Chapter 1
For three seconds, nobody moved.
Not Luca.
Not Vanessa.
Not me.
The only sound in the dining room was the soft hiss of candle flames and the faint clink of ice settling in a crystal water glass.
Luca held his mother’s note between two fingers.
ROSE — IF VANESSA EVER COMES BACK INTO LUCA’S LIFE, DO NOT LET HER FIND THE RED JOURNAL.
His face had gone still in a way that frightened me more than shouting would have.
Vanessa recovered first.
She gave a short laugh.
“Isabella was sick near the end.”
Luca’s eyes lifted.
The laugh died in Vanessa’s throat.
“My mother had cancer,” he said quietly. “She was not confused.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You did.”
I stood beside the table with blood cooling against my knees and my torn uniform hanging awkwardly from my body. Every cut stung. My right cheek pulsed. The room felt too warm.
Luca placed the note beside his plate.
Then he looked at me.
“Anna. Sit down.”
Vanessa’s chair scraped.
“She’s staff.”
Luca turned his head.
“And she is bleeding on my floor.”
The words were calm.
That made them worse.
He pointed to the empty chair on his other side.
“Sit.”
I hesitated.
Ten guests were watching.
A retired judge.
Two investment partners.
Luca’s cousin Matteo.
An elderly woman named Mrs. Bellini.
A senator’s wife.
People who looked as if they had never bled through stockings in a dining room.
“I’m fine,” I whispered.
“No.”
Luca’s gaze dropped to my knees.
“You are not.”
Something in his voice ended the argument.
I sat.
A housemaid named Clara hurried over with a clean linen napkin. I pressed it gently against one knee.
Vanessa remained standing.
“This is ridiculous.”
Luca picked up the old photograph again.
“My mother. Aunt Rose. You.”
“It could have been taken anywhere.”
“Rose’s cottage is behind them.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“So I visited the property once. Twelve years ago. What exactly are you accusing me of?”
Luca studied her.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether Anna finds the journal before you do.”
Vanessa went pale again.
It was small.
Almost nothing.
But Luca saw it.
So did I.
Matteo leaned forward from halfway down the table.
“What journal?”
Luca did not answer.
His eyes remained on Vanessa.
“Where is your phone?”
She frowned.
“What?”
“Your phone.”
“In my purse.”
“Leave it there.”
Her expression sharpened.
“You’re not serious.”
“I am.”
“You think I’m going to run to Rose’s cottage?”
Luca looked toward me.
“She already did.”
The words landed like a dropped plate.
Vanessa’s mouth opened.
Then closed.
Luca stood.
“Dinner is over.”
A few guests shifted.
Matteo pushed his chair back immediately.
The retired judge quietly reached for his coat.
Nobody complained.
That told me more about Luca than anything.
He did not need to raise his voice to clear a room.
Within minutes, the dining room emptied.
Only Luca, Vanessa, Matteo, Clara, and I remained.
Luca spoke to Clara.
“Bring the medical kit.”
“I can do it myself,” I said.
“No.”
I looked at him.
His blue eyes had softened slightly when they met mine.
“Let somebody help you.”
I nodded.
Vanessa made a disgusted sound.
“This is unbelievable.”
Luca turned.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you’re taking the word of a servant over mine.”
“I’m taking my mother’s handwriting over yours.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“There is no red journal.”
My breath stopped.
Luca’s head tilted.
“You just said you didn’t know what I was talking about.”
Silence.
Another mistake.
Vanessa looked toward the windows.
Beyond them, the Moretti estate stretched into darkness.
Rose’s guest cottage sat past the gardens, behind a line of old cypress trees.
Exactly where I had been less than an hour earlier.
Exactly where Vanessa had followed me.
Luca noticed where she looked.
“Matteo.”
His cousin stood.
“Yeah?”
“Lock the west gate.”
Vanessa snapped around.
“You’re locking me in?”
“No.”
Luca buttoned his suit jacket.
“I’m preventing anyone from leaving until I know why my dead mother warned my aunt about you.”
“I’m calling my lawyer.”
“You can.”
His voice remained almost pleasant.
“But first, I want to know what you were doing here twelve years ago.”
Vanessa’s composure cracked.
Just a little.
“I told you. I visited.”
“With whom?”
She said nothing.
