Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE FIRST SUV
“Boss... Renata just opened the east gate.”
I looked at the surveillance monitor.
Three black SUVs were already coming up my driveway.
For half a second, nobody in my study moved.
Then fifteen years of survival took over.
“Lock the interior gates,” I ordered.
My security chief, Dominic Russo, touched his earpiece.
“West entrance sealed. Kitchen access sealed. Garage sealed.”
“The woman and her daughter?”
“In the blue sitting room.”
“Move them upstairs. My mother’s room.”
Dominic stared at me.
That room had remained locked since the night my family died.
Nobody entered it.
Nobody cleaned it.
Nobody even mentioned it.
“Boss?”
“You heard me.”
Dominic nodded and disappeared.
I looked again at the monitor.
The first SUV stopped beneath the marble portico.
The rear door opened.
And Emilio Santoro stepped out.
My godfather.
My father’s oldest friend.
The man who had stood beside my hospital bed fifteen years earlier and told me I was the only Duca left alive.
The man who had taught me how to survive after everyone I loved was buried.
He wore a charcoal overcoat and the expression of an offended patriarch arriving to correct someone else’s mistake.
Six men exited the other vehicles.
That bothered me.
Emilio never brought six men to dinner.
He entered my mansion without waiting to be invited.
“Lorenzo.”
That name again.
Tonight everyone seemed determined to resurrect the boy I had buried.
I remained at the foot of the staircase.
“Why are you here?”
Emilio spread his hands.
“Renata called me. She said there was trouble.”
“Renata works for me.”
“She panicked.”
“Why would my housekeeper call you when my security chief is ten feet away?”
A tiny pause.
Then Emilio smiled.
“You sound suspicious.”
“I am.”
His gaze drifted toward the stairs.
“Where is the maid?”
The question landed wrong.
Not What happened?
Not Is everyone safe?
Where is the maid?
My Doberman, Nero, stood beside my leg.
He did not bark.
Nero rarely barked.
He simply stared at Emilio with his ears forward.
I trusted that dog’s instincts more than most men’s promises.
“Why do you care?” I asked.
Emilio sighed.
“Renata told me the woman stole from you.”
“She didn’t.”
“You established that quickly.”
“A child saw Renata plant the clock.”
Emilio’s face barely moved.
Barely.
But fifteen years had taught me to notice what happened between heartbeats.
His eyes hardened.
“Children misunderstand things.”
“That seems to be everyone’s favorite excuse tonight.”
Behind me, Dominic returned.
He leaned close.
“Renata’s gone.”
My eyes remained on Emilio.
“Gone where?”
“Service corridor camera went dark thirty seconds before the gate opened.”
Emilio gave an irritated laugh.
“Lorenzo, you are turning household drama into a conspiracy.”
“Then help me understand it.”
“I’d be delighted.”
“Tell your men to leave.”
Silence.
Emilio’s smile disappeared.
“They’re here for your protection.”
“I have protection.”
“That woman upstairs may be dangerous.”
There it was.
I stepped closer.
“How would you know?”
Emilio’s jaw tightened.
“Because I know what frightened people are capable of.”
A voice came from the upper landing.
“So do I.”
Everyone looked up.
The maid stood there.
Her little girl was behind Dominic’s second-in-command, wrapped in a blanket.
The woman had removed her maid’s apron.
Without it, something about her changed.
She no longer looked like a servant caught in trouble.
She looked like someone who had spent fifteen years waiting for the moment she could stop hiding.
Emilio stared at her.
His face drained.
“Impossible.”
She gripped the black-and-gold pendant.
“You said that the last time you saw me.”
My blood turned to ice.
Emilio took one step backward.
I looked between them.
“You know each other.”
The woman descended slowly.
“My name isn’t Elena Voss.”
That was the name on her employment records.
The name printed on her tax documents.
The name used to enroll her daughter in school.
She reached the bottom step.
“My name is Sofia Bellini.”
I knew the name.
Everyone raised inside the old Duca estate knew it.
Carlo Bellini had been my father’s estate manager.
His daughter Sofia had been seventeen when the massacre happened.
Official records said both died that night.
I stared at her.
“You were there.”
Her eyes met mine.
“I found you behind the wine cellar wall.”
The room disappeared.
I smelled smoke.
Heard glass breaking.
Felt blood on my shirt that had not belonged to me.
I remembered a girl dragging me through darkness while men shouted upstairs.
A girl pressing her hand over my mouth when I started calling for my mother.
A girl giving me a black-and-gold pendant and whispering, If we get separated, remember someone knows the truth.
“You,” I whispered.
Her eyes filled.
“I got you to the river tunnel.”
I remembered.
God help me, I remembered everything now.
“Then you disappeared.”
“I had to.”
“Why?”
She looked at Emilio.
“Because he saw me.”
Every guard in the hall shifted.
Emilio’s face became stone.
“This woman is insane.”
Sofia laughed bitterly.
“You told your men to find the Bellini girl before sunrise.”
“Enough.”
“I heard you talking to Renata in the pantry three weeks ago.”
Renata.
Not a recent accomplice.
Someone connected to the past.
My chest tightened.
Sofia continued.
“That’s why she framed me. She recognized the pendant. She knew exactly who I was.”
Emilio turned toward me.
“You are going to believe a maid over the man who raised you?”
The words hit harder than he intended.
Because in some ways, Emilio had raised me.
When I woke from nightmares, he sat outside my hospital room.
When I buried my father, he held my shoulder.
When I inherited an empire at nineteen, he taught me which men to trust.
Now Sofia was telling me the man who taught me trust might have been responsible for destroying the reason I needed him.
“Did you order the attack on my family?” I asked.
Emilio looked genuinely wounded.
“I loved your father.”
“Answer me.”
“No.”
Sofia whispered, “Ask him about September seventeenth.”
Emilio’s head snapped toward her.
That reaction was enough.
“What happened September seventeenth?” I asked.
Sofia’s voice trembled.
“Three days before the massacre, your father discovered money being moved through companies he didn’t own.”
Emilio said, “Lies.”
“He confronted someone.”
“Lies!”
“He recorded the conversation.”
Emilio’s face changed.
I saw it.
Pure fear.
“Where?” I demanded.
Sofia looked toward the jeweled clock now sitting on a side table beneath a guard’s supervision.
“That clock was never just decoration.”
My eyes narrowed.
She walked toward it.
“The night your father realized he might die, he gave my father instructions. If anything happened, we were supposed to take the clock to the authorities.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because the clock disappeared during the massacre.”
Everyone looked at it.
The object Renata had supposedly found inside Sofia’s locker.
Sofia touched the base.
“There’s something hidden inside.”
Emilio moved suddenly.
Nero exploded forward with a thunderous bark.
Two guards blocked Emilio before he reached the table.
“Don’t,” I warned.
Emilio stared at me.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Actually, I’m beginning to.”
Sofia turned the clock upside down.
Along the brass base were three tiny black circles.
She removed her pendant.
Pressed its pointed edge against the center circle.
Click.
A concealed panel opened.
Inside was a small brass key.
And a strip of paper darkened with age.
I unfolded it.
There were six words written in my father’s handwriting.
THE MAN BESIDE ME KILLED US.
Below the sentence was a name.
Emilio Santoro.
I looked up.
But Emilio was already moving.
One of the hall lights shattered.
Someone screamed.
The mansion plunged into darkness.
Gunfire erupted outside the locked east entrance.
Then Dominic shouted from somewhere near the staircase.
“Boss! Sofia’s daughter!”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
May you like
“The girl is gone!”
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