My phone buzzed in Marco’s hand.
A third message.
Marco looked at the screen.
His face went hard.
“What?” Luca asked.
Marco turned the phone toward us.
Before Marco could say anything else, a crash sounded from downstairs.
Not glass.
A door.
Luca moved first.
Marco followed, one hand already inside his jacket.
I should have stayed where I was, but every instinct in me said the danger in this house had stopped waiting for permission.
We reached the second-floor landing just as a young housekeeper ran from the west hall.
"Mr. Moretti."
Her face was white.
"The kitchen entrance was open. I locked it myself an hour ago."
Luca looked at Marco.
"Check every exterior door. Quietly. Nobody panics the staff."
Marco disappeared down the stairs.
Luca turned to me.
"You stay with me."
Normally I would have argued.
This time I didn't.
Because someone had been inside the north room. Someone had cleared it. Someone had sent messages to my phone. And now someone had opened a door in a house where security knew exactly which doors were supposed to be closed.
For the first time since I started working there, the Moretti mansion no longer felt like a rich man's home.
It felt like a locked box.
And somebody inside it had the key.
Marco immediately photographed the hidden compartment and every item inside before touching anything else.
Luca remained by the fireplace, staring at the old photograph as though it had opened a door in his own memory.
"My father never talked about this room," he said.
"Maybe that's why somebody used it," I replied.
He looked at me.
"Or maybe somebody knew he wouldn't want it searched."
Marco found a thin envelope beneath the stack of photographs.
No name on the front.
Inside were photocopies of bank transfers from 1999. Amounts large enough to make my stomach turn. One payment went to a private security company. Another to an attorney named Daniel Caruso. Another to Bellmont Holdings.
Bellmont.
The same name as my staffing agency.
"Coincidence?" I asked.
Luca shook his head.
"I stopped believing in those tonight."
Marco scrolled through his tablet.
"Bellmont Holdings dissolved in 2007. Different corporate registration, but the mailing address matches the current staffing company."
My hands went cold.
The job had not simply brought me into the Moretti house.
Something connected to Luca's family had been waiting behind the agency name for decades.
Luca noticed my breathing change.
"Sit down."
"I'm fine."
"You're saying that too much."
"You're ordering people around too much."
Marco glanced between us and wisely said nothing.
Luca surprised me by giving a tired half-smile.
"Fair."
He pulled a dusty chair from the corner. I sat because the alternative was letting him be right after I fainted again.
Marco kept searching. Behind another loose section of paneling, he found a strip of old photographic negatives and a microcassette sealed inside wax paper.
"Do we have anything that plays this?" Luca asked.
"Security archive might."
Vanessa appeared in the doorway again.
She had changed clothes. Black sweater. Dark trousers. No jewelry except a watch. She looked less like a woman preparing for dinner and more like someone preparing to leave.
Her eyes landed on the cassette.
"Where did you get that?"
Luca turned slowly.
"You've never been in this room. Remember?"
Vanessa realized she had given herself away.
Her lips parted, then closed.
"I saw one like it years ago."
"Where?"
"Your mother's house."
"When?"
"I don't remember."
Luca laughed once without humor.
"You should find a new sentence."
Vanessa looked at me.
"You think he trusts you now because he feels sorry for you? That isn't trust, Julia. It's guilt. Moretti men confuse the two."
Luca's eyes hardened.
"Enough."
But she wasn't done.
"Ask him how many employees have disappeared from his companies after seeing things they weren't supposed to see. Ask him how many settlements his lawyers handled. Ask him what his father taught him about protecting the family name."
I looked at Luca.
He did not deny it immediately.
That frightened me.
"Is that true?" I asked.
"People have signed settlements, yes."
"Disappeared?"
"Not because of me."
Vanessa laughed.
"That's what every Moretti says."
Luca stepped toward her.
"You don't get to use my family as a distraction from what you've been doing."
"And you don't get to pretend your family history started when you became CEO."
For a second, neither moved.
Then Marco's tablet chimed.
He looked at the screen.
"I found a current address for Bellmont's original corporate attorney."
Luca looked at him.
"Who?"
Marco turned the tablet around.
The name was Daniel Caruso.
The lawyer everyone said had been dead for eight months.
My skin prickled.
Luca stared at the record.
"The database lists an annual filing submitted three weeks ago under his credentials."
Vanessa went pale.
Luca looked at her.
"What do you know?"
"Nothing."
"You're afraid."
"I'm tired."
"You're afraid."
Vanessa backed into the hall.
"You should be too."
Then she turned and walked away.
Nobody stopped her.
Not yet.
May you like
The message read:
ASK LUCA WHAT HIS FATHER DID TO YOUR MOTHER.
