Chapter 2
The doctor wanted to cut my stocking away.
I refused until we were behind a locked door.
He looked at me like I was being ridiculous.
Luca did not.
He dismissed him.
“Five minutes,” Luca said.
The doctor packed his bag and left the library without argument.
I was sitting on a leather sofa with my injured leg stretched in front of me.
Luca stood by the fireplace.
Marco guarded the door from the inside.
Outside, I could hear movement through the mansion.
Doors opening.
Footsteps.
Men calling room numbers to one another.
Thirty engagement guests remained trapped downstairs with Vanessa Bellini.
And I was about to give Luca Moretti the second secret his supposedly dead aunt had trusted to a maid she’d known for three weeks.
I reached for the hem of my dress.
Luca looked away.
That surprised me.
“I need scissors,” I said.
Marco handed me a small folding knife instead.
I stared at it.
He shrugged.
“Moretti household.”
Despite everything, a laugh almost escaped me.
I cut through three stitches.
My fingers found metal.
The brass key dropped into my palm.
Luca turned back.
His eyes fixed on the number.
“Seventeen.”
“Yes.”
“Seventeen what?”
“She didn’t say.”
“She gave you no explanation?”
“She said, ‘If Luca reads the letter, give him this only when Vanessa can’t reach it.’”
Marco muttered something under his breath.
Luca held out his hand.
I gave him the key.
He studied it under the lamp.
Old brass.
Square head.
The number 17 engraved on both sides.
He looked at Marco.
“Recognize it?”
“No.”
“Safe-deposit box?”
“Could be.”
“Locker?”
“Could be.”
I said, “Sofia talked about a train station once.”
Both men looked at me.
“When?” Luca asked.
“Last week. She was confused that day. Or I thought she was.”
“What exactly did she say?”
I closed my eyes, trying to remember.
She had been standing at the east-wing window, watching rain turn the garden black.
“She said, ‘The old station still has blue lockers, doesn’t it?’ I told her I didn’t know. She said, ‘Seventeen was always lucky for your father.’”
Luca’s face changed.
“Union Station.”
Marco frowned. “The old private terminal?”
Luca nodded.
“My father kept storage there when the family freight business still used rail.”
“Is it active?” I asked.
“Half of it is. Half is preserved because the city thinks old brick is history.”
Marco took out his phone, then remembered the house lockdown and glanced at Luca.
Luca waved him on.
“Call Nico. Tell him to check locker seventeen quietly.”
Marco dialed.
I watched Luca stare into the fire.
“You believe me now?” I asked.
He turned.
“I believed you before the key.”
“Why?”
“Because Vanessa lied badly.”
“That’s not the same as believing me.”
“No.”
He crossed his arms.
“But you walked into a room full of people on a cut leg and destroyed a piano to retrieve a letter you could have sold, hidden, or thrown away.”
“I wasn’t thinking about selling it.”
“That’s my point.”
The door opened without a knock.
Daniel Moretti entered.
Luca’s younger cousin was tall, lean, and usually smiling.
Tonight he wasn’t.
“We found the room.”
I sat forward.
“Is she there?”
Daniel looked at me, then Luca.
“No.”
My stomach dropped.
“What was inside?” Luca asked.
“Bed. Medical equipment. Restraint straps in a drawer. Food tray. Clothing.”
Luca went still.
Daniel continued.
“And a blood-pressure monitor with yesterday’s timestamp.”
The fire popped.
Nobody moved.
“So she was alive,” Luca said.
“Yesterday, yes.”
“What else?”
“Room had been cleaned fast. Too fast. There’s bleach in the bathroom. The back service stair door was unlocked.”
I stood.
My leg protested immediately.
“Where does that staircase go?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Old greenhouse corridor.”
I knew it.
The greenhouse sat behind the east garden, mostly unused since Luca’s mother died.
Vanessa had forbidden staff from entering because she claimed the floor was unsafe.
“Search it,” I said.
Daniel’s eyebrows lifted.
Luca didn’t object.
I kept going.
“Vanessa stores things there. I’ve seen boxes delivered at night.”
“Who delivered them?” Luca asked.
“A white van. No company name.”
“How many times?”
“Twice since I started.”
Daniel swore softly.
Luca pointed at the door.
“Go.”
Daniel left.
Marco was still on the phone.
He ended the call.
“Nico’s twenty minutes from the station.”
“Tell him not to open anything if there are people watching.”
“He knows.”
The library door opened again.
This time, Vanessa walked in.
No one had invited her.
Her midnight-blue dress looked almost black under the library lights.
Two security men hovered behind her.
“They tried to stop me,” she said.
Luca looked past her.
