Chapter 2
I did not answer immediately.
Luca stood in Rose’s kitchen holding Vanessa’s phone.
Matteo had just returned from the garden, breathing hard.
“No sign of him,” he said. “Whoever it was knew the grounds.”
Luca did not look away from me.
“What did you find under the floor?”
My right shoe suddenly felt too tight.
The brass key pressed against the arch of my foot.
I had hidden it there because I did not trust Vanessa.
Now I realized I might not have trusted enough people.
“Anna.”
Luca’s tone softened.
“You’re not in trouble.”
Vanessa gave a bitter laugh.
“She should be.”
Luca turned on her so quickly she stopped.
Then he looked back at me.
I bent slowly.
Pain shot through both knees.
Luca reached down.
“Don’t.”
“I can.”
I slipped off my shoe.
The little brass key fell onto the kitchen tile.
It made a tiny sound.
Almost nothing.
But everyone stared at it.
A red thread had been tied through the oval head.
Luca crouched and picked it up.
“Where exactly?”
“Rose’s bedroom.”
“Under which floorboard?”
“Near the window.”
Vanessa stepped closer.
“I’ve never seen that before.”
Matteo frowned.
“Nobody asked you.”
She glared at him.
Luca turned the key in his fingers.
One side was stamped with a number.
314.
The other side had two letters.
S.M.
Luca’s expression shifted.
“What?”
I asked.
He stared at the letters.
“San Michele.”
Matteo went still.
Vanessa looked down.
I noticed.
Luca noticed too.
“What is San Michele?”
I asked.
Luca stood.
“A private bank.”
“Here in New York?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“Zurich.”
My pulse sped up.
Matteo folded his arms.
“The Moretti family used San Michele Private Bank before the nineties.”
“Used to,” Luca said.
“My grandfather closed every account after a tax investigation.”
Vanessa murmured, “That was decades ago.”
Luca looked at her.
“You know the bank?”
“I’ve heard you talk about it.”
“I have never spoken to you about San Michele.”
Her eyes flickered.
Another mistake.
They were piling up now.
One after another.
Luca set the key on the counter.
“Matteo. Call security. Full property search.”
“Already texted them.”
“No one leaves.”
Vanessa snapped, “You can’t imprison me.”
Luca’s gaze settled on her.
“The gates are locked because someone broke into my dead aunt’s cottage while we were inside the estate.”
“You think I arranged it.”
“I think your phone received a call from a dead woman.”
She pressed her lips together.
Matteo reached for the phone.
“Can I check the number?”
Vanessa grabbed it first.
“No.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Give him the phone.”
“It’s private.”
“You had it hidden after I specifically told you not to bring it.”
“I forgot.”
“No, you didn’t.”
She clutched it tighter.
Then the phone buzzed.
A text appeared on the screen.
Vanessa glanced down.
Her face went white.
Luca saw.
“What does it say?”
“Nothing.”
“Show me.”
“No.”
He held out his hand.
For a long moment, neither moved.
Then Vanessa slowly handed it over.
Luca read the message.
His face changed.
“What?”
Matteo asked.
Luca did not answer.
He turned the screen toward us.
One sentence.
SHE HAS ISABELLA’S KEY. FIX IT BEFORE MIDNIGHT.
My stomach turned.
“She.”
Matteo looked at me.
“Anna.”
Luca’s eyes became cold.
“Someone knew she found it before we did.”
I wrapped his jacket tighter around myself.
The cottage suddenly felt much colder.
“How?”
Nobody answered.
Then I remembered.
The upstairs bedroom.
The loose floorboard.
The moment I pulled the key free.
There had been a tiny red light on the bookshelf.
I had thought it belonged to an old smoke detector.
My mouth went dry.
“There’s a camera.”
Luca looked at me.
“Where?”
“Rose’s bedroom.”
We moved quickly.
I limped behind them.
Vanessa followed.
Upstairs, the bedroom smelled faintly of lavender and dust.
Rose’s bed was still made.
Her old quilt folded neatly at the foot.
Luca switched on the lamp.
