Chapter 5
Smoke filled the archive faster than seemed possible.
“Down,” Luca ordered.
He pulled me toward the floor.
Marco yanked his jacket off and wrapped it around his forearm before smashing the emergency glass beside the door.
Nothing happened.
“No manual release,” he said.
Luca coughed.
“Ventilation?”
“Compromised.”
The red lights made everything look like blood.
I tried not to panic.
Fire alarms were screaming somewhere beyond the steel door, but inside the archive there was no sprinkler system activating.
“Why aren’t the sprinklers working?” I asked.
Marco looked at the ceiling.
“Someone disabled them.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“Can we break the door?”
“Not quickly.”
My chest tightened.
The smoke was already burning my throat.
I thought of my mother.
Twenty-four years old.
Trapped in a warehouse.
Emergency exits chained.
Maybe this was what she had felt.
The terror of realizing someone had decided whether you lived or died before the fire even started.
“Julia.”
Luca grabbed my face gently.
“Look at me.”
I did.
“Stay low. Slow breaths.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
Marco moved along the wall.
“There may be a service hatch.”
“Where?”
“Back corridor.”
We crawled between cabinets.
The smoke thickened.
My injured eye streamed.
Every breath hurt.
Then Luca stopped.
“What?” I whispered.
He pointed.
A small green maintenance light blinked behind a row of shelves.
Marco shoved the shelving unit aside.
Behind it was a square access panel.
Locked.
He kicked it once.
Twice.
On the third hit the frame bent.
Luca joined him.
Together they tore it open.
Cold air hit my face.
“Go,” Luca said.
The opening was narrow.
I crawled through first.
The service tunnel beyond was dark and filthy.
I turned back.
“Come on.”
Marco followed.
Then Luca.
The moment his shoulders cleared the opening, something exploded inside the archive.
A burst of heat punched through the hatch.
Luca covered me with his body.
Metal clanged behind us.
For several seconds, none of us moved.
Then Marco said,
“We need out.”
The tunnel led to a maintenance stairwell.
We emerged behind the building into cold night air.
I collapsed on the pavement coughing.
Luca crouched beside me.
“Julia.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m alive.”
His face changed.
“Barely.”
Fire trucks arrived within minutes.
Too fast.
Marco noticed too.
“Who called it in?” he asked.
Luca looked toward the street.
A black sedan pulled away from the curb.
Marco ran after it.
Too late.
The car disappeared.
Luca pulled out his phone.
No signal.
Marco returned.
“Plates covered.”
“Cameras?”
“Checking.”
My phone buzzed.
I stared at it.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
It showed us entering the archive less than an hour earlier.
Below it was one sentence.
NOW YOU UNDERSTAND YOUR MOTHER.
I showed Luca.
His expression became terrifyingly calm.
“Marco.”
“Yes?”
“Nobody outside the house knew we were coming here.”
Marco went still.
“That’s correct.”
I looked between them.
“So someone inside knew.”
Luca’s eyes met mine.
“Yes.”
Vanessa.
That was the obvious answer.
Too obvious.
Which meant I was beginning to think like Luca.
And I wasn’t sure I liked it.
We returned to the estate after midnight.
Police had already taken statements at the archive.
Luca had called the fire an electrical incident.
I understood why.
If someone inside the house was feeding information to whoever had trapped us, announcing what we knew would only help them.
The house looked quiet.
Too quiet.
Marco checked the security station first.
Then came back pale.
“What?” Luca asked.
“Vanessa is gone.”
My stomach dropped.
“You said nobody could leave.”
“She didn’t use the gates.”
“How?”
“We found a service door open near the kitchen gardens.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“When?”
“Approximately ten forty.”
While we were trapped underground.
I looked at Luca.
He was already thinking the same thing.
Maybe Vanessa hadn’t set the fire.
Maybe the fire had been designed to get Luca away from the house.
We went to her room.
Closet half-empty.
Jewelry gone.
Passport gone.
But her phone was sitting on the dresser.
Luca picked it up.
Unlocked.
“That’s wrong,” Marco said.
Luca nodded.
“She would never leave this.”
I moved toward the vanity.
Something white showed beneath the chair.
An envelope.
I picked it up.
My name was written on it.
JULIA.
I opened it.
Inside was a note in Vanessa’s handwriting.
I DIDN’T HURT YOU.
ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU CAN’T REMEMBER WHO DID.
My blood turned cold.
Luca led me away from the open garden door and back into the house.
For the first time, I noticed blood on his sleeve from a scrape he had gotten escaping the archive.
"You're hurt too."
