SEVEN

THALIA

I woke up to sunlight streaming through the windows and the realization that I couldn't spend another day locked in my room waiting for my life to happen to me. If I was going to be stuck here, trapped in a marriage to a man who hated me, living in a house full of people who partially blamed me for Rafael's death, then I needed to at least understand my surroundings.

Nico wouldn't be here until tomorrow to start training. That gave me today to figure out the layout of this place on my own.

I got dressed in jeans and a simple black sweater, tied my hair back, and headed out. The hallway was empty and quiet. Dante's door was closed and I had no idea if he was in there or if he'd already left for wherever he went when he wasn't destroying his room.

I walked past Rafael's portrait without looking at it this time and made my way downstairs. The compound during the day felt different than it did at night. There were people moving around, staff cleaning and organizing, the hum of normal life happening. Nobody stopped me or asked where I was going. I was technically family now, even if nobody seemed happy about it.

I wandered through corridors I hadn't seen before, trying to memorize the turns and doorways. This place was massive, easy to get lost in if you didn't know what you were doing. I found the kitchen, industrial sized with staff preparing lunch. Found a library with floor to ceiling books that probably nobody read. Found sitting rooms and dining rooms and spaces that seemed to exist just because the house was big enough to hold them.

Eventually I ended up in a part of the compound that felt more… utilitarian. The hallways here were narrower, the decoration minimal. This was the working side of the house, where business happened instead of family life.

I turned a corner and found myself facing a door that was slightly ajar. Through the gap I could see multiple monitors, the blue glow of screens in a darkened room. Voices inside, low and focused.

Security office. Had to be.

I should have turned around and left. Should have gone back to the public areas where I was supposed to be. But I heard something that made me stop.

"Run it back again. That section right there."

"Same result. The camera cuts out at eight forty-three and doesn't come back until nine sixteen."

"Someone knew exactly which feed to disable."

I pushed the door open wider and stepped inside.

The room was small, cramped with equipment and monitors showing different angles of the compound. Three guards were clustered around one screen, so focused on what they were watching that they didn't notice me at first.

The footage on the screen showed a hallway I recognized. The corridor outside the bedroom where Rafael died. The timestamp in the corner read 8:39 PM, just minutes before the shooting.

I moved closer, trying to see better. One of the guards finally noticed me and jumped like I'd appeared out of thin air.

"Mrs. Torrisi." He said my new name like it surprised him, like he'd forgotten I existed. "You shouldn't be in here."

The other two guards turned around. One of them reached out and quickly switched the monitor to a different feed, something showing the front gates instead of the bedroom hallway.

"I want to see that footage," I said. My voice came out steadier than I felt. "From the wedding night."

"That's not possible," the first guard said. He was older than the other two, probably in charge. "This is an ongoing investigation. Family only."

"I am family. I'm Dante's wife if you guys have somehow forgotten."

"Yes, ma'am. But Mr. Salvatore gave specific instructions about who has access to the security review." He stood up, moving between me and the monitors like he thought I might try to force my way past him. "You'll need to speak with him or Marco if you want information."

I looked at the screens, at the guard's careful positioning, at the way all three of them were watching me with identical expressions that said I was a problem they needed to handle.

"What did you find?" I asked directly. "On the footage. What was on that hallway camera before it cut out?"

"Ma'am, I really can't discuss this with you."

"Someone tried to kill me that night. Someone murdered my husband... ex-husband. Don't I have a right to know what you've found?"

The guard's expression didn't change. "You need to speak with Marco or Mr. Salvatore."

I wanted to scream. Wanted to demand they show me the footage, tell me everything they knew. But I could see from their faces that it wouldn't work. They had orders and I wasn't important enough to override them.

"Where's Marco?" I asked instead.

"His office. Second floor, west wing."

I turned and left before I said something I'd regret. Behind me I heard one of the younger guards say something in Italian, too quiet for me to catch. The others laughed, also quiet, and I wondered if they were laughing at me.

The west wing was back through the main house, up a different set of stairs than the ones leading to Dante's private area. I found Marco's office easily enough. The door was open and he was sitting at his desk, phone pressed to his ear, speaking rapid Italian that I couldn't follow.

He saw me and held up one finger, the universal gesture for wait a minute. I stood in the doorway and listened to one side of a conversation that sounded tense even though I didn't understand the words.

Finally he hung up and looked at me properly. "Thalia. What can I do for you?"

"I was just in the security office."

Something flickered across his face. "You shouldn't have been."

"The guards were reviewing footage from the wedding night. They wouldn't show me anything."

Marco leaned back in his chair, studying me with an expression I couldn't read. "That footage is part of an active investigation. We're not sharing details with anyone outside the core team."

