Chapter 3 - THE GIRL IN THE RED DRESS
Emma refused to speak for two days.
Alessandro moved her to a private suite in a secure medical facility under a false name. She had been examined, fed, bathed, and given clothes that fit. Someone from one of his charities—one of the legitimate ones, though few people believed he had such things—brought her crayons, books, and a stuffed rabbit with long white ears.
She ignored all of it.
She sat in the corner of the room with her knees against her chest and watched every door.
On the third morning after I woke up, Alessandro took me there.
The doctor objected.
“You’re still weak,” she said. “You should be resting.”
“I have spent three days resting,” I replied.
Alessandro looked at me.
“You nearly died.”
“And someone used a six-year-old girl to do it.”
He did not argue after that.
Emma was sitting beside the window when we entered. Her hair had been washed and braided. She wore a blue sweater and socks with tiny yellow stars.
But she still looked like the child who had run barefoot through Il Cielo.
She looked up at Alessandro first.
Then at me.
Her face changed.
She stood so quickly that the rabbit fell from her lap.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I crossed the room slowly.
“For what?”
“The cake.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I told him, but you got sick.”
I sat on the floor in front of her despite Alessandro’s sharp glance.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“But I pointed at you.”
“You saw what someone wanted you to see.”
Emma shook her head.
“She had your shoes.”
I looked down.
At the restaurant, I had worn red heels.
“The lady wore red shoes too?” I asked.
“She wore a red dress.” Emma squeezed her hands together. “And shiny red shoes. Like yours.”
Alessandro moved closer.
“What else did you see?”
Emma stared at him, afraid again.
He lowered himself to one knee.
His voice changed when he spoke to her. It became softer. Almost careful.
“No one is angry with you,” he said. “You did the right thing.”
“She gave the cook money,” Emma said. “The cook with the tattoo.”
“Which tattoo?”
“A bird.” She touched the side of her neck. “Right here.”
Marco, standing near the door, immediately wrote it down.
“And the lady?” Alessandro asked.
Emma thought hard.
“She smelled like flowers.”
“What kind of flowers?”
“Not nice ones.” Her small face twisted. “Sharp flowers.”
“Gardenia,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
My pulse quickened.
Gardenia perfume.
There was only one woman I knew who wore it heavily enough to leave it in a room after she was gone.
Bianca Moretti.
Alessandro’s cousin.
His late brother’s widow.
The woman who had hated me from the moment Alessandro placed an engagement ring on my hand.
“She wears gardenia,” I said quietly.
Alessandro’s expression closed immediately.
“Many women wear gardenia.”
“Yes,” I replied. “But Bianca wears L’Interdit Nocturne. The black bottle with gold lettering. I know because she gave me one at Christmas and told me it would make me ‘less forgettable.’”
Marco’s gaze moved to Alessandro.
“Should I bring her in?”
“No,” Alessandro said.
The answer surprised me.
“No?”
“If Bianca is involved, she will have prepared for questions.” He rose slowly. “We don’t warn a snake before lifting the stone.”
Marco left to organize surveillance.
Emma moved closer to me.
“Are you going to die?” she asked.
The bluntness of children had always startled me.
I looked at the IV mark on my hand.
“Not today.”
She nodded as if that was enough.
Then she reached for the stuffed rabbit and held it out to me.
“You can borrow Mr. Buttons,” she said. “He helps when you’re scared.”
My throat tightened.
I accepted the rabbit.
“Thank you.”
Alessandro watched us in silence.
For the first time since the attack, I saw the anger in him clearly.
Not rage.
Rage was loud.
This was something colder.
Someone had poisoned me.
Someone had used a child as bait.
And someone had expected Alessandro to believe I had betrayed him.
That person had not simply declared war on him.
They had made it personal.
Later that afternoon, Marco returned with the restaurant footage.
The public cameras showed a woman in a red dress entering the service corridor at 9:14 p.m. Her face was obscured by the angle, but her posture was unmistakably elegant. She moved like someone who belonged in expensive places.
The kitchen footage showed a sous-chef with a tattoo of a bird on his neck accepting an envelope.
Then the video skipped.
Exactly forty-seven seconds of missing footage.
“Someone deleted it,” Marco said.
“Not someone,” Alessandro replied. “Someone with access.”
The restaurant manager had been arrested for questioning. The sous-chef had vanished. His apartment was empty, his phone destroyed, and his passport missing.
But the private corridor camera was different.
It showed the woman in red leaving the powder-room corridor.
Her face remained hidden.
Until she paused in front of a decorative mirror.
For less than two seconds, her reflection appeared.
Enough to show one detail.
A diamond bracelet.
A distinctive silver scar running along the inside of her left wrist.
I had seen that scar before.
At our engagement dinner.
When Bianca Moretti raised a champagne glass and smiled at me.
“Welcome to the family,” she had said.
But her eyes had promised something else.
Alessandro stared at the frozen frame.
Marco exhaled slowly.
“Bianca.”
Alessandro did not move.
“She planned the funeral,” I said.
His voice was almost a whisper.
“No.”
He looked at the screen.
May you like
“She planned two.”
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