Chapter 2 - The Woman in the PhotographThey moved me from the ballroom into a private library with dark green walls and shelves of old leather books. A fire burned low beneath a marble mantel. Outside the tall windows, snow fell over the gardens like ash.

I sat on the edge of a leather chair, still wearing my soaked apron, still smelling of champagne and humiliation.

Vincent stood across from me, one hand braced against the mantel, his head bowed.

No one spoke for a long time.

The locket lay open on the table between us.

I kept staring at the photograph. My mother looked so young in it. Younger than I was now. She held the baby carefully, protectively, as if she already knew the world wanted to take something from her.

“Is that baby me?” I asked.

Vincent looked up.

“I don’t know.”

The answer disappointed me more than I expected.

Salvatore stood near the door, silent as stone.

Vincent picked up the photograph and turned it toward the firelight. “This man is Lorenzo Moretti. My father.”

“Was he my father too?”

The question escaped before pride could stop it.

Vincent looked at me then, not with pity, but with something heavier.

“It is possible.”

My breath caught.

For twenty-eight years, I had carried the absence of a father like an unpaid debt. My mother never cursed him. Never praised him. Whenever I asked, she said, “Some men love you by staying. Some love you by leaving before others can use you against them.”

I had never understood.

Now I wondered if love had anything to do with it at all.

The library doors opened.

Vivian was pushed inside by one of Vincent’s guards. Carlo came after her, furious but silent. The ruined stain on Vivian’s gown had dried dark across her hip. Without the ballroom lights and admiring audience, she looked smaller.

Vincent did not offer them a seat.

“Tell me about Teresa Romano,” he said.

Vivian’s eyes flashed. “I don’t know anything.”

Carlo answered too quickly. “She was a nobody.”

Vincent’s gaze moved to him.

“A nobody who had my family’s locket.”

Carlo smiled tightly. “Women receive gifts from powerful men all the time.”

I stood.

Something inside me snapped.

“My mother was not your gossip.”

Everyone looked at me.

I should have been afraid. Maybe I was. But rage stood taller.

“She raised me alone. She cleaned hotel rooms with a fever. She sewed gowns for women who never looked at her face. She skipped meals so I could study. Whatever she was to Lorenzo Moretti, she was not something you get to spit on.”

Carlo’s expression hardened.

Vincent stared at me for a moment, and something like respect crossed his face.

Then he turned back to Carlo.

“You heard her.”

Carlo looked away.

Salvatore stepped forward and placed a folder on the table. “Boss, I found something in the old archive.”

Vincent opened it.

Inside was a newspaper clipping, yellowed at the edges.

MISSING WOMAN PRESUMED DEAD AFTER HARBOR ACCIDENT.

There was a photograph of my mother.

Not exactly as I remembered her, but unmistakable. Teresa Romano, twenty-four years old. Seamstress. Last seen leaving a charity auction hosted by the Moretti Foundation.

Below her picture was another name.

LUCIA MORETTI’S PRIVATE COMPANION.

Vincent touched the clipping.

“Lucia was my mother.”

I stared at him.

“My mother worked for your mother?”

“She was more than staff,” Salvatore said quietly. “Mrs. Moretti trusted Teresa with everything.”

Vivian shifted.

Vincent noticed. “You know this story.”

“I was a child,” Vivian said.

“You remember enough to be scared.”

Carlo grabbed the back of a chair. “This is ancient history. Your father handled it.”

Vincent’s face changed.

“My father died believing Teresa was dead.”

Carlo laughed once, bitterly. “Your father believed what he needed to believe.”

The room went deadly silent.

Vincent walked toward him slowly.

“What does that mean?”

Carlo seemed to realize too late that anger had made him careless.

Vivian whispered, “Daddy, stop.”

But Carlo was an arrogant man, and arrogant men mistake warning for weakness.

“It means Lorenzo Moretti was not the saint you pretend he was,” he snapped. “He had enemies. He had affairs. He had bastards. Teresa was a problem.”

The word struck me like a slap.

Bastards.

Vincent moved so fast I barely saw him. He seized Carlo by the lapels and drove him back against the bookcase. Not hard enough to break anything. Hard enough to remove every illusion of control.

“Say that word again,” Vincent said softly.

Carlo’s bravado vanished.

I should have been satisfied.

Instead, I felt sick.

Because part of me understood now.

If Lorenzo Moretti was my father, then I was not only a maid Vivian had humiliated