Chapter 6
Memory is supposed to feel like a straight road.
Mine felt like a staircase with missing steps.
Dr. Ellis returned before one in the morning.
This time he wasn’t alone.
He brought a neurologist.
They asked me questions in Luca’s study while Marco searched Vanessa’s room and security reviewed every corridor camera still working.
Did I lose consciousness?
Maybe.
Did I feel dizzy before the injuries?
No.
Did I remember being struck?
Not clearly.
Had I consumed alcohol?
No.
Medication?
No.
Food?
Coffee?
Anything unusual?
I hesitated.
Tea.
Vanessa had brought me tea.
Not served it.
Brought it herself.
That was strange enough to matter.
Luca heard it immediately.
“What time?”
“Around three.”
“Before you went to the gallery?”
“Yes.”
The neurologist looked at Luca.
“We should run toxicology.”
My stomach tightened.
“You think I was drugged?”
“It’s possible.”
Luca stood.
“Do it.”
Blood was drawn.
Then urine.
I hated the humiliation of it.
I hated needing help.
I hated that Luca saw all of it.
But I hated the blank space in my memory more.
While we waited, Marco came in.
“We found something.”
Luca looked up.
“What?”
“Kitchen camera.”
He placed a tablet on the desk.
The video showed me at 3:07 p.m.
Standing near the servants’ pantry.
Vanessa approached holding a tray.
Tea.
She spoke to me.
The camera had no audio.
I accepted the cup.
Vanessa walked away.
I drank.
At 3:19, I left the kitchen.
At 3:26, another camera caught me entering the east hall.
At 3:31, I disappeared into a blind spot near the old chapel.
Then nothing.
Until 4:02.
I appeared again near the laundry room.
Already injured.
My face bruised.
Blood on my cuffs.
Walking unsteadily.
I stared at the screen.
“That’s impossible.”
Luca leaned closer.
“Can you enhance it?”
Marco zoomed.
At 3:31, just before I vanished into the blind spot, a shadow appeared behind me.
A person.
Tall.
Dark clothing.
Couldn’t see the face.
Marco advanced frame by frame.
The person raised one hand.
Something flashed.
A ring.
Gold.
Large black stone.
Luca went still.
“What?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Luca.”
Marco looked at him.
“You know that ring.”
Luca’s face had lost color.
“My uncle wears one exactly like it.”
Victor Moretti.
The initials on my mother’s file.
The man who had approved payment to keep her quiet.
“Where is he?” I asked.
Luca looked at Marco.
“Find him.”
Marco left.
I stared at Luca.
“Why would your uncle attack me?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is getting old.”
His eyes flashed.
“I know.”
The neurologist returned twenty minutes later.
Preliminary screen.
A sedative.
Low dose.
Enough to impair memory.
Not enough to knock me out completely.
My skin went cold.
Vanessa gave me the tea.
Victor may have attacked me.
Which meant they could be working together.
Or one had used the other.
Or someone wanted us to think both.
Luca dismissed the doctors after arranging observation for the night.
I was told to sleep in a guest room near his study.
“I can go home,” I said.
“No.”
“You don’t own me.”
“No.”
“Then stop ordering me around.”
He stared at me.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
That surprised me.
He leaned against his desk.
“I’m asking you to stay because someone drugged you, attacked you, photographed you before you ever worked here, threatened you, and tried to kill us in an archive.”
“When you say it like that…”
His mouth almost moved again.
Then Marco returned.
“Victor’s phone is off.”
“Location?”
“Last ping was near the airport.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Flight records?”
“Checking.”
Marco hesitated.
“What?” Luca asked.
“There’s someone downstairs.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
The room changed.
Luca’s expression shut down completely.
“Why?”
“She says it’s urgent.”
We went to the main salon.
Isabella Moretti stood near the fireplace.
Elegant.
Sixty-two.
Silver threaded through dark hair.
She wore black from throat to ankle.
She looked at Luca first.
Then me.
Her face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
I knew it immediately.
“You know me,” I said.
Luca turned toward her.
His mother didn’t answer.
I stepped closer.
“You know my mother.”
Her eyes filled with something complicated.
Guilt.
Fear.
Maybe grief.
“Where is Elena?” she asked.
My heart stopped.
“You do know her.”
Isabella looked at Luca.
“Send everyone out.”
“No.”
“This is family business.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“She is the business.”
Isabella looked at me again.
Then she sat.
“When Elena disappeared, we thought Victor had found her.”
I went still.
“Disappeared?”
“She left New York in 1999 with you.”