He glanced down.
"It's nothing."
"You say that too much."
He gave me a look that almost became a smile.
"Apparently I've been spending too much time around you."
The moment passed quickly.
In the security room, Marco put Vanessa's movements on three monitors. At 2:46 p.m., she carried the tea into the kitchen. At 3:11, she entered the west stairwell. At 3:22, she appeared on a camera near the master suite.
At 3:31—the exact minute I disappeared near the chapel—Vanessa was still upstairs.
I leaned closer to the screen.
"She couldn't have been the one following me."
Marco shook his head.
"Not unless the timestamps were altered. I'm verifying them."
Luca folded his arms.
"What about Victor?"
Marco brought up exterior footage. A dark sedan had entered through the service gate at 2:58 using a valid temporary access code. The code belonged to a contractor who had not worked at the estate in eight months.
The driver never showed his face.
But at 4:14 the same sedan left.
One rear passenger lifted a hand toward the window.
The black-stone ring flashed clearly.
My stomach turned.
"Victor was here."
Luca nodded.
"And somebody gave him access."
Marco searched the access logs.
The temporary code had been reactivated that morning from an administrator terminal.
There were only four terminals with that level of permission.
One belonged to Marco.
One to Luca.
One to the estate manager.
And one to Vanessa.
"So we're back to her," I said.
"Maybe," Luca replied.
"You don't sound convinced."
"Because someone used my credentials last month to approve a wine shipment I never ordered. Credentials can be stolen."
Marco nodded.
"Especially if someone has physical access to the house."
I looked toward the hall full of employees who had worked there for years.
People I greeted every morning.
People who knew where I slept, where Luca worked, which doors were locked, which cameras failed.
The enemy did not need to break into the Moretti house.
The enemy might already have a uniform.
My phone buzzed again.
No message this time.
A photograph.
Me, standing in the security room.
Taken seconds earlier.
I spun toward the doorway.
Empty.
Luca took the phone.
His face went cold.
"Shut down the house," he told Marco. "Every employee stays where they are until we clear them."
For the next hour, security searched bedrooms, closets, service corridors, attic access points, wine storage, garages, even the old dumbwaiter shafts.
They found no photographer.
But they did find something behind a vent outside the security room.
A miniature camera.
Wireless.
Still transmitting.
To someone outside the estate.
That was when the neurologist called with the preliminary toxicology result.
A sedative was in my system.
And suddenly the blank twenty minutes in my memory stopped feeling like a failure of my mind.
Someone had stolen them.
I read it again.
I sat down because my legs would not hold me anymore. Luca remained standing, studying the frozen security image of Victor's ring. I could see him building a list in his head: who knew the camera blind spots, who knew my schedule, who had access to old contractor codes. The list was not short. That was the problem.
“Do you trust anyone here?” I asked.
He looked toward the monitors.
“I did this morning.”
It was such a bleak answer that I had nothing to say.
For the next twenty minutes, Marco compared badge records, staff schedules, delivery logs, and camera outages. Three employees had unexplained gaps. Two had innocent reasons. One did not.
The estate manager, Harold Kent, had left the property for forty-seven minutes without logging out. He claimed he had gone to a pharmacy.
There was no receipt.
His car had never reached the pharmacy parking lot.
When Marco called him into the security room, Harold looked offended rather than afraid.
“I have managed this property for twelve years.”
Luca leaned against the desk.
“Then you know lying to me is a bad idea.”
Harold's face tightened.
“I met someone.”
“Who?”
“A woman.”
“Name?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
Marco searched his phone.
The last deleted call was from a prepaid number.
The contact label was only one letter.
V.
My stomach dropped.
“Vanessa?” I asked.
Harold shook his head too quickly.
Luca noticed.
“Take him downstairs,” he told Marco.
Harold's anger cracked into panic.
“I didn't touch the girl.”
Nobody had accused him of touching me.
The room went silent.
Luca stepped closer.
“What did you just say?”
Harold's face emptied.
He realized his mistake.
And suddenly we had one more person who knew something about my missing twenty minutes.
Luca took the note.
“What does she mean?”
“I remember.”
But even as I said it,
I realized I didn’t.
I remembered Vanessa in the dressing room.
Her angry voice.
Her bracelet against my face.
Her telling me to keep quiet.
But the punches?
The worst bruising?
The cut on my arm?
There was a blank space.
A gap.
Twenty minutes I couldn’t account for.
My knees weakened.
Luca caught me again.
“Julia.”
“I don’t remember.”
His face went still.
May you like
“Remember what?”
“Who hit me.”