I pointed toward the bookcase.
“There.”
Matteo climbed onto a chair.
He pulled down a small black device no bigger than a button.
Wireless camera.
Luca stared at it.
“Not old.”
“No,” Matteo said. “This is recent.”
Vanessa backed toward the hallway.
Luca heard the floorboard.
“Where are you going?”
“To breathe.”
“Stay.”
“You don’t get to order me around.”
“Tonight I do.”
Her face twisted.
“You really want to know the truth?”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“Yes.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I haven’t liked anything you’ve said for the last hour.”
Vanessa laughed once.
It sounded close to breaking.
“Your mother wasn’t protecting you from me.”
Luca froze.
“She was protecting me from you.”
The room went silent.
Matteo stepped off the chair.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Vanessa’s eyes were on Luca.
“Ask why Isabella kept a bank key under Rose’s floor.”
Luca said nothing.
“Ask why your mother paid Rose two hundred thousand dollars every year.”
His brow furrowed.
“That’s a lie.”
“No.”
Vanessa’s voice steadied.
“She called it household support. Rose didn’t need household support. The cottage belongs to your family. Her medical bills were covered.”
Luca looked at Matteo.
His cousin looked equally confused.
Vanessa continued.
“Ask why Rose never lived anywhere else after Luca’s father died.”
I felt as though I had stepped into a conversation that began years before I was born.
Luca’s father, Giovanni Moretti, had died in a boating accident when Luca was nineteen.
Everyone on the estate knew that much.
Vanessa looked at me.
“And ask Anna why Rose hired her.”
My heart stopped.
Luca turned.
“What?”
I stared at Vanessa.
“I answered an agency listing.”
She smiled.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“The agency sent six candidates. Rose rejected all of them.”
I shook my head.
“I never met Rose before I came here.”
“Not knowingly.”
Luca’s voice cut through the room.
“Vanessa.”
But she kept looking at me.
“What was your mother’s name, Anna?”
My throat tightened.
“Claire.”
“Claire what?”
I did not like the way she asked it.
“Claire Bennett.”
Luca’s eyes moved toward me.
Matteo looked at the floor.
Vanessa smiled.
There was no warmth in it.
“Bennett was her married name.”
I stared.
“What are you talking about?”
“Her maiden name was Bellini.”
Mrs. Bellini.
The elderly woman at dinner.
The guest who had stared at me three times.
The woman who had dropped her fork when Luca said Aunt Rose’s name.
My mind went blank.
“No.”
Vanessa nodded.
“Your mother was Claire Bellini.”
I could barely hear my own voice.
“How do you know?”
“Because I knew her.”
Everything inside me stopped.
My mother had died when I was twelve.
I remembered her as soft hands.
Cheap vanilla lotion.
Sunday pancakes.
A woman who sang while folding laundry.
She had never mentioned Moretti.
She had never mentioned Rose.
She had never mentioned Vanessa.
“You’re lying.”
“For once,” Vanessa said, “I’m not.”
Luca stepped between us.
“That’s enough.”
“No.”
I surprised myself.
My voice came out stronger.
“No. I want to hear it.”
Luca looked at me.
I could see the warning in his expression.
Not control.
Concern.
I nodded.
“Please.”
He moved aside.
Vanessa watched me carefully.
“Your mother worked for Isabella.”
I shook my head.
“She was a dental receptionist.”
“After.”
“After what?”
“After she left this house.”
I felt the room tilt.
“When?”
“About twenty years ago.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It isn’t.”
“What did she do here?”
Vanessa’s eyes slid toward Luca.
“She kept records.”
“Of what?”
“Everything Giovanni Moretti didn’t want recorded.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“What records?”
Vanessa shrugged.
“Payments. Meetings. Shipments. Political donations. Cash accounts.”
Matteo swore quietly.
Luca looked like a man hearing the floor break beneath his feet.
“My father ran a legitimate construction company.”
Vanessa smiled sadly.
“Mostly.”
Luca stepped closer.
“You’re making accusations against a dead man.”
“So did Isabella.”