“What did Victor want?”
Isabella’s hands folded tightly in her lap.
“Something your mother had.”
“What?”
“Evidence.”
“Of the fire?”
“No.”
She looked at Luca.
“Of a murder.”
Silence.
Luca’s face changed.
“Whose murder?”
I sat opposite Isabella and tried to reconcile the elegant woman in front of me with the life I had apparently been living in the shadow of.
"Did you ever see me as a child?" I asked.
Her eyes softened.
"Once."
Luca looked at her.
"When?"
"At a church in Pennsylvania. Elena had moved there under a temporary name. Dominic wanted proof that she was safe but knew he couldn't go himself. I went instead."
She looked at me.
"You were sleeping in your mother's arms. You had a yellow blanket."
I hated that the detail made me believe her.
"Why didn't you help us after that?"
"We did, quietly. Rent payments. Medical bills. Cash through charities."
I thought about my childhood. The anonymous scholarship that appeared when my mother couldn't afford school fees. The hospital bill that vanished after her surgery. The landlord who suddenly stopped threatening eviction.
I had thought we were lucky.
Maybe luck had a last name.
"You watched us struggle and sent money from the dark."
"If Victor knew we were supporting Elena, he would have found her."
"He found us anyway."
Isabella lowered her eyes.
"Yes."
Luca paced near the fireplace.
"Why contact you two months ago?"
"Elena believed someone had begun following Julia again. She saw the same car near her apartment three times. Then Julia received the placement here."
I went still.
"She knew where I was going to work before I told her."
Isabella nodded.
My stomach sank.
I remembered calling my mother after the agency offered me the Moretti position. She had gone silent for several seconds, then told me wealthy houses were trouble and I should refuse. I thought she was being protective.
She had been terrified.
"Why didn't she tell me the truth then?"
"Because the truth would have sounded impossible, and because saying Antonio's name again could have brought Victor closer."
"He was already close."
"We didn't know how close."
Marco entered carrying printed call logs.
"We found six calls between Vanessa's burner and a number linked to Victor's driver. But there's another number in the chain. Encrypted VOIP account, registered through Caruso's former firm."
Isabella's face tightened.
"Daniel."
Luca looked at her.
"You think he's alive."
"I think Daniel Caruso never did anything without arranging three exits first. Death may have been the fourth."
The room fell silent again.
Then my phone lit with the photograph of my mother's building.
Seven minutes old.
Isabella stood so fast the chair scraped the floor.
Isabella reached for a glass of water but her fingers trembled against the crystal. I had never seen a woman look so composed and so frightened at the same time. Luca saw it too.
“What aren't you telling us?” he asked.
“Too much,” she said.
“Pick something.”
Her eyes moved to me.
“Antonio was not only your father's brother. He was the person your grandfather intended to put in charge of the family companies. Victor knew it. Dominic knew it. Everyone did. When Antonio died, the balance of power changed overnight.”
I felt another piece slide into place. This had never been only about a murder. It was about inheritance, control, and which branch of the family was allowed to survive.
Luca sat opposite his mother.
“What did Antonio own?”
“Not much personally. But your grandfather created succession documents that favored the eldest son's line.”
“Line,” Luca repeated. “Meaning children.”
Isabella looked at me.
I felt cold.
“You knew,” I said.
“I suspected Elena was pregnant before Antonio died. I did not know for certain until months later.”
“So Victor had another reason to find us.”
“Yes.”
“Because if Antonio had a child, Victor didn't inherit what he expected.”
Isabella's silence confirmed it.
Luca stood again.
“Then Julia was never random collateral.”
“No.”
The word landed harder than a shout.
All my life, I had imagined danger as something that arrived because you were unlucky enough to stand nearby.
This danger had my name on it before I could read.
I looked at Isabella.
“Did my mother know?”
“She knew enough to run.”
“And enough to lie to me for twenty-eight years.”
Isabella's expression softened.
“She wanted you to have an ordinary life.”
I laughed bitterly.
“There is nothing ordinary about learning your family tree from strangers while someone is trying to kill you.”
No one argued.
"Call Elena."
I did.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
A third time.
Nothing.
Then Marco's phone rang.
A neighbor had heard a struggle.
Victor had been seen at the building.
And every secret in the room suddenly became less important than one thing.
My mother was in danger now.
Isabella whispered,
“Your father’s brother.”
Luca stared at her.
“My father only had one brother.”
Isabella’s eyes filled with tears.
“No.”
May you like
She looked at him.
“He had two.”
