Chapter 5 - The Blue RoomIt was not a beautiful song.
It was thin. Broken. Almost swallowed by the walls.
But Rosa knew it.
She had heard Isabella sing it to Mateo when he was a baby. A soft Spanish lullaby Rosa herself had taught her during long nights in the nursery, when Isabella was too anxious to sleep and Lucian was always at work.
Duérmete, mi niño.
Sleep, my child.
Rosa covered her mouth.
Lucian looked as if someone had struck him.
Celeste moved first.
She lunged for the key.
Rosa moved faster.
For a woman in her fifties, she crossed the space with stunning speed, stepping on broken porcelain without caring that it sliced through the soles of her shoes. She snatched the key from the floor and held it against her chest.
Celeste’s mask shattered.
“Give me that.”
Rosa backed away.
“No.”
Lucian turned to the guards at the entrance.
“Lock the gates.”
Celeste spun toward him.
“Lucian, listen to me.”
“No,” he said. “I’m done listening to everyone except my son.”
Mateo began crying then. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just tears slipping down a face that had been forced too long to look fierce.
Lucian held out his hand to Rosa.
“The key.”
Rosa hesitated.
She had spent her entire life handing powerful men whatever they asked for. Coats. Coffee. Lies. Silence.
This time, she looked at Mateo first.
The boy nodded.
Only then did Rosa give Lucian the key.
The hidden panel was behind a narrow portrait of Lucian’s mother, Margot Vale, painted in cold blues and silver. Lucian stared at the portrait for one bitter second before removing it from the wall.
Behind it was a door.
Not a decorative panel.
A real door.
The brass key fit perfectly.
Celeste whispered, “Don’t open it.”
Lucian looked at her.
“Why?”
Her face twisted.
“Because once you do, you can’t pretend you’re innocent.”
That stopped him.
Rosa saw the truth of it land.
Lucian had been absent. Busy. Proud. Willing to believe doctors, wives, lawyers, and his own mother because believing them cost him nothing.
Believing Mateo would cost him everything.
He opened the door.
The smell came first.
Dust. Medicine. Old flowers. Fear.
A narrow staircase descended behind the wall.
The lullaby drifted upward again.
Mateo clung to Rosa.
“No,” he whispered. “Please don’t make me go.”
“You don’t have to,” Rosa said.
Lucian looked back at his son.
The man who owned the mansion suddenly looked like a stranger in it.
“I’ll go,” he said.
Rosa stepped beside him.
“So will I.”
They descended together.
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At the bottom of the stairs was a room painted blue.
And on every wall were drawings of Mateo.
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