That stopped him.
Vanessa pointed toward the key in Luca’s hand.
“Why do you think the account was in Switzerland?”
Luca said nothing.
“Your mother and Rose spent years trying to clean up what Giovanni left behind.”
“What does Anna’s mother have to do with it?”
Vanessa looked at me.
“Claire made a copy.”
“Of the journal?”
“Of everything.”
My pulse hammered.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect nothing from you.”
Luca’s voice sharpened.
“Then why did my mother warn Rose about you?”
Vanessa’s face changed again.
For the first time, genuine hurt crossed it.
“Because Isabella thought I betrayed Claire.”
I stared at her.
“Did you?”
Vanessa did not answer.
That was answer enough.
My chest tightened.
“What happened to my mother?”
Vanessa’s eyes dropped.
“Anna.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I know she was frightened. I know she left. I know she changed her name.”
“She died in a car accident.”
Vanessa looked up.
The expression on her face made my blood run cold.
“What?”
I whispered.
She looked at Luca.
Then back at me.
“Your mother did not die in a car accident.”
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
“She survived.”
I shook my head harder.
“No. I went to her funeral.”
“You went to a closed-casket funeral.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Luca caught my elbow.
I barely felt him.
“Vanessa, stop,” he said.
But I could not.
“What are you saying?”
Vanessa’s voice became quiet.
“I’m saying Claire Bellini disappeared.”
“No.”
“The accident happened.”
“No.”
“But she wasn’t in the car when it burned.”
I stared.
The bedroom blurred around me.
Rose’s quilt.
The old lamp.
The dusty window.
All of it.
My mother’s funeral had been rainy.
I remembered standing beside my father.
I remembered being twelve and too numb to cry.
I remembered a closed white coffin.
Because the crash had been bad.
That was what they told me.
“Who told you this?”
“My father.”
Vanessa’s mouth tightened.
“He was the attorney who arranged Claire’s new identity.”
Luca turned sharply.
“Your father was Arthur Vale?”
Vanessa’s eyes snapped toward him.
Matteo whispered, “Jesus.”
I looked between them.
“Who is Arthur Vale?”
Luca answered.
“My father’s attorney.”
Vanessa corrected him.
“Your father’s fixer.”
The silence after that felt alive.
Then a floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Matteo turned.
“Security?”
No answer.
Luca moved toward the door.
The lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
I heard Vanessa gasp.
Then a crash.
Luca shouted my name.
A hand grabbed my arm.
Not Luca’s.
Too rough.
I screamed.
The person pulled me toward the hallway.
I kicked backward.
My injured knee buckled.
I hit the wall.
Someone cursed.
Then Matteo tackled the shadow.
A flashlight rolled across the floor.
For one bright second, the beam crossed a man’s face.
Gray hair.
Scar near his mouth.
Older.
Terrified.
Vanessa screamed.
“Dad?”
The man shoved Matteo away.
Ran down the stairs.
Luca followed.
I stood frozen.
Vanessa grabbed the doorframe.
Her face was colorless.
“Arthur?”
Downstairs, the back door slammed.
Security voices erupted outside.
Then one gunshot cracked through the night.
I flinched.
Luca shouted.
Nobody moved.
Seconds later, Matteo came back upstairs.
He was breathing hard.
“Luca’s okay.”
I almost collapsed with relief.
“What happened?”
“Security fired into the ground. Vale got over the south wall.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“My father is dead.”
Matteo wiped blood from his lip.
“Apparently not.”
Luca returned.
His tie had come loose.
His expression was terrifyingly calm.
In one hand, he held something black.
A leather wallet.
He opened it.
Inside was an identification card.
Arthur Vale.
Vanessa’s supposedly dead father.
And behind the ID was a photograph.
A recent photograph.
A woman leaving a grocery store.
Silver beginning to show in her brown hair.
Older than I remembered.
But unmistakable.
My mother.
Claire.
Alive.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written an address.
Savannah, Georgia.
May you like
And beneath it, four words.
ANNA MUST NEVER KNOW.
