Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO PROTECT THEM
“Secondary target?”
Elena's voice broke.
“What does that mean?”
Dante closed the laptop before Sophie could see the screen.
“It means we change how this house operates. Starting now.”
Elena stepped between him and her daughter.
“No. Tell me what it means.”
Dante looked directly at her.
“Someone has included Sophie in their plans.”
For one terrible moment, Elena could not breathe.
She had brought her little girl into this mansion believing its locked gates meant safety.
Now those gates felt like the walls of a trap.
Sophie tugged her sleeve.
“Mommy, are we going home?”
Elena knelt and wrapped both arms around her.
“Not tonight, sweetheart.”
Dante turned to Luca.
“Disconnect the observation system physically. Save whatever you can.”
“Remote access might have triggered a separate shutdown.”
“Then preserve the record of the shutdown too.”
Luca hurried away.
Dante faced Elena.
“Marcus recommended you for this position. Did you know him before Thomas died?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“He came to our apartment after the funeral. He said Thomas had been a valued employee.”
“What else?”
Elena hesitated.
“He offered to pay for Sophie's schooling.”
Dante's eyes narrowed.
“Did you accept?”
“No. Thomas hated owing people favors.”
“Then why work here?”
“Because Marcus found me again six weeks ago. I was behind on rent. My cleaning agency had cut my hours. He said you needed someone who understood discretion.”
Elena swallowed.
“He knew exactly how desperate I was.”
Dante's expression hardened.
Marcus hadn't simply hired a dependable housekeeper.
He had positioned Thomas Hartley's widow and daughter inside a heavily monitored estate.
Where he could watch them.
Where he could search their belongings.
And where they might eventually lead him to Thomas's hidden evidence.
By noon, Luca had recovered fragments from the observation room.
The wipe command had come through a control account registered to a private security company connected to Isabella Rossi.
But something else disturbed him.
The surveillance equipment had been installed before Isabella gave Dante the mirror.
“What?” Dante asked.
Luca spread the installation photographs across his desk.
“Look at these mounting brackets. The service wall was modified eight months ago.”
Dante stared.
“Isabella entered my life six weeks ago.”
“Exactly.”
“So the mirror was never the beginning.”
“It was the finishing piece.”
Luca placed another document beside the photographs.
A work authorization dated eight months earlier.
Approved by Marcus Bellini.
But the signature beneath the authorization belonged to someone Dante knew.
Someone who had been dead for seven years.
ANTONIO MORETTI.
Dante studied the signature.
For a second, childhood memories flooded back.
His father correcting his posture at formal dinners.
His father teaching him to recognize a false handshake.
His father telling him that loyalty meant nothing when purchased with fear.
Marcus had been there for all of it.
And now his father's name appeared on a document written years after his death.
“Forgery,” Dante said.
“Probably,” Luca answered. “But whoever submitted it had access to archived company authorization forms.”
Dante picked up the photograph of Antonio and Thomas.
“Someone has been using my father's name like a master key.”
That afternoon, Isabella Rossi arrived carrying a white bakery box.
She looked elegant in a cream coat, her dark hair pinned neatly above a pearl necklace.
Dante met her in the drawing room.
The silver mirror still hung above the fireplace.
“Darling,” Isabella said, kissing his cheek. “You look exhausted.”
“Long night.”
She opened the box.
“Pistachio pastries. Your favorite.”
Dante smiled politely.
“You remembered.”
“I remember everything about you.”
Across the room, Elena entered to collect empty glasses.
Isabella glanced at her.
Then at the hallway.
“Where is the little girl?”
Elena's hands tightened around the tray.
“Resting, ma'am.”
“Such a sweet child.”
Isabella reached into her handbag.
“I brought her something.”
She withdrew a small gold bracelet with a tiny heart charm.
Elena went pale.
Dante noticed.
“That's generous,” he said.
Isabella smiled.
“Children should have beautiful things.”
“Especially children whose fathers are gone?”
The smile faded.
“Excuse me?”
Dante took the bracelet.
“Nothing. Just thinking aloud.”
Isabella recovered quickly.
“Perhaps you've been working too hard.”
When she left an hour later, Dante handed the bracelet to Luca.
“Have it examined.”
Luca returned before dinner.
The charm contained a tiny location transmitter.
Elena sat down heavily.
“She wanted to track Sophie.”
“Or whoever was with her,” Luca said.
Dante looked at the bracelet.
His first instinct had been to assume Isabella was simply playing her assigned role.
But the bracelet wasn't expensive jewelry modified afterward.
It had been manufactured with the tracking component already inside.
Someone had ordered it for this purpose.
Then Luca showed him a receipt recovered from the security company's encrypted account.
The bracelet had been purchased nine months earlier.
Three months before Isabella supposedly met Dante.
And the order had been placed under a name Elena recognized immediately.
THOMAS HARTLEY.
Elena stared at the receipt.
“That isn't possible.”
Dante looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because Thomas told me that name was no longer safe to use.”
The room went silent.
Dante stepped closer.
“Elena. What haven't you told me?”
She looked toward Sophie's bedroom.
Then she whispered:
“Before Thomas died, he made me promise something.”
May you like
“What?”
“That if a man named Antonio Moretti ever came looking for Sophie, I was never to let him take her.”
