37

Sierra’s POV

The house the next day was a tomb dressed in sunlight. Katie, sensing the wrongness in the air, was clingy and quiet. I kept her close, reading the same picture book three times in a row, using her warm, solid weight as an anchor against the dread pulling me under.

Louis was a ghost in his own home. He moved from his study to the security office and back, his face a closed door. We didn’t speak. The silence was a third presence, heavy and accusing.

Marcus found her by mid-morning. Claudia Rossi. She was staying in a modest, faded hotel near the airport, the kind of place for people passing through, not putting down roots. She had a return ticket to Rome for the day after tomorrow. She had come, delivered her message, and planned to leave. She wasn’t a strategist. She was just a woman who had finally reached her limit.

Louis’s lawyers worked with terrifying speed. By lunch, a document was ready. It wasn’t a lawsuit or a threat. It was an offer. A staggeringly generous trust fund, administered for life, with monthly disbursements that would make her comfortable beyond anything she’d known. In exchange for her signature, binding her to never speak of Mariella, Monaco, Louis Trevane, or any events of that summer to anyone, ever again. A financial witness protection program for the truth.

“You should be the one to present it,” Louis said. He stood in the doorway of the sunroom where I was trying to drink tea. His words weren’t a suggestion.

I looked up. “Why? So she can look into the eyes of the woman benefiting from her sister’s suffering? So you can hide behind me?”

“So she can see that this family isn’t just me,” he said, his voice raw. “So she can see you. And Katie. So she understands what she’d be destroying if she says no.”

He was using us as human shields. Again. And the worst part was, he was right. It was our most powerful weapon.

I set the teacup down, the china rattling on the saucer. “Fine. I’ll go. But I do it my way. Alone. No lawyers in the room. Just two women.”

He wanted to argue. I saw the protest in the tightening of his jaw. But he nodded. He had pushed me to the edge of the cliff; he couldn’t dictate how I fell.

An hour later, a discreet car dropped me at the hotel. It smelled of stale coffee and industrial cleaner. My heart was a trapped bird against my ribs as I knocked on the door of room 214.

Claudia Rossi opened it. She looked smaller in the harsh fluorescent light of the hallway, older. She wasn’t surprised to see me. She’d been expecting someone.

“Mrs. Trevane,” she said, her voice flat. She stepped back, allowing me in.

The room was stark. A single bed, a small table, a suitcase open on a stand, clothes neatly folded. A photograph in a simple frame sat on the nightstand: two young girls, smiling, arms around each other on a sun-drenched beach. Mariella, whole.

“I won’t take much of your time,” I began, my voice sounding too loud in the small space. I placed the slim document folder on the table.

She looked at it, then at me. “More money.”

“It’s not just money,” I said, the rehearsed lines sticking in my throat. “It’s security. For life. You would never have to worry again.”

“I do not worry for myself,” she said simply. “I worry for her. Every day, until I die, I will worry for her. Your money cannot stop that.”

I forced myself to continue. “It can make it easier. The best care. A quiet, comfortable place for her. For you. You could take her somewhere beautiful, peaceful.”

She picked up the photograph, her thumb stroking the glass over her sister’s face. “She likes the garden at the institution. She watches the birds. That is her beautiful, peaceful place.” She set the photo down and finally met my eyes. “Why are you here? He sends his new wife to do his dirty bargaining? Does it make him feel clean?”

The accusation was gentle, which made it cut deeper. “I’m here because I have a daughter too,” I whispered, the truth escaping before I could cage it.

Her gaze sharpened, seeing through me. “Ah. So you understand. You would do anything for her. Even this.” She gestured to the folder. “You would pay to hide a terrible thing to keep her world perfect.”

Tears blurred my vision. I nodded, unable to speak.

Claudia sighed, a sound of infinite weariness. She opened the folder, scanned the first page with the eye of someone who had seen too many legal documents. She flipped to the last page, to the space for her signature.

Then she did something I didn’t expect. She picked up a pen from the table. My heart leaped—a fragile, shameful hope.

But she didn’t sign. She turned the document over. On the blank back, she began to write. Not her name. An address. She slid it back to me.

“This is where my sister lives. The Villa delle Rose, outside Milan. It is not a ‘quiet, comfortable place.’ It is a place of last resort. The sheets are thin. The food is bland. The nurses are tired. Your money could change that. Not for me. For her. Send the money there. Anonymously. Improve her life. Not mine.”

I stared at the address, the elegant script. “And in return?”

“In return, I will go home. I will say nothing. Not because of your contract.” She looked at the photograph again, her expression softening into a grief so profound it seemed to bend the air in the room. “I will say nothing because my sister finally had a peaceful night last night. For the first time in years. After I saw him. After I spoke my piece to him. It was as if a poison left her. She hummed a little song this morning. A song from our childhood. I will not stir the poison again for her. Not for all the money in the world.”

Her refusal was not an act of defiance, but of love. A love so pure it made our transactional, desperate offering look like the grubby thing it was.

She was choosing her sister’s fragile peace over justice, over wealth. She was a better person than any of us.

“Take your paper,” she said softly, pushing the folder toward me. “And go. Love your daughter. But do not forget mine.”

I left the hotel, the unsigned document and the address burning in my hands. The offer had been rejected, but not in the way we’d feared. There was no threat, no vow to go to the press. Just a quiet, dignified *no* that left me utterly gutted.

When I returned, Louis was waiting in the foyer. He took one look at my face and knew.

“She refused.”

I handed him the folder, and the separate piece of paper with the address. “She wants the money sent here. Anonymously. For Mariella’s care. That’s all.”

He stared at the address, confusion and then a dawning, chilling understanding twisting his features. “This is a trick. A way to get the money without the silence.”

“It’s not a trick!” The words erupted from me, fueled by a day of coiled tension and the haunting image of Claudia’s tired, loving face. “She doesn’t want your silence money, Louis! She just wants her sister to have better sheets! Don’t you see? We’re the monsters here. We are!”

His face hardened, the vulnerability snuffed out. “There’s no such thing as an anonymous donation that size. It’s a trail. It’s a connection. She’s smarter than we thought.”

“You’re not listening!” I was shouting now, tears finally breaking free. “She’s not playing a game! She’s done! She got what she came for—she made you see! Now she just wants to go home and care for her sister!”

He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “And what happens when she has a bad day? When the money runs low? When she reads another article about our perfect life? She’ll remember she has a story to sell. The story is a loaded gun, Sierra. Leaving it in her hands is not an option.”

I saw the decision solidify in his eyes. The path he had promised not to take.

“You said you wouldn’t,” I breathed, horror drenching me. “You promised.”

“I promised to protect you,” he said, his gaze unwavering, devoid of the conflict I’d seen last night. There was only a cold, terrible resolve. “This is how.”

He turned and walked toward his study, pulling out his phone.

I knew who he was calling.

I knew what he was setting in motion.

The sister’s love had saved her.

And Louis’s love was going to kill her for it.