Chapter 4 - The Room Nobody Was Supposed to Open|
Dante didn't touch Nico immediately.
He stayed on his knees, looking at his son as if he were seeing him for the first time in years.
"Who put you in there?" he asked.
Nico looked at me.
I squeezed his hand.
"You can tell him, sweetheart."
His answer came in a whisper.
"Miss Valentina."
Dante closed his eyes.
"How often?"
Nico began counting on his fingers.
"Sometimes when I cry."
He lifted another finger.
"Sometimes when I ask about Mommy."
Another finger.
"And when I spill things."
His little face tightened.
"Mostly when I make people mad."
Dante's breathing changed.
I recognized that sound.
It was rage being forced through a narrow doorway.
He stood slowly and looked toward Gabriel Ortiz, his head of security, who had followed us upstairs.
"Remove the lock from this door."
"Yes, sir."
"Preserve the camera and all recordings."
"Understood."
"And Valentina Russo is not to be left alone with Nico."
Gabriel nodded.
I interrupted.
"She shouldn't have access to him at all until an independent investigation is completed."
Dante looked at me.
For one terrifying second, I thought he might argue.
Instead, he said, "Make that happen."
Gabriel left immediately.
Nico stood very still.
"Am I in trouble?"
Dante's expression broke.
"No, son."
"Is Miss Valentina?"
"Adults are responsible for their own choices."
Nico considered that.
"Even if they say it's because I'm bad?"
Dante swallowed.
"Especially then."
I had never seen a man look so powerful and so helpless at the same time.
That afternoon, Dante canceled every meeting on his calendar.
By sunset, a locksmith had removed the blue room's lock, an independent child psychologist had been contacted, and the family's attorney had begun reviewing Valentina's employment records.
I also asked my lawyer, Mara Chen, to examine the arrangement that had brought me into the household.
She arrived carrying a tablet and the expression of a woman who disliked surprises.
"You were promised written protections," Mara reminded me.
"I know."
"And you haven't signed the final marriage documents."
"I know that too."
She glanced toward the hallway.
"Your father called my office three times today."
My stomach tightened.
"What did he want?"
"He wanted to know whether you brought your mother's necklace."
I stared at her.
"That's strange."
"Alessia, your father has never once asked me whether you're happy or safe."
The words landed harder than I expected.
"Only whether I still have the necklace?"
Mara nodded.
A memory surfaced.
Bianca standing beside our mother's display cabinet.
The sound of breaking glass.
My mother's delicate silver pendant hitting the marble floor.
I had recovered the damaged pendant afterward and slipped it into the lining of my overnight bag.
The chain was broken.
One side of the small oval locket was badly dented.
But I had kept it anyway.
It was the last thing my mother had touched before disappearing from my life.
"Tell him the necklace is none of his business," I said.
Mara gave a thin smile.
"That was my first draft."
After she left, I returned upstairs.
Nico was sitting beside Dante on the floor of his bedroom.
Between them lay a half-built wooden train.
Neither looked particularly skilled at assembling it.
Dante held an instruction sheet upside down.
Nico watched him with polite concern.
"That's the chimney, Daddy."
Dante turned the piece over.
"Of course it is."
"You're putting it on the wheels."
"I was testing you."
Nico laughed.
It was such a surprising sound that Dante stopped moving.
His eyes met mine.
For a moment, he looked almost grateful.
Then Nico crawled toward me.
"Alessia, can you help?"
"Absolutely."
I sat between them.
For the next half hour, the three of us argued with wooden pieces and increasingly unreasonable instructions.
When the train was finally complete, Nico raised both hands in victory.
"We did it!"
Dante smiled.
Not the polished smile of a man greeting investors.
A real one.
It changed his entire face.
Then Nico pointed toward the blue room.
"Mommy used to keep a special box in there."
Dante's smile disappeared.
"What kind of box?"
"A red one."
"Are you sure?"
Nico nodded.
"She told me it was for something important."
Dante looked at me.
"Elena kept her private paperwork in that room before it was converted."
I stood.
"Then we need to look again."
The room had already been photographed and secured.
Gabriel joined us while we examined the empty shelves.
Most contained cleaning supplies and folded blankets.
But behind a loose wooden panel, I found a narrow space.
Inside lay a red velvet ribbon and a torn envelope.
Dante took the envelope carefully by its edges.
Written across the front, in elegant handwriting, were two words.
For Dante.
His hands went rigid.
"That's Elena's handwriting."
The envelope had been opened and emptied.
On the back, someone had scribbled a number.
17-4.
I stared at it.
Then I remembered the tiny scratches on the inside of my mother's damaged locket.
I had always thought they were meaningless.
May you like
But suddenly I wasn't so sure.
Because the number on Elena's envelope looked exactly like the number my mother had left behind fifteen years earlier.
