Chapter 4
Matteo Caruso did not die from illness.
He disappeared.
Helena knew.
She had been thirty-three.
Old enough to understand.
Young enough to obey Salvatore.
“What happened?” Dante asked.
Helena sat in Anna’s old room while rain struck the windows.
“Matteo refused the bell.”
Dante stared.
“What does that mean?”
“He stopped answering.”
“You’re telling me Father killed him because he wouldn’t come when summoned.”
“No.”
“Then?”
“Matteo discovered what the children were really used for.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“I thought you said listening.”
“At first.”
Helena looked at the bell.
“Later, selected children were sent into rooms adults couldn’t enter without suspicion.”
“Children spy.”
“Yes.”
“On who?”
“Everyone.”
“Enemies?”
“Family too.”
Dante thought of himself at eight, nine, ten.
His father asking:
What did Uncle Carlo say?
Who sat beside Aunt Rosa?
Did Gabriel speak to the driver?
Childhood questions.
Not games.
Information.
“What did Matteo find?”
“A room below the old nursery.”
Dante frowned.
“There is no room.”
“Not anymore.”
“What was inside?”
Helena looked toward Maria.
The housekeeper seemed pale.
“Names.”
Dante’s patience thinned.
“Stop saying names without giving them.”
Helena looked at him.
“Children who disappeared.”
Silence.
“Caruso?”
“Some.”
“Others?”
“Children from allied families. Servants’ children. A few whose parents owed debts.”
Dante felt physically sick.
“What did Father do?”
“He didn’t create it.”
“He continued it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Control.”
Of course.
Every cruelty eventually arrived there.
Control.
The room below the nursery held personal objects belonging to children who had been used by the system and later removed from family memory.
Not all killed.
Some sent away.
Some adopted under other names.
Some raised inside distant houses.
The bells identified them.
Matteo found the room.
Then confronted Salvatore.
“Father sent him away.”
Helena looked down.
“That is what I was told.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never looked?”
“I was afraid.”
Dante laughed bitterly.
“Everyone in this family is always afraid when it’s time to protect someone younger.”
Helena flinched.
Good.
He continued.
“You were afraid for Matteo.”
“Yes.”
“You were afraid someone trained Lily.”
“Yes.”
“And your answer every time is to protect yourself first.”
Helena’s eyes filled.
Dante did not stop.
“What happened to Gabriel?”
Helena whispered:
“Same system.”
Dante stared.
“His accident?”
“Not an accident.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Father?”
“Maybe.”
Dante walked away.
Another grave corrupted.
Another childhood story rotten.
Then Maria said:
“Mrs. Caruso knew something.”
Dante turned.
“What?”
Maria looked frightened.
“Before she died, Anna asked me about the bells.”
Dante’s heart changed rhythm.
“When?”
“About three months before she became ill.”
“What did she ask?”
“Whether I remembered seeing them when I first came to work here.”
“And?”
“I told her one used to hang near the old nursery.”
Dante stared.
“Which number?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“Did Anna?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She said she found a picture.”
“What picture?”
Maria looked toward the wardrobe.
“She hid it.”
Dante searched.
Nothing.
Helena stood.
“Anna was digging into Matteo.”
Dante looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because she asked me.”
“When?”
“Four months before she died.”
The room became colder.
Dante’s late wife investigating his supposedly dead brother.
A bell belonging to Matteo hidden in her room.
Then Anna died.
Maybe natural.
Maybe not.
He hated how quickly suspicion moved.
He also knew better now than to convert suspicion into certainty.
“What did she ask?”
“Whether Matteo ever had a daughter.”
Dante froze.
“Did he?”
Helena looked at him.
“I didn’t know.”
“Now?”
She shook her head.
Dante thought of the empty number seven.
Future child.
Maybe not Lily.
Maybe someone else.
Maria opened the back of the wardrobe panel.
Inside was a small envelope.
No documents.
Only a photograph.
Anna with a woman Dante did not recognize.
The woman was perhaps thirty.
Dark coat.
Standing outside the Caruso estate.
Anna had written one line on the back.
MATTEO’S CHILD CAME HOME.
Dante stared.
His brother had a daughter.
May you like
Alive.
And Anna had met her before dying.
