Chapter 1
Dante did not let anyone leave the reception.
Not yet.
He ordered the exterior doors secured and instructed his bodyguards to collect phones from Adrian and Victoria until his attorney arrived.
He did not threaten either of them.
He did not need to.
Victoria stood several feet from the piano, one hand rubbing the wrist Dante had pulled away from Lily.
Adrian remained beside the chair he had fallen into.
Maria had already taken Lily into the adjoining sitting room, where Dante could still see his daughter through the open double doors.
The little girl was crying quietly.
That was the only thing in the house Dante cared about more than the question in front of him.
He looked at Victoria.
“Answer me.”
She lifted her chin.
“I already told you. I must have heard Lily humming it.”
Maria turned from the sitting room.
“No.”
Victoria’s eyes hardened.
Maria continued.
“Lily only remembers the first part.”
Dante looked toward his daughter.
Maria had worked for the Morettis for sixteen years. She had been there before Dante married his late wife, Grace. She had held Lily as a newborn. After Grace died fourteen months earlier, Maria became one of the few adults Lily still associated with the routines her mother had created.
“What does that mean?” Dante asked.
Maria looked at the piano.
“Mrs. Moretti used to play that melody when Lily couldn’t sleep.”
Dante remembered.
Not every note.
But the sound of it drifting upstairs while he worked late in his study.
Grace had never named it.
She called it Lily’s song.
Maria continued.
“Mrs. Moretti always changed the ending. Lily usually fell asleep before she reached it.”
Dante turned back to Victoria.
“But you played the ending.”
Victoria said nothing.
Adrian stood.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
Dante looked at him.
“You tried to drag her out of the room.”
“Because I knew what you would assume.”
“What should I assume?”
“That Victoria somehow knew Grace.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“Did she?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Victoria looked at Adrian.
That tiny glance was enough.
Dante walked toward the piano.
Maria had been staring at the bench.
He lifted the padded seat.
Nothing obvious lay inside except old sheet music, several pencils, and Grace’s forgotten metronome.
Maria stepped closer.
“Turn it over.”
Dante looked at her.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mrs. Moretti once told me never to let Mr. Adrian throw this bench away.”
Adrian’s face changed.
Only for a second.
Dante saw it.
He tipped the bench onto its side.
There were scratches beneath it.
Fresh ones.
Someone had recently removed and replaced the thin wooden panel underneath the seat.
Dante looked back at Adrian.
“You’ve got one more chance to tell me why.”
May you like
Adrian slowly sat down again.
And said nothing.