Luca took one step closer.
“With whom, Vanessa?”
Her eyes flickered toward Matteo.
Then me.
Then back to Luca.
“A friend.”
“What friend?”
“I don’t remember.”
Luca smiled without humor.
“You remember the exact restaurant where we met six years ago.”
“That’s different.”
“You remember the dress you wore.”
“Luca—”
“You remember the wine.”
She swallowed.
“But you don’t remember who brought you onto my family’s property six years before you supposedly knew me?”
Nobody spoke.
Clara returned with the medical kit.
She knelt beside me and carefully cut away the torn stocking from one knee.
The first touch of antiseptic burned.
I winced.
Luca heard it.
His eyes dropped to me again.
“What happened at the cottage?”
I looked at Vanessa.
She stared back.
A warning lived in her expression.
Not panic.
Not anymore.
Something colder.
I remembered the guest cottage twenty minutes earlier.
The dusty sitting room.
The locked escritoire desk.
The photograph tucked behind a drawer.
Then Vanessa appearing in the doorway.
Her blue gown vivid against the darkness.
Her voice low.
Give me the photograph, Anna.
I had refused.
She grabbed my wrist.
I pulled away.
The old rug slid under my shoes.
I hit the table.
Then ran.
Outside, my heel caught the edge of the gravel path.
I went down hard.
My knees struck stone.
My face clipped the corner of a wooden planter.
Vanessa had stood over me.
Not helping.
Just breathing hard.
Then she saw the note in my hand.
Where did you get that?
I had scrambled up and run.
Back in the dining room, I swallowed.
“She grabbed my arm.”
Vanessa scoffed.
“I tried to stop her from stealing.”
“She chased me outside.”
“I walked after you.”
“You told me to give you the note.”
Luca’s expression changed again.
“What note?”
I looked toward the paper on the table.
“That one.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
For half a second.
Like she regretted every word she had spoken.
Luca noticed.
“You knew about the note before tonight.”
“No.”
“You just heard Anna say you demanded it from her.”
“I saw it in her hand.”
“Then why did you want it?”
Vanessa’s chin lifted.
“Because she was taking Rose’s private things.”
Luca went very still.
“You cared about Rose’s privacy?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
He walked to the sideboard.
Opened a drawer.
Pulled out a key ring.
“I spent most of my life listening to you say Aunt Rose was unstable.”
Vanessa’s face shifted.
He continued.
“You refused to visit her in the hospital.”
“She hated me.”
“My mother apparently gave her a reason.”
Luca tossed the keys to Matteo.
“Get the flashlights.”
Matteo caught them.
“We going to the cottage?”
“Yes.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“No.”
Every eye turned to her.
Her lips parted.
She seemed to realize how quickly she had spoken.
Luca’s voice dropped.
“No?”
“It’s dark. Anna is hurt. Rose’s cottage hasn’t been maintained in years.”
“It has electricity.”
“The floorboards are bad.”
“Then you remember the cottage well.”
Vanessa’s face drained of color.
Luca stared at her for a long moment.
Then he looked at me.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
Clara shook her head.
“She should rest.”
“I can walk.”
I did not know why I said it.
Maybe because I had already bled for that photograph.
Maybe because Isabella Moretti’s warning had survived twelve years for a reason.
Or maybe because Vanessa looked terrified of whatever was inside that cottage.
And fear was the first honest thing I had seen from her all evening.
Luca removed his suit jacket.
He stepped closer.
Before I could protest, he draped it around my shoulders.
The heavy charcoal fabric covered the torn sections of my uniform.
It smelled faintly of cedar and expensive cologne.
“I’m ruining it,” I whispered.
“It’s a jacket.”
“There’s blood.”
“I own others.”
Vanessa laughed sharply.
“Of course.”
Luca looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Say it.”
She folded her arms.
“You barely know her.”
I felt heat creep into my face despite everything.
Luca did not look at me.
“I know she brought me evidence you tried to hide.”
“That is not evidence.”
“My mother’s handwriting is evidence to me.”
Vanessa’s eyes glittered.
“You always worshipped Isabella.”
Matteo froze near the door.
Luca’s face changed.
Not anger.
Something more wounded.
Vanessa saw it too late.
She softened immediately.
“That came out wrong.”
“Yes,” Luca said.