“You two are fired.”
Both men paled.
Vanessa laughed.
“Oh, don’t be childish.”
Luca’s eyes returned to her.
“You were told to stay downstairs.”
“And you were told twenty-two years ago that your aunt died.”
The sentence landed hard.
Marco shifted his weight.
Luca didn’t.
Vanessa closed the door behind her.
“Maybe you should ask why.”
“I’m asking you.”
“No. You’re accusing me.”
“Because you lied.”
“I lied because the truth would destroy what’s left of your family.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Try me.”
Vanessa glanced at me.
“Not with her here.”
“She stays.”
“Of course she does.”
Something ugly entered Vanessa’s voice.
“She’s been here three weeks and suddenly she’s inside your private library while your future wife is treated like a prisoner.”
I stood straighter.
Luca’s face hardened.
“This has nothing to do with jealousy.”
“Everything has to do with loyalty.”
Vanessa’s eyes flashed.
“You think Sofia was locked away because I’m cruel? Ask who paid for that room before I ever entered this house.”
Luca went very still.
“What?”
Vanessa reached into the neckline of her dress.
Marco’s hand moved toward his jacket.
She smiled at him.
“Relax.”
She pulled out a folded photograph.
Old.
Creased.
She handed it to Luca.
I watched his face as he opened it.
“What is it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
So I moved closer.
The photo showed the east-wing bedroom.
The wallpaper was different, but the window was the same.
Sofia sat in a chair.
Younger.
Much younger.
Standing beside her was a man I recognized from portraits around the house.
Luca’s father.
Antonio Moretti.
On the back, someone had written a date.
2008.
Eighteen years ago.
Four years after Sofia was supposedly dead.
Luca’s thumb covered part of the writing.
He moved it.
Beneath the date were three words.
KEEP HER HIDDEN.
Signed with initials.
A.M.
Luca stared at it.
Vanessa’s voice softened.
“Your father knew.”
“No.”
“He knew she was alive.”
“Where did you get this?”
“From him.”
Luca looked up so fast I stepped back.
“That’s impossible.”
Vanessa’s chin lifted.
“He gave it to my father. My father kept records.”
“Your father worked for mine?”
“You know he did.”
“I knew he handled legal work.”
“He handled problems.”
Luca stared at the photograph again.
The anger in him shifted.
Not gone.
Redirected.
“What problem was Sofia?”
Vanessa looked almost sad.
“She knew what happened the night your mother died.”
The room became silent.
Luca’s mother had died when he was thirteen.
Car accident.
Everyone knew that.
At least I thought everyone did.
Luca’s face emptied.
“My mother died in a car crash.”
Vanessa said nothing.
“Say it.”
Her voice lowered.
“Your mother died in a car.”
“That’s not the same sentence.”
Vanessa inhaled.
“No. It isn’t.”
Marco took one step forward.
“Boss, maybe we should—”
Luca raised a hand.
His eyes never left Vanessa.
“What happened to my mother?”
Vanessa looked at me again.
For once, there was no hatred in her face.
Only calculation.
She was deciding how much truth to spend.
Finally she said, “Sofia saw who was driving.”
Luca’s voice was almost a whisper.
“The police report says my mother was driving.”
“I know.”
“Was she?”
Vanessa opened her mouth.
A gunshot exploded somewhere outside.
The library windows shook.
I flinched.
Marco drew his weapon.
Luca moved in front of me without thinking.
A second shot followed.
Then shouting.
Daniel’s voice came through the hallway.
“Greenhouse!”
Luca was already moving.
We followed.
I should have stayed behind.
I didn’t.
By the time we reached the east corridor, smoke was pushing through the glass doors.
The old greenhouse was burning.
Flames climbed the wooden framing.
Men ran toward the side entrance.
Daniel stood near a shattered window, blood on his sleeve.
“Someone was inside,” he shouted. “They fired and ran through the orchard.”
Luca grabbed his shoulder.
“You hit?”
“Grazed.”
I stared through the smoke.
Something moved behind the flames.
A shape.
No.
A person.
I stepped forward.
“Sofia!”
Luca turned.
“What?”
I pointed.
Behind the glass, barely visible through smoke, a pale hand struck the window once.
Then again.
And around the wrist—
A silver bracelet I had seen yesterday.
Sofia was still alive.
She was inside the burning greenhouse.
For a moment after the final shot, nobody moved.
The greenhouse fire threw our shadows across the lawn.
Vanessa looked from Daniel to me and then toward the ambulance road.
“Whatever happens next,” she said quietly, “understand this: Dominic will not stop because Sofia survived.”
May you like
I believed her.
That frightened me more than the flames.
