Chapter 3 - The Room Behind the LibraryThe baby monitor hissed.
At first, Liana thought it was only static. Then she heard a woman breathing.
Slowly. Unevenly. Close to the microphone.
Mrs. Bell backed away from the fallen tray. Matteo seized the monitor from the shelf and pressed the power button. The screen remained black, but the breathing continued through its tiny speaker.
“Where is the camera?” he asked.
The housekeeper’s hands began to tremble. “The nursery camera was removed after Mrs. Varric died.”
“Then why is it transmitting?”
No one answered.
Nico began crying again. Liana held him against her shoulder, rocking slowly. The moment the monitor released a faint electronic click, he stopped.
Matteo noticed.
“He recognizes that sound,” he said.
“Or he fears it.”
The speaker crackled. A woman’s voice whispered one word.
“Below.”
Then the monitor went dead.
Matteo’s expression became unreadable. He turned to his guards. “Lock down the house. No one leaves.”
“What about the staff?” one guard asked.
“Every person stays where they are.”
Liana watched him. “You think someone is inside the walls?”
“I think someone has been inside my house for a long time.”
He walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Liana asked.
“Below.”
The word made her skin prickle.
Matteo led her through a private passage behind the library. He pressed a hidden latch beneath a carved wooden shelf, and an entire section of wall swung inward. A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
“You have a secret basement?” Liana asked.
“Every man in my position has rooms he doesn’t discuss.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
They descended. Matteo carried a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Liana carried Nico. The baby was quiet, his cheek pressed to her collarbone, as if he understood that silence kept them safe.
The staircase ended at a steel door. Matteo keyed in a code. The lock opened with a heavy mechanical thud.
Beyond it was not a torture chamber or weapons room, as Liana had feared. It was an archive.
Shelves covered every wall. Boxes, ledgers, photographs, legal files, and old newspapers had been arranged with obsessive precision. A single desk sat beneath a row of security monitors.
“This was Sofia’s room,” Matteo said.
Liana stared at the monitors. Each displayed a different part of the mansion. The foyer. The kitchen. The nursery corridor. The front gate. One screen showed only snow.
“You kept this hidden from the police?”
“The police never asked about it.”
“Because of your reputation?”
“Because the detective assigned to Sofia’s death was paid to look elsewhere.”
Matteo opened a cabinet and removed a gray envelope. “Sofia stored everything here. After the crash, I searched for three days. I found nothing that explained what she was afraid of.”
“You searched alone?”
“I trusted no one.”
“You still don’t.”
He glanced at her. “I just met you.”
“And yet you brought me down here.”
“You held my son. He trusted you.”
“That is not evidence that I’m innocent.”
“No,” Matteo said. “It is evidence that he is.”
The words were so quiet that Liana almost missed them.
He placed the gray envelope on the desk. It was sealed with red wax. A crescent had been pressed into the wax.
Liana felt the familiar smell of clove oil before Matteo broke the seal.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Matteo read it silently. The color drained from his face.
“What does it say?” Liana asked.
He handed it to her.
The paper contained only six lines.
MATTEO,
IF I DIE, DO NOT TRUST THE HOSPITAL.
THE MARK IS NOT A BIRTHMARK.
THE CHILDREN ARE BEING USED TO CARRY SOMETHING.
LOOK FOR THE BLUE ROOM.
SOFIA
Liana looked up. “What does ‘carry something’ mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew your wife was afraid, but you didn’t believe her.”
Matteo’s eyes darkened. “I believed she was afraid. I didn’t believe anyone could reach her. I was wrong.”
Liana looked around the archive. “What is the Blue Room?”
“There is no room by that name in the house.”
“Then why would she write it?”
The security monitors flickered.
On the nursery corridor screen, a figure moved past the camera.
Matteo turned sharply. “Stay here.”
Liana caught his arm. “No.”
“You are not trained for this.”
“I am the only person here who knows what that mark looks like on a dead child.”
He stared at her hand on his sleeve. For a moment, something fierce passed through his eyes—not anger, but calculation.
Then he nodded.
They climbed the stairs quickly. The corridor was empty. A small blue light blinked above the nursery door.
“That wasn’t there before,” Liana whispered.
Matteo raised his weapon and entered.
The nursery appeared untouched. The curtains were closed. The crib stood beneath the window. Nico’s toys sat in their places.
But the photograph of Sofia had vanished.
Liana looked toward the wall. One frame remained, but the glass had been shattered. A blue strip of fabric hung from the broken edge.
Matteo pulled it free.
It was a piece of a hospital gown.
Printed across it were the words: ST. AGNES—NEONATAL OBSERVATION UNIT.
Liana’s fingers went numb.
“That is where Nora died,” she said.
Behind them, the nursery door slammed shut.
This time, the lock turned from the outside.
Matteo threw himself against it. The wood shuddered but did not open. Nico began screaming, and the sound rose instantly into panic.
Smoke began slipping beneath the door.
“They’re trying to suffocate us,” Matteo said.
Liana clutched Nico to her chest. “There has to be another way out.”
Matteo scanned the room. His eyes stopped at the silver rocking horse.
He crossed to it, kicked away the rug, and found a narrow metal hatch set into the floor.
“Help me move it.”
Together they dragged the rocking horse aside. Matteo pried open the hatch. A dark service tunnel waited beneath it.
He took Nico from Liana and lowered himself first. “Give me the baby.”
“No.”
“Liana.”
“If you fall, he falls.”
For one second, they argued with their eyes. Then Liana climbed down with Nico pressed against her body. Matteo followed, pulling the hatch closed just as the nursery door burst open above them.
Someone entered the room.
Liana heard footsteps.
Then a man’s voice said, “Find the maid. She saw the mark.”
Matteo’s hand closed around Liana’s wrist in the darkness.
He leaned close to her ear.
“From now on, you do exactly what I say.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Then you die.”
Above them, the intruder began dragging furniture across the floor.
Liana held Nico tighter.
“Then tell me where we’re going.”
May you like
Matteo looked into the darkness ahead.
“To the Blue Room.”
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