Chapter 3 - THE SONG HIS MOTHER SANG
Alessandro did not sleep that night.
Sophia remained in the cottage under Doctor Caruso’s care while Emma was moved into a guest room beside Bianca’s quarters. Alessandro ordered two trusted men to guard each entrance, then personally removed Carlo Rinaldi from duty.
He did not confront him.
Not yet.
Rinaldi was told there had been a security breach near the harbor and that Alessandro needed him off the property coordinating a response.
The lie was accepted too quickly.
By midnight, the mansion had become silent again.
But it was no longer the silence Alessandro knew.
This silence carried suspicion.
He sat alone in his study with the contents of Sophia’s hidden room spread across the desk.
Photographs.
Bank transfers.
Old staff records.
A copy of his mother’s death certificate.
Cause of death: gunshot wound.
Location: east garden.
Suspect: unknown intruder.
The official story had always been simple. Emilia Moretti had walked outside after hearing a noise. A masked man entered through the garden wall. She was shot before guards arrived.
Alessandro had been eleven.
He remembered the sound.
He remembered running barefoot through the corridor.
He remembered Carlo Rinaldi—young then, barely twenty-five—catching him before he reached the garden.
Don’t look, little wolf.
That was what Rinaldi had whispered.
Let me remember her face before they cover it.
A knock interrupted him.
Bianca stood in the doorway.
“Emma cannot sleep.”
Alessandro looked toward the clock.
Two fourteen in the morning.
“Why are you telling me?”
“She keeps asking for the shirt.”
“The shirt?”
“The one she washed.”
He almost said no.
Then he remembered her red hands.
“Bring her.”
Minutes later, Emma entered the study wearing an oversized nightgown. She carried Alessandro’s stained shirt folded against her chest.
“I fix tomorrow,” she announced.
“You already fixed it.”
“The brown still there.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She frowned.
“Stains matter. Mama says stains tell where things happen.”
Alessandro leaned back in his chair.
“What else does your mother say?”
Emma climbed onto the leather sofa.
“Mama says don’t tell songs.”
“Songs?”
She nodded.
“The sleeping song.”
“The one you were singing?”
Emma looked toward the door, checking whether anyone else was listening.
Then she hummed three notes.
Alessandro’s skin tightened.
He knew the melody.
His mother used to sing it at night when storms came across the harbor.
“Who taught you?”
“Mama.”
“And who taught your mother?”
“Grandma Lucia.”
Alessandro rose.
Emma stopped humming.
“What are the words?”
“Mama says no words.”
“There were words when I was a boy.”
She considered this.
Then she whispered, “Maybe words hide.”
Alessandro stared at the shirt in her hands.
The coffee stain.
His mother had once tried to scrub out the same kind of stain.
Not this shirt, of course.
Another.
A memory surfaced.
He had been ten years old, sitting at the kitchen table while Emilia laughed over one of his father’s white shirts.
Your father thinks blood is the hardest thing to remove, she had said. But coffee is more stubborn. It leaves a shadow, even after everyone believes it is gone.
At the time, Alessandro thought she was talking about laundry.
Now he was not certain.
He crossed to Emma.
“Where did you find this shirt?”
“In big room.”
“My dressing room?”
She nodded.
“Top drawer?”
“No. Floor under broken wood.”
Alessandro’s heartbeat changed.
There was no broken wood in his dressing room.
He lifted Emma and carried her upstairs.
The master bedroom had once belonged to his parents. He had renovated everything except the wardrobes, which were built into the stone walls.
Emma pointed to the lowest section of the left wardrobe.
“There.”
A decorative panel near the floor had shifted outward by half an inch.
Alessandro knelt and pulled it free.
Behind it was a narrow cavity.
Inside lay an old bundle of linen.
He removed it carefully.
A white shirt.
Yellowed with age.
A brown stain spread across the collar.
The same place where his modern shirt had been stained.
Wrapped inside was a cassette tape and an envelope.
The handwriting on the envelope stopped his breath.
It belonged to his mother.
For my son, when the house finally tells the truth.
Alessandro sat on the floor.
Emma leaned against his shoulder.
“Your mama write that?”
“Yes.”
“Is she sleeping too?”
He looked at the envelope.
“For a very long time.”
Emma touched his sleeve.
“My mama says sleeping people still hear songs.”
He opened the letter.
My dearest Alessandro,
If you are reading this, then I failed to leave in time.
There are men inside this family who believe cruelty is strength. They have convinced your father that fear is the only inheritance worth protecting.
They are wrong.
I found records proving that Vittorio and Carlo have been moving weapons through the children’s charity accounts. Your father confronted Vittorio, but he refused to believe his own brother would betray him.
Tomorrow, Lucia Rossi will take copies of the records away from the house. If anything happens to me, find her.
Do not trust the man who tells you he saved you.
He saved himself.
The letter ended there.
Alessandro read the last line again.
Do not trust the man who tells you he saved you.
Carlo Rinaldi had told that story for twenty-seven years.
He had saved Alessandro from seeing his mother’s body.
He had saved him from the killer.
He had saved the Moretti heir.
Emma tugged at the cassette.
“What that?”
“A recording.”
“Play song?”
The mansion still had an old cassette player in the music room. Alessandro carried the tape downstairs and inserted it.
Static filled the room.
Then his mother’s voice.
Clearer than memory.
“If you hear this, Lucia has the ledger.”
A man spoke in the background.
Emilia, we have no time.
Alessandro recognized his father’s voice.
Another burst of static.
Then Emilia again.
“Vittorio knows. Carlo has changed the guards. They plan to make it look like an attack from the Ferrante family.”
A loud sound followed.
A door closing.
Then Emilia began to sing.
The lullaby.
But this time, there were words.
Beneath the stone where angels sleep,
The wolf will find what shadows keep.
Three iron steps, one silver flame,
A mother’s blood will speak the name.
The tape clicked off.
Emma whispered, “Angel house.”
“What?”
She pointed through the window.
Beyond the garden, barely visible beneath moonlight, stood the family chapel.
Its stone roof was crowned by two carved angels.
Alessandro stared at it.
The chapel had been locked since his mother’s funeral.
“Did your mother ever take you there?”
Emma nodded.
“One time. She cry under floor.”
Alessandro turned toward her.
“What did she find?”
Before Emma could answer, the lights went out.
The entire mansion dropped into darkness.
A second later, glass shattered downstairs.
Alessandro pulled Emma against him.
May you like
Somewhere in the corridor, a man screamed.
Then a gunshot shook the house.
