Chapter 8
Number seven belonged to a person.
Not Lily.
That changed everything.
The bells Helena found had not been meant to make Lily into number seven.
They had been placed around the estate so that when Helena rang them, whoever once answered number seven would know the ritual had begun again.
Lily was bait.
Not successor.
A child used to send a message to an adult.
Dante’s anger returned cold.
“Who is seven?”
Helena shook her head.
“I never knew.”
Mercer did.
At least partly.
He remembered one child brought to the family clinic decades earlier.
No Caruso name.
Girl.
Approximately seven.
Malnourished.
Bruises.
Would not speak unless a bell rang.
“What name?”
“Rose.”
“Surname?”
“None.”
“Age now?”
“Mid-forties.”
Dante looked at Maria Collins.
The housekeeper stood near the doorway.
Forty-two.
Her face had gone completely white.
Everyone saw.
Dante turned.
“Maria.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Come here.”
She did not move.
Helena whispered:
“Oh, God.”
Dante stared at the woman who had cared for his house seventeen years.
“Your age.”
Maria backed away.
“I didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
She began crying.
“My real name.”
The room went silent.
Dante’s voice softened.
Not because danger had passed.
Because panic rarely yielded truth under pressure.
“Maria.”
She looked at him.
“What do you remember?”
“Foster homes.”
“Before?”
“Nothing.”
“Bell?”
Her hands began shaking.
Dante saw.
Maria looked toward Lily’s room.
Then whispered:
“Yes.”
Helena sat down.
Mercer stared.
“What?”
Maria touched her temple.
“I thought it was a dream.”
Dante waited.
“Someone rang.”
Her voice became younger somehow.
“And I had to come.”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What happened if you didn’t?”
Maria looked toward the floor.
“No food.”
Lily’s exact punishment.
Dante’s stomach turned.
Helena had reenacted Maria’s childhood training on Lily without knowing Maria herself might be number seven.
Or perhaps someone had expected exactly that.
“Who hired you?” Dante asked.
Maria shook her head.
“Your mother.”
Dante froze.
Teresa Caruso.
His mother had brought Maria into the estate seventeen years ago.
At twenty-five.
Why?
“She knew you before?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she say when she hired you?”
Maria thought.
“She told me I had finally come home.”
Dante stared.
Another old sentence suddenly meaningful.
“What year?”
“Six months before she died.”
Dante’s mother had brought number seven back into the Caruso house.
Then died without explanation beyond heart failure.
Helena looked sick.
“Teresa knew.”
“Yes.”
Dante turned toward Mercer.
“Did my mother know the child Rose?”
Mercer lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Who was she?”
Mercer hesitated.
Dante’s patience sharpened.
“Tell me.”
“Your father’s daughter.”
Silence.
Helena stood abruptly.
“No.”
Dante stared.
“My sister.”
Mercer nodded.
“Half-sister.”
“Mother?”
“A household employee.”
Dante felt the room tilt.
Salvatore had fathered a daughter outside marriage.
Then placed her inside the bell system.
Not acknowledged.
Not raised as family.
Trained as a tool.
“What happened to her mother?”
Mercer shook his head.
“Gone.”
“Father knew Rose was his?”
“Yes.”
“And still—”
“Yes.”
Dante could not finish.
Helena looked at Maria.
“You’re Salvatore’s daughter.”
Maria’s eyes filled with horror.
“No.”
Dante stepped closer.
Not claiming.
Not forcing.
“You may be.”
Maria shook her head harder.
“I don’t want that.”
The sentence stopped him.
She was right.
Blood did not grant people permission to redefine her.
Dante nodded.
“Then we don’t decide tonight.”
Maria cried.
Relief.
Fear.
Both.
But the mystery sharpened.
If Maria was number seven, someone had brought her back.
Someone now rang her number around the estate.
“Did you feel anything when Helena rang the bells?” Dante asked.
Maria looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I wanted to move.”
Dante understood.
Conditioning.
Decades old.
Still living in the body.
“What did you do?”
“I stayed.”
“Why?”
Maria looked at Lily.
“Because she ran instead.”
The pain in that sentence filled the room.
Number seven had returned to the house.
And another little girl had been made to answer in her place.
Dante looked at Helena.
She lowered her eyes.
No defense.
Good.
Then Maria whispered:
“There’s something I never told anyone.”
“What?”
“Your mother gave me a key.”
Dante stared.
“When?”
“The night before she died.”
“What did she say?”
Maria’s hands trembled.
“She told me if the bells ever came back…”
May you like
A pause.
“…I should open the room beneath the chapel and find my name.”