"I'm not outside anything. Someone tried to kill me, Marco. Rafael died protecting me. Don't I deserve to know what you've found?"

"What you deserve and what you get are two different things in this life." His voice wasn't unkind but it wasn't sympathetic either. Just matter of fact. "The investigation is being handled by people who know what they're doing. Your job is to stay safe and let us work."

"My job," I repeated. The word tasted bitter. "What exactly is my job here? Besides being the reason Rafael is dead and the political pawn keeping this alliance together?"

Marco's jaw tightened. "That's not fair."

"None of this is fair." I moved into the office properly, closed the door behind me. "Tell me what you found. Please. I need to know."

He was quiet for a long moment, weighing something in his mind. Finally he sighed. "The camera in that hallway was disabled using an override code. Someone with family access entered the system and turned it off manually."

My stomach dropped. "Someone in the family did this?"

"Someone with family level clearance. That's not necessarily the same thing. Those codes get shared, get written down, get compromised." But his eyes said he didn't really believe that. "We're looking into everyone who had access."

"Who had access?"

"That's confidential."

"Marco, please."

"Salvatore, myself, Rosa, Dante, Rafael." He listed them like he was reading a grocery list. "A few other key personnel and probably other members of the family. We're investigating all of them."

"You're investigating Salvatore? And Rosa?"

"We're investigating everyone necessary." He stood up, came around the desk. "Thalia, I understand you're frustrated. But this is complicated. We're not just looking for a killer, we're trying to keep two families from going to war. Every piece of information we release could destabilize the alliance. So we're being careful."

Careful. They were being careful while whoever killed Rafael walked around free. While someone who wanted me dead was still out there, probably even still planning, still waiting for another opportunity.

"You're not really investigating," I said slowly as the realization hit. "You're managing. Managing the information, managing the families, managing the political situation. But you're not actually trying to find out who pulled the trigger."

Marco's expression went hard. "That's not true."

"Isn't it? If you were really investigating, you'd be pushing harder. Questioning people. Looking for evidence. Instead you're reviewing footage in secret and telling me it's none of my business."

"It's not your business. You're not trained for this. You don't understand how these things work."

"Then explain it to me."

"No." He moved toward the door, opened it. Clear dismissal. "Go back to your room, Thalia. Stay out of places you don't belong. Let us handle this."

I stared at him, this man who'd been Rafael's godfather, who was supposed to be investigating his death. He looked tired, worn down by something I didn't fully understand. But underneath the exhaustion was determination that had nothing to do with finding Rafael's killer and everything to do with keeping the alliance intact.

“If I may, Thalia, I will advise you to just… leave it alone."

"I can't."

"Then you're going to get yourself killed." He said it flatly, like he was stating a fact. "Whoever wanted you dead that night is still out there. They've already tried once. They'll try again. And if you start poking around in things you don't understand, you'll make yourself an even bigger target."

"I'm already a target. At least if I'm investigating, I'm doing something instead of just waiting to die."

Marco studied me for a long moment. Then he shook his head slowly. "You're more like your father than I thought. Stubborn to the point of stupidity."

"Is that a compliment or an insult?"

"Both." He gestured to the hallway. "Go. And stay out of the security office. Those men have orders to report anyone who tries to access the footage without authorization."

I left his office feeling frustrated and angry and more determined than ever. They weren't going to investigate properly. They were too busy managing politics, keeping the alliance stable, making sure neither family used Rafael's death as an excuse to start a war.

Which meant if I wanted answers, I'd have to find them myself.

I walked back through the compound, no longer trying to memorize the layout but thinking through what I knew. Someone with serious access had disabled the cameras. Someone had deliberately delayed security response. Someone had wanted me dead badly enough to shoot Rafael seven times when he got in the way.

And nobody was actually trying to figure out who.

I made my way back to Dante's wing, mind racing with possibilities. When I turned down the hallway toward my room, I found Dante standing by Rafael's portrait. He was just standing there, staring at his brother's face with an expression that made something twist in my chest.

He heard my footsteps and turned. For a second we just looked at each other. Then his face closed off completely and he walked past me without a word, headed for the stairs.

I watched him go and thought about the security footage the guards had been reviewing. About Marco's careful non-answers. About how nobody in this house seemed to actually want the truth.

Tomorrow Nico would start training me. Would teach me how to protect myself, how to read people, how to survive in this world.

But I didn't need to wait for tomorrow to start investigating.

I went to my room and pulled out my phone. Started making notes about everything I knew. The timeline of the shooting. The eleven minutes it took for security to arrive. The disabled camera. The override code that only family had access to.

Someone in this house killed Rafael while intending to kill me. Someone with the knowledge and access to make it happen.

And I was going to figure out who, even if it killed me.