Chapter 9
The hill house was empty.
Not abandoned.
Empty.
A bowl of warm soup on the kitchen table.
Noah’s small shoe beside the couch.
Clara’s handbag near the door.
No blood.
No signs of struggle.
Rocco stood in the center of the room.
His breathing was controlled.
That frightened Leonard.
Twenty-two years earlier, Rocco would already have broken three men searching for someone to blame.
Now he looked.
Door intact.
Window open.
Back gate unlocked.
One vehicle gone.
The driver’s coat still hanging inside.
“Maria knew the alternate road,” Leonard said.
Rocco looked at him.
“So did Matteo.”
Leonard stopped.
Good.
Rocco refused certainty.
They found Clara in the garden shed.
Alive.
Locked inside.
She stumbled out crying.
“Mr. Bellacorte.”
“Where is Noah?”
“Maria took him.”
Rocco’s face changed.
“Did she hurt him?”
“No.”
“Was he afraid?”
“He thought they were going for ice cream.”
Rocco closed his eyes briefly.
At least that.
“Who was with her?”
Clara shook her head.
“No one.”
“Did she receive a call?”
“A note.”
“What note?”
“Someone pushed it under the back door.”
“Did you read it?”
“No.”
“Maria?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She went white.”
“Then?”
“She told me Noah had to leave immediately.”
“Why lock you in?”
“She said I would try to stop her.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
Rocco nodded.
Reasonable.
“What car?”
“One of the old estate sedans.”
Leonard looked at him.
“Matteo?”
“Maybe.”
Rocco’s phone rang.
Bianca.
He answered.
“What?”
“August is gone.”
Rocco almost laughed.
Of course.
“How?”
“Victor’s men moved.”
“Victor?”
“Gone too.”
“Who is still at the estate?”
“Anthony and six guards.”
“Stay there.”
Bianca’s voice hardened.
“You do not command me.”
“Yes.”
“You ended the engagement.”
“Yes.”
“Then stop talking like I’m your wife.”
Rocco paused.
Fair.
“Do you want to stay alive?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“Then stay where Anthony can see you until I know which men are moving.”
Bianca exhaled.
“Fine.”
Then:
“Rocco.”
“What?”
“August left something.”
“What?”
“Thomas’s coat.”
Rocco frowned.
Bianca’s father had died twenty-two years earlier.
“How?”
“It was in his room.”
“Description?”
“Brown wool.”
Bianca’s voice shook.
“My mother told me he wore it the night he died.”
Rocco understood.
August had kept it.
Trophy.
Threat.
Or memory.
“What’s inside?”
“A stitched message.”
“Read it.”
Bianca swallowed.
“Maria knows where Matteo sleeps.”
Rocco went still.
Leonard heard through the phone.
“Bianca.”
“Yes?”
“Do not follow anyone.”
“Understood.”
The line ended.
Rocco looked at Leonard.
“Maria knows Matteo.”
His cousin nodded.
“Maybe she always did.”
That betrayal hurt differently.
Maria had been in Rocco’s home through everything.
Elena’s pregnancy.
Noah’s birth.
Elena’s death.
Rocco’s grief.
She had held his son.
But again—truth before fury.
They found the old sedan near a monastery outside the city.
No Maria.
No Noah.
Inside the glove compartment was a child’s drawing.
Noah had drawn three figures.
Dad.
Noah.
Maria.
And another man.
Tall.
Gray hair.
A scar on his cheek.
Rocco did not need a label.
Matteo had been scarred across the cheek during a childhood accident.
Rocco stared.
His brother had met his son.
On the back, Maria had written:
He is safe. Do not trust August. Do not trust Leonard. And do not trust me until I explain.
Leonard read it.
Then laughed bitterly.
“At least she’s fair.”
Rocco looked at him.
“She named you.”
“I noticed.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know where Matteo would go?”
“No.”
Rocco stared.
Leonard met his eyes.
“Believe me or don’t.”
Rocco almost smiled.
“Neither.”
“Good.”
They returned to the estate separately.
Bianca waited in Thomas Hayes’s old coat.
Not wearing it.
Holding it.
Rocco saw her face.
“What?”
She opened the lining.
There was another stitched sentence beneath the first.
Older.
In Thomas Hayes’s handwriting.
IF AUGUST EVER SHOWS BIANCA THIS COAT, IT MEANS HE STILL NEEDS HER TO HATE ROCCO.
Bianca’s eyes filled.
“My father knew.”
Rocco took the coat.
Thomas had anticipated August using his daughter.
Twenty-two years earlier.
He had died knowing the pattern.
Bianca whispered:
“What else did he know?”
Rocco looked inside the lining.
A third message.
Almost hidden under the seam.
THE WOMAN IN THE HOUSE IS NOT HIS ENEMY.
Rocco stared.
Maria.
Not enemy.
May you like
Then beneath:
SHE IS MATTEO’S WIFE.
