Chapter 5
Vincent’s mother, Isabella Moretti, had been dead for eleven years.
He had loved her differently than he loved his father.
His father taught survival.
His mother taught doubt.
She once told Vincent:
“Never trust the man who demands loyalty before telling you what he wants.”
He had ignored that lesson many times.
Now Dominic claimed Matteo had compared Sofia to Isabella.
Vincent went to the family chapel.
Not to pray.
To remember.
His mother’s portrait hung beside the entrance.
Dark eyes.
Quiet expression.
Leo had her mouth.
Vincent stared at it.
Emma stood behind him.
“You knew my mother?”
“A little.”
“You were a child.”
“My father worked here.”
Vincent turned.
That was true.
Emma Cole had arrived at the estate at nineteen, after her father died.
But the Cole family had served the Morettis for decades.
“What was your father’s first name?”
“Daniel.”
Vincent remembered.
Daniel Cole.
Driver.
Occasional bodyguard.
Killed in a robbery six years earlier.
That was the story.
“What did Sofia know about him?”
Emma’s face changed.
“Why?”
“Because Sofia trusted you with a key.”
Emma looked toward the chapel floor.
“My father helped your mother.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“With?”
“Hiding someone.”
Again.
A child.
Dominic’s sentence returned.
Trying to hide a child from a Moretti.
“Who?”
Emma whispered:
“I don’t know.”
Vincent stared.
“Emma.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“What do you know?”
“My father said your mother once saved a boy from Matteo.”
“Age?”
“Seven or eight.”
“When?”
“Before I was born.”
“That doesn’t narrow enough.”
Emma continued.
“He said Matteo wanted the boy trained.”
“Family?”
“Yes.”
“Moretti?”
“I think.”
Vincent felt old memories stirring.
There had been one boy.
A cousin.
Nico Moretti.
Matteo’s son.
Nico vanished when Vincent was twenty-three.
Family story:
Sent overseas.
Later died.
No funeral.
No body Vincent ever saw.
“Nico.”
Emma’s face changed.
“You know the name.”
“Matteo’s son.”
“My father said Isabella hid him.”
Vincent stared.
“Why?”
“Because Matteo was hurting him.”
That word.
Hurting.
Same cycle.
Father.
Son.
Grandson.
“Where did she send him?”
“Daniel never told me.”
“Did Matteo know she helped?”
“Eventually.”
Vincent understood the revenge more clearly.
Matteo might have blamed Isabella for losing his son.
Then Vincent’s father for sealing the Silence Room.
Then Vincent for inheriting everything.
“What happened to Nico?”
Emma looked away.
“There’s something else Sofia found.”
“Where?”
“Under the nursery.”
Vincent took the brass key.
The Silence Room door lay behind a concealed panel beneath the eastern staircase.
He had not touched it in thirty-nine years.
The key turned.
Old air.
Stone.
Memory.
Vincent descended alone first.
The room looked smaller than childhood.
Everything did.
Single chair.
Wooden table.
Wall hooks.
One bell.
He remembered that bell.
One ring: eyes down.
Two rings: silence.
Three: kneel.
His stomach turned.
Emma followed.
She looked around.
“Sofia came here?”
“Yes.”
She pointed toward one wall.
A section of stone had been cleaned recently.
Vincent moved closer.
A small red handprint had been painted there.
Child-sized.
Not Leo’s.
Older.
Beside it:
N.M.
Nico Moretti.
A date.
Thirty-two years earlier.
Vincent was twenty then.
Nico eight.
He stared.
Then Emma found the music box.
Blue.
Moon carved into the lid.
Sofia’s.
Sitting beneath the chair.
Vincent lifted it.
Opened.
The lullaby played.
Slow.
Familiar.
Then another sound.
A click.
Sofia’s voice.
“Vincent.”
He closed his eyes.
Emma turned away.
“If you’re hearing this, then Matteo came back.”
Vincent gripped the box.
“I hoped I was wrong.”
Static.
“But someone has reopened this room.”
A pause.
“Dominic has been down here.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“He isn’t the one I’m most afraid of.”
Another pause.
“Peter Shaw is helping someone enter the estate.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
Security chief.
Confirmed again.
“But Peter is frightened.”
That mattered.
“Sofia knew him.”
“He keeps looking toward Leo like he’s apologizing.”
Vincent listened.
“I think someone has his family.”
Peter had a younger sister.
Two nephews.
Maybe.
Sofia continued:
“Matteo wants Leo afraid.”
A long pause.
“Not because he hates a three-year-old.”
Vincent whispered:
“Then why?”
The music box answered:
“Because a frightened heir makes a frightened father predictable.”
Vincent looked toward the old bell.
Sofia’s voice softened.
“And you are most dangerous when someone predicts you correctly.”
Then:
“I found Nico.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
Emma looked at him.
“He’s alive.”
The recording crackled.
“And he hates Matteo more than you do.”
A pause.
“But he hates the Moretti name too.”
The final words came quietly.
“If I die before I can bring him home, do not assume Matteo killed me.”
Vincent stared at the box.
May you like
Then Sofia said:
“Ask Nico who did.”
