Chapter 2 - THE LOCKED COTTAGE
“I do good job?”
Emma’s question remained between them, small and fragile.
Alessandro Moretti had faced guns without blinking. He had once sat across from three men who planned to murder him before dessert and finished his meal while they slowly realized he already knew.
But he had no defense against a three-year-old girl holding up his ruined shirt like an offering.
He reached for the fabric.
“You did a very important job,” he said.
Emma’s face brightened.
Then her knees buckled.
Alessandro caught her before she struck the sink.
Her skin was cold. Too cold.
He lifted her against his chest, barely noticing the water soaking through his suit. She weighed almost nothing. Her small arms instinctively circled his neck.
“I’m sleepy,” she whispered.
“You’re freezing.”
“Mama says blankets cost money.”
Something dark moved behind Alessandro’s ribs.
He carried her into the corridor and shouted one name.
“Bianca!”
The chief housekeeper appeared from the pantry, her face losing color the moment she saw him holding Emma.
“Sir, I can explain.”
“Get towels. Hot milk. Call Doctor Caruso.”
Bianca hesitated.
That hesitation told him more than words could.
“Now.”
She hurried away.
Alessandro carried Emma into the sitting room and wrapped her in the wool throw from the back of the sofa. She stared at the expensive furniture with solemn eyes, as if she had entered a church where touching anything might be a sin.
“Stay here.”
“No.” Her hand caught his sleeve. “Mama alone.”
The fear in her voice was immediate.
Alessandro looked toward the garden.
Beyond the tall windows stood the rose beds, the gravel path and the small stone cottage near the eastern wall. From the mansion, it looked peaceful.
Too peaceful.
“Did your mother eat today?”
Emma shook her head.
“Yesterday?”
Another shake.
“Who brings her medicine?”
“Mr. Carlo.”
Alessandro went still.
Carlo Rinaldi was his head of security.
He had worked for the Moretti family for twenty-two years.
“Does a doctor visit her?”
“Mr. Carlo says doctors tell secrets.”
The answer was childish, but the meaning was not.
Alessandro lifted Emma again and crossed the garden.
The cottage door was locked.
He knocked once.
“Sophia.”
No response.
He tried the handle.
Locked from the outside.
A thin brass padlock hung beneath the latch.
Alessandro stared at it for one long second.
Then he kicked the door open.
The frame cracked inward.
The smell hit him first.
Sweat. Damp linen. Old wood.
And something metallic.
Sophia Rossi lay curled beneath a gray blanket on a narrow bed beside the window. She was twenty-eight, though sickness had hollowed her face until she looked older. Her dark hair clung to her temples.
An untouched bowl of soup sat on the table.
Beside it stood a small brown bottle.
Alessandro placed Emma on a chair.
“Stay there.”
He crossed to the bed and touched Sophia’s neck.
A pulse.
Weak, but present.
“Sophia.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
She tried to speak, but only a dry sound emerged.
Alessandro reached for the medicine bottle.
The label read vitamins.
The liquid inside smelled bitter.
He had smelled the same bitterness once before, on the rim of a glass meant for him in Palermo.
Not vitamins.
Poison.
A slow one.
Designed to look like illness.
Designed to weaken before it killed.
Behind him, Emma slipped down from the chair.
“Mama?”
Alessandro turned quickly.
“Don’t touch the bottle.”
The sharpness in his voice frightened her. She froze.
He softened immediately.
“It isn’t your fault.”
Emma walked to the bed and climbed carefully onto the mattress. She pressed her cheek against Sophia’s arm.
“I washed the shirt,” she whispered. “So you don’t have to work.”
Sophia’s eyes opened.
They found Alessandro.
For an instant, terror cleared the fever from her face.
“No,” she breathed.
Alessandro leaned closer.
“Who gave you the medicine?”
Her fingers tightened around the blanket.
“You weren’t supposed to come home.”
“Who gave it to you?”
She looked toward Emma.
Then toward the open door.
“They watch the cottage.”
“I own the cameras.”
“No.” Her voice broke. “You own the walls. They own what you see.”
Footsteps sounded on the gravel path.
Alessandro stood.
Doctor Caruso entered with Bianca behind him, carrying a leather medical case. The doctor’s face tightened when he saw the broken door.
“What happened?”
“Examine her.”
Caruso approached the bed.
Alessandro handed him the bottle.
The doctor removed the cap, smelled it and immediately looked at Alessandro.
“This did not come from my office.”
“What is it?”
“I need a laboratory.”
“What do you think it is?”
Caruso lowered his voice.
“Digitalis, perhaps. Or something similar. Enough to disrupt her heart over time.”
Emma stared at the adults.
Alessandro crouched in front of her.
“Bianca is going to take you inside.”
“No.”
“Emma.”
“No!” She clung to Sophia. “They lock Mama again.”
Bianca began to cry.
Alessandro looked at her.
“What do you know?”
The older woman covered her mouth.
“Mr. Rinaldi said Miss Rossi had a contagious fever. He ordered the staff to stay away from the cottage. He said you approved it.”
“I approved nothing.”
Bianca lowered her eyes.
“I was afraid.”
Alessandro straightened slowly.
Fear.
That was what he had built in this house.
Not loyalty.
Not respect.
Fear.
And someone had used it to poison a woman twenty yards from his bedroom.
Doctor Caruso prepared an injection.
“She needs a hospital.”
“No hospital,” Sophia whispered.
“You may die here,” Alessandro said.
“If I leave, they will take Emma.”
The room fell silent.
Alessandro looked toward the window.
The rose garden appeared empty.
But Sophia was right.
Someone was watching.
He could feel it.
“Doctor,” he said, “stabilize her here. Bring everything you need. Bianca, close the mansion. Nobody leaves.”
He moved toward the fireplace.
A framed photograph stood on the mantel. Sophia and Emma sat beneath an old chestnut tree. Sophia was smiling, but her eyes were turned toward something outside the frame.
Alessandro picked it up.
The frame was heavier than it should have been.
He removed the backing.
A small brass key fell into his palm.
Sophia made a desperate sound.
“Don’t.”
Alessandro looked around the cottage.
There was one interior door.
It stood behind a faded curtain beside the kitchen.
Locked.
He crossed the room.
“Alessandro, please.”
It was the first time Sophia had used his name.
Not Mr. Moretti.
Not sir.
His name.
He inserted the key.
The lock opened.
Behind the door was not a closet.
It was a narrow room with no windows.
Inside stood a wooden desk, a metal box and a wall covered in photographs.
His mother’s face looked back at him from every one.
Young.
Laughing.
Alive.
Alessandro stepped into the room.
There were newspaper clippings about her death. Copies of police records. Maps of the estate. Names of Moretti employees from twenty-seven years ago.
And in the center of the desk lay a photograph he had never seen.
His mother stood outside the cottage, holding the hand of a teenage girl.
On the back, someone had written:
Emilia Moretti and Lucia Rossi. Three days before the murder.
Alessandro turned toward the bed.
“Who was Lucia Rossi?”
Sophia closed her eyes.
“My mother.”
A sound came from outside.
Gravel shifting beneath a shoe.
Alessandro reached inside his jacket.
By the time he reached the cottage door, the garden was empty.
May you like
But on the wet stone path lay a fresh cigarette.
Still burning.
