Chapter 3

The letter never mentioned drugs. It promised the rest of the payment once the job was done and reminded Paolo to place "the item" in Room 217. The item could have been the wine or the camera. My handwriting had been copied well enough that Father declared the letter mine after a single glance.

"Serafina has been copying guest lists for my family banquets," he said coldly. "Paolo could have obtained a sample of her handwriting. But she also had every opportunity to contact him."

"I didn't."

"Evidence doesn't vanish because you deny it," Luca said.

I looked at him.

It had been the same after my sister died. Her shoes were found beside the river. The suicide note was in her handwriting. Someone claimed to have seen us arguing that night. Every piece of evidence pointed to me, so Luca decided I was guilty and stopped looking.

"Then investigate," I said. "Trace the paper. Check the typewriter ribbon. Find out who Paolo met recently. And find out what happened in the fifteen minutes erased between my arrival in the ballroom and the moment the drug took effect."

"What fifteen minutes?"

Only after the words left me did I realize I had mentioned something I should not know. In my first life, the recording began when I picked up the champagne, but fifteen minutes were missing from the middle. Luca had kept the footage locked in his study safe for years, treating it as proof of my guilt. The memory card had not been found yet. I had to change course.

"The fifteen minutes around Paolo's death," I said. "If he died before the banquet began, then whoever delivered the wine to Room 217 was using his identity."

Luca did not press me, but he did not release me either.

"Until we know the truth, you stay at the estate."

"You're locking me up?"

"You can walk to the guest room yourself, or my men can take you there."

He spoke as though the choice were reasonable. Nothing about him had changed. Luca had always called surveillance protection, and it had never occurred to him that anyone might refuse it.

I did not argue.

"Third room in the west wing," I said.

His eyes narrowed.

"How do you know where the guest rooms are?"

"The estate plans aren't secret."

In truth, I had lived in that room for three months. After Isabella's death and before our wedding, Luca kept me there with guards outside the door day and night. The window opened no more than a crack. It was there that I discovered an old servants' passage behind the wardrobe. Half an hour later, the guard locked me inside.

I shifted the board beneath the wardrobe and pressed the third brick in the wall. A hidden door opened without a sound. The passage led to the estate's old records room. I took a maid's uniform from a cleaning closet, avoided the patrols, and left through the kitchen door.

At two in the morning, the accounting office of Vitale Shipping was still lit. The port never slept. Neither did the ledgers used to launder money for the Mafia. Antonia Bellandi sat at the last desk, her hair twisted up with a pencil, frowning at a stack of freight invoices. She was twenty-three.

Her husband would one day die in an accident on the docks. Father would use the disaster against her and force her to falsify accounts for ten years. Much later, she would hide money for my escape and be driven out of Palermo for it. None of that had happened yet. Naturally, she did not know me.

"Miss Vitale?" She stood. "What are you doing here?"

"I need you to trace a payment."

"I take orders from Mr. Enzo."

"Seven strands in the main cable of Crane Three at Pier Seven have snapped. Your husband is scheduled for the night shift next Tuesday."

Antonia gripped the edge of the desk.

"What did you say?"

"Tell him to call in sick, or have him inspect the cable now." I slid a sheet of paper toward her. "Then find the expense marked 'White Rose.'"

She did not touch the paper.

"How do you know about my husband?"

"I've seen the accident report for that crane," I said. "Call him first. Once he confirms the cable is damaged, you can decide whether to help me."

She picked up the phone. Her first call was to her husband. When she hung up, she opened the company's internal accounts.

"White Rose" received a payment every month. The recipient was the St. Agatha Benevolent Society. The amounts were small, but they never stopped.

Three days ago, Father had transferred an additional two hundred thousand dollars. The note contained only four characters.

B-17.

"Warehouse Seventeen in Sector B," Antonia said. "It's abandoned. A shell company owns it."

I remembered the place.

In my first life, my sister's body was found in a bend of the river less than two kilometers from B-17.

"Make three copies of the accounts. Give one to a lawyer you trust, put one in a safe-deposit box, and the last--"

The office lights went out. In the darkness, the sound of a weapon being cocked was unmistakable. I pushed Antonia beneath the desk and drew the pistol I had taken from the estate. A man's low voice came from the doorway.

"Serafina. Put down the gun."

Luca.

The lights returned.

He stood in the doorway, night dew still clinging to the hem of his black coat. Marco and two guards waited behind him. Luca glanced at the computer screen, then fixed his eyes on me.

"You escaped the estate to investigate your father's books?"

"You wouldn't believe me, so I had to investigate for myself."

"I told you to stay because I was protecting you."

"Is protection what you call locking a door?"

He came closer and took the gun from my fingers.

"You seem very familiar with cages."

"More familiar than you know."

We stood close enough for me to smell the remnants of the drug on him. On our wedding night in my first life, he had stood before me in the same way, gripped my chin, and asked, "Are you satisfied now?" I stepped back without thinking. Luca noticed. His hand stopped in midair. In the end, he did not touch me.

"Serafina," he asked quietly. "What are you so afraid I'll do?"

"I'm not afraid of you." I met his gaze. "I simply won't let you make my decisions anymore."

Marco's phone rang. He answered, spoke twice, and went rigid.

"Sir, Miss Isabella is missing."

The guard on the other end spoke rapidly.

"There's blood in her room. The window is open, and we found a rope on the outer wall."

I looked at the warehouse number on the screen.

B-17.

My sister's body had been found nearby in my first life. Whoever had taken her might be bringing her to the same place now.