Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN BEHIND THE STEEL DOOR
“Get that lock off.”
Alessandro Moretti spoke so quietly that both guards moved immediately.
Harper was still holding his hand.
“Is Mommy coming out?”
Alessandro looked at the bright brass padlock.
“I’m going to find out, sweetheart.”
Rafael Ortiz, his head of security, had returned from Sicily with him less than an hour earlier. He examined the newly installed hasp.
“Someone drilled this into the frame recently.”
“How recently?”
“Three or four days.”
Alessandro felt something cold settle inside his chest.
Four days.
Exactly when he had left the country.
Rafael returned with bolt cutters.
Alessandro pulled Harper several feet back.
“Cover your ears.”
The little girl obeyed.
Metal snapped.
The padlock struck the stone floor.
Rafael pulled the heavy cellar door open.
A terrible smell drifted into the corridor.
Stale air.
Damp clothing.
And something Alessandro recognized immediately.
Fear.
“Stay with Harper,” he ordered the second guard.
He entered with Rafael.
The reserve cellar was darker than it should have been. Someone had switched off the overhead lights, leaving only the red emergency indicator glowing above the refrigeration controls.
“Mia?”
Nothing.
He moved between two rows of wooden wine racks.
“Mia Carter!”
A faint scrape came from the far corner.
Then a woman's voice.
“Don't bring her in here.”
Alessandro turned.
Mia was sitting on the floor beside a maintenance sink, her knees drawn against her chest.
Her maid's uniform was dirty.
One sleeve was torn.
There were red marks around her wrists, and her lips were cracked.
But she was alive.
Alessandro dropped beside her.
“Mia.”
Her eyes struggled to focus.
“Harper?”
“She's here. She's safe.”
Mia grabbed his coat.
“Don't let her see me like this.”
That request hurt him more than he expected.
After three days locked underground, Mia's first concern was still her daughter's fear.
He took off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“Can you stand?”
“I tried yesterday.”
Her voice broke.
“I couldn't.”
Rafael found an opened packet of emergency crackers beside the sink.
The maintenance faucet had provided drinking water.
Those two things had kept Mia alive.
But she was shivering badly.
Alessandro lifted her carefully.
Mia suddenly stiffened.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“They wanted something.”
“Who?”
Her eyes moved toward the open doorway.
“Someone came here every night. He kept asking where I'd hidden it.”
“Hidden what?”
Mia swallowed.
“The record.”
Before Alessandro could ask another question, a small voice echoed through the doorway.
“Mommy?”
Harper stood behind the guard.
Her yellow nightgown reached her ankles.
She looked at Mia.
Then at Alessandro carrying her.
For one awful moment, nobody moved.
Mia stretched out her arms.
“Oh, baby.”
Harper ran.
Alessandro lowered Mia into a chair outside the cellar.
The little girl climbed into her mother's lap and wrapped both arms around her neck.
“You didn't kiss me.”
Mia began crying.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just the exhausted tears of a mother who had spent three nights wondering whether she would ever hold her child again.
“I'm sorry, sweetheart.”
“I waited.”
“I know.”
“I knocked.”
Mia closed her eyes.
“I heard you.”
Harper pulled back.
“Why didn't you open?”
“Because I couldn't.”
The little girl considered that explanation.
Then she pressed her forehead against Mia's.
“I'm here now.”
Alessandro turned away.
He had witnessed men beg for their lives without feeling what he felt watching those two embrace.
Rafael approached.
“I've called the estate physician and an ambulance.”
“Good. Secure this corridor. Nobody leaves the property until I know who did this.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alessandro looked down at the broken padlock.
Someone had imprisoned a mother inside his home.
Someone had lied to her daughter.
And someone had believed he could return from Sicily without noticing.
Mia caught his sleeve.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Alessandro.”
She hesitated.
“The man who came last night said you wouldn't believe me.”
“He was wrong.”
“He said your family had spent eleven years making sure nobody believed women like me.”
Alessandro went still.
“Eleven years?”
Mia nodded.
Then Harper reached beneath her nightgown and produced a folded piece of paper.
“I made you this.”
Alessandro accepted it.
The note contained a child's crooked drawing of a staircase, six black dots arranged in two groups of three, and a red shape with one large yellow circle.
Harper pointed to the red shape.
“Mommy's coat.”
Mia's expression changed.
“Where is my coat?”
“By the kitchen.”
Mia gripped Alessandro's wrist.
“Bring it here. Don't let anyone touch it.”
But when Rafael returned with the burgundy coat hanging beside the kitchen entrance, Harper immediately shook her head.
“No.”
Mia stared at the garment.
Harper pointed at its buttons.
“That's not Mommy's.”
Alessandro examined the coat.
It was the correct color.
The correct size.
Almost identical.
May you like
Then Harper whispered something that made Mia begin trembling again.
“Mommy's coat has a broken yellow button. Somebody took her real one.”
