Chapter 2 - THE SONG HIS WIFE TOOK TO HER GRAVE
“What changed?”
The nanny opened her mouth.
Then closed it again.
“I don’t know, Mr. Moretti.”
Alessandro watched her for another second.
The woman was exhausted enough that purple shadows had settled beneath her eyes, but she was not lying.
“Find out.”
“Yes, sir.”
That should have been the end of it.
Instead, the question remained with him all morning.
What changed?
Sophia had cried almost every night since Isabella died.
Not ordinary crying.
Not hunger.
Not discomfort.
It was a terrified, breathless screaming that had begun three weeks after the funeral and gradually turned nighttime inside the Moretti estate into something everyone endured rather than slept through.
Alessandro had spent fortunes looking for answers.
Pediatric neurologists.
Allergy specialists.
Sleep consultants.
A physician from Boston who charged more for one weekend than most Americans earned in a year.
Nothing.
Then suddenly his daughter slept.
Three nights.
No explanation.
Alessandro had survived too long by distrusting unexplained changes.
That afternoon, he ordered the camera.
And at 12:51 the next morning, he discovered the answer.
The recording began with Sophia standing in the crib.
She was crying.
Alessandro leaned closer to the monitor.
The nursery was illuminated only by the moon-shaped wall lights Isabella had selected before Sophia was born.
His chest tightened.
Eleven months, and he still could not look at some of her choices without feeling as though someone had pressed a thumb into an open wound.
The door moved.
Alessandro’s attention sharpened.
A small figure entered.
Bare feet.
Pink pajamas.
Messy curls.
A battered rabbit dragging by one arm.
Mia Carter.
The maid’s daughter.
Alessandro stared in disbelief.
Mia closed the door carefully behind herself.
Then she walked toward the crib.
Sophia reached both hands toward her.
The crying stopped almost immediately.
Alessandro sat back.
“What the hell?”
On the recording, Mia dragged a padded footstool toward the crib.
She climbed onto it.
Then she pushed her stuffed rabbit between the bars.
Sophia hugged it.
Mia rested one hand over Sophia’s fingers.
And began humming.
Alessandro froze.
Every muscle in his body locked.
The notes were quiet.
Slow.
A simple melody.
Five notes rising.
Three falling.
A pause.
Then the pattern repeated.
Alessandro stopped breathing.
“No.”
He leaned closer.
Mia hummed again.
It was Isabella’s song.
Not a recording.
Not a popular lullaby.
Isabella had made it up during the seventh month of her pregnancy.
She used to stand barefoot beside their bedroom windows with one hand on her stomach, humming those exact notes.
When Alessandro asked what song it was, she had smiled.
“Sophia’s.”
“You invented it?”
“Apparently.”
“It needs words.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“How is she supposed to know what it means?”
Isabella had looked at him then.
“Babies know things before words.”
Alessandro had teased her.
He had forgotten the conversation until the first night after Sophia was born, when Isabella held their daughter against her chest and hummed the melody.
Sophia immediately settled.
No one else knew that song.
Not the staff.
Not the nannies.
Not even Alessandro’s family.
Yet Mia Carter was humming it perfectly.
On the recording, Sophia lowered herself onto the mattress.
Mia continued.
Then the three-year-old whispered something the camera could not capture.
Alessandro remembered his own instruction.
No audio.
He swore.
He rewound.
Watched again.
Mia leaned closer to Sophia.
Her lips moved.
Alessandro could not hear her.
But one phrase could almost be read.
Miss Bella.
He stopped the video.
For the first time in nearly a year, Alessandro Moretti felt fear that had nothing to do with enemies, money, weapons, or prison.
He stood.
Twenty minutes later, Elena Carter was awakened by pounding on her bedroom door.
She opened it wearing a long T-shirt, terror immediately filling her face when she saw Alessandro outside.
“Mia?”
He heard the fear in that single word.
“She’s fine.”
Elena exhaled.
Then she noticed his expression.
“What happened?”
“Where is she?”
“Asleep.”
“Check.”
Elena did not argue.
She turned.
Mia was curled beneath a blanket, Mabel trapped beneath her chin.
Elena looked back.
“What is this about?”
Alessandro entered only after she stepped aside.
He stared at the child.
Mia’s curls covered half her face.
He had barely noticed her during the three months she had lived in his home.
That realization disturbed him.
“What song does she sing?”
Elena frowned.
“What?”
“The song.”
“I don’t understand.”
Alessandro took out his phone and played the footage.
Elena watched.
The color drained from her face.
Not gradually.
Instantly.
Alessandro saw it.
That reaction answered more than words could.
“You know that song.”
Elena remained silent.
“Who taught it to her?”
“I should take Mia and leave.”
Alessandro’s expression hardened.
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Elena crossed her arms, as if suddenly cold.
“I didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“That it was her nursery.”
He stared.
“What are you talking about?”
Elena looked toward Mia.
“She was only two. I didn’t think she remembered.”
“Remembered whom?”
Elena’s eyes lifted to his.
“Isabella.”
The name tore through him.
“You knew my wife?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Elena sat on the edge of the bed.
For several seconds, she simply looked defeated.
Then she said, “Your wife saved my life.”
Alessandro said nothing.
“She volunteered at a shelter in Evanston.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She called herself Bella Rossi.”
Isabella’s maiden name had been Rossini.
Her grandmother had called her Bella Rossi when she was young.
Alessandro’s pulse slowed dangerously.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Elena looked down at her hands.
“My husband had broken three of my ribs.”
Alessandro’s eyes sharpened.
Elena continued before he could speak.
“I had Mia. I had no money. Daniel controlled everything. Bank accounts. Car. Phone. He told me if I left, he’d find me.”
Her voice remained steady, but her fingers had begun trembling.
“One night, he came home drunk. Mia was crying. He threw a bottle at the wall beside her crib.”
Alessandro’s jaw tightened.
“I ran.”
“Where?”
“St. Catherine’s Women’s Center.”
He knew the place.
Isabella had donated to it every December.
He had assumed that was all.
“Bella was there.”
Elena gave a sad smile.
“She brought coffee at midnight and sat on a terrible plastic chair beside me until morning.”
Alessandro could see Isabella doing exactly that.
“She never told you who she was?”
“No.”
“Never mentioned me?”
“She said she was married. She said her husband had complicated work.”
Despite everything, Alessandro almost laughed.
Complicated.
That sounded like Isabella.
“She loved Mia,” Elena whispered. “Mia loved her.”
He looked at the sleeping child.
“That song?”
“Bella sang it whenever Mia had nightmares.”
His throat tightened.
“She taught my child my daughter’s lullaby.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I asked her once.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“She said she wanted to practice for someone who was waiting at home.”
Alessandro turned away.
He reached the window before the first crack in his control became visible.
Eleven months.
Eleven months of rage.
Eleven months blaming himself because Isabella had left the estate after an argument and died when her SUV went through a guardrail on Sheridan Road.
And while he had spent those months tearing himself apart, a three-year-old child had been carrying one small living piece of Isabella from room to room.
Behind him, Elena spoke softly.
“There’s something else.”
Alessandro turned.
“What?”
“The last time I saw Isabella, she was afraid.”
Every trace of grief disappeared beneath instinct.
“When?”
“Six days before she died.”
“What did she say?”
“Not much.”
Elena stood.
“She asked whether Daniel knew where Mia and I were living.”
“Why would she care?”
“I thought she was worried about me.”
“And now?”
Elena swallowed.
“Now I think she was worried about herself.”
Alessandro took one step closer.
“Tell me everything.”
Elena glanced at Mia.
Then walked to a small dresser.
She opened the bottom drawer and removed a plastic grocery bag.
Inside was an old baby blanket.
And beneath it, a photograph.
Alessandro recognized Isabella instantly.
She was standing outside St. Catherine’s shelter with Mia in her arms.
Alive.
Smiling.
Elena stood beside her.
On the back, written in Isabella’s handwriting, were seven words.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, MABEL KNOWS WHERE TO LOOK.
Alessandro stared at the message.
“Mabel?”
Elena slowly looked toward the bed.
The battered stuffed rabbit lay beneath Mia’s arm.
One ear missing.
The other badly stitched.
Alessandro crossed the room.
Mia opened her eyes.
She looked at him without fear.
“The tall man.”
Elena quickly knelt.
“Sweetheart, it’s okay.”
Mia sat up.
Alessandro lowered himself until he was at her eye level.
“Mia.”
She hugged Mabel.
“Yes?”
“Did Miss Bella ever put something inside your rabbit?”
Mia became very still.
Elena stared at her.
“Mia?”
The child looked down at Mabel.
Then nodded.
“What?” Alessandro asked.
Mia picked at the crooked stitches across the rabbit’s stomach.
“Her secret.”
Alessandro felt the room change around him.
Elena whispered, “What secret?”
Mia answered with the complete seriousness only a three-year-old could possess.
“The shiny one.”
Elena carefully opened the loose seam.
Her fingers disappeared into the stuffing.
Then stopped.
She pulled out a tiny brass key.
Attached to it was a silver tag.
A number had been engraved into the metal.
314.
Alessandro recognized it immediately.
His blood went cold.
Elena looked at him.
“What is it?”
He stared at the key.
“Room 314.”
“Where?”
Alessandro stood.
His voice changed.
“St. Michael’s Cemetery.”
Elena frowned.
“A cemetery?”
“My family owns a private mausoleum there.”
He closed his hand around the key.
“Isabella designed it before we were married.”
The implication settled between them.
His dead wife had hidden a key with an abused woman and her toddler days before her death.
A key to a room inside the Moretti family mausoleum.
Alessandro looked down at Mia.
The little girl hugged Mabel.
May you like
“Miss Bella said bad people don’t look where everybody cries.”
And for the first time since Isabella’s funeral, Alessandro wondered whether his wife’s death had been an accident at all.