“It did.”
He walked past her.
“Let’s go.”
We crossed the rear hall together.
Matteo first.
Luca beside me.
Vanessa behind us.
Clara stayed at the house after Luca told her to call Dr. Hayes and have him wait.
Outside, the night air hit my face.
Cold.
Sharp.
The estate lights glowed along the stone path.
Rose’s cottage sat beyond the formal garden, mostly hidden by cypress trees.
I had always liked it during the day.
At night, it looked abandoned.
A dark little house keeping secrets for dead women.
My knees protested every step.
Luca slowed to match me.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
I glanced back.
Vanessa was several yards behind us with Matteo.
“Because she wanted me scared enough to stop.”
Luca’s mouth tightened.
“Did she threaten you?”
I hesitated.
He noticed.
“Anna.”
“At the cottage she said nobody would believe me if I accused her of anything.”
His jaw flexed.
“She was wrong.”
We reached the porch.
The door stood slightly open.
I stopped.
“I closed it.”
Matteo raised the flashlight.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Vanessa said quickly, “Old houses shift.”
Luca looked at the latch.
“It doesn’t open from shifting.”
The wood around the lock was splintered.
Somebody had forced it.
Matteo swore under his breath.
Luca stepped in front of me.
“Stay behind me.”
We entered.
Dust floated through the flashlight beams.
The small sitting room looked different.
Wrong.
A chair had been overturned.
Drawers hung open.
Books lay across the floor.
Someone had searched the place after I left.
Luca’s face darkened.
“Vanessa.”
“I didn’t do this.”
“You knew we were coming.”
“I was with you.”
Matteo moved toward the hall.
“Could be someone still inside.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
All four of us froze.
Then footsteps.
Fast.
Matteo rushed toward the staircase.
Luca caught my arm and moved me behind him.
A shadow crossed the upper landing.
Matteo shouted.
“Stop!”
A man ran toward the back stairs.
Luca followed.
I should have stayed.
I didn’t.
By the time I reached the kitchen, the back door was swinging.
Matteo sprinted into the garden.
Luca stopped at the threshold.
Too dark.
Too many trees.
Vanessa stood in the kitchen doorway.
Breathing hard.
“What happened?”
Luca ignored her.
His eyes moved around the room.
Then landed on an open cabinet.
The back panel had been torn loose.
Behind it was a narrow compartment.
Empty.
Almost.
A strip of red leather lay on the floor.
My stomach dropped.
Luca bent and picked it up.
Red leather.
The edge of a book cover.
Someone had found the journal.
Vanessa stared at it.
Her face gave her away.
She knew exactly what it was.
Luca saw that too.
“Who was here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who were you working with twelve years ago?”
“Nobody.”
He stepped closer.
“Who just stole my mother’s journal?”
“I don’t know.”
Then a phone rang.
Not mine.
Not Luca’s.
Not Matteo’s.
Vanessa’s.
She had brought it.
Despite Luca telling her to leave it in her purse.
The ringing came from inside her gown.
Everyone looked at her.
Slowly, Vanessa pulled the phone from a hidden pocket.
One name glowed across the screen.
No surname.
Just one word.
ROSE.
My breath stopped.
Aunt Rose had been dead for three months.
Luca stared at the screen.
Then at Vanessa.
“Answer it.”
Vanessa did not move.
The phone kept ringing.
Luca’s voice became very quiet.
“Answer the phone.”
She pressed the button.
Held it to her ear.
For two seconds, silence.
Then her face changed.
A man’s voice came faintly through the speaker.
Too low for me to understand every word.
But I heard enough.
“Tell Luca the journal is gone.”
Vanessa’s hand shook.
Luca took the phone from her.
“Who is this?”
The man laughed.
Then said something that made all the color disappear from Luca’s face.
I heard only the last sentence.
“Ask your mother’s little maid what she found under the floor.”
The line went dead.
Luca slowly turned toward me.
“What did you find under the floor?”
I stared at him.
Because I had not told anyone.
Not Vanessa.
Not Clara.
Not even Luca.
But before I found the photograph, I had found something else.
Beneath a loose floorboard in Rose’s bedroom.
A brass key.
Small.
Old.
With a red thread tied through the top.
It was still hidden inside my shoe.
May you like
And somehow—
the man on the phone knew.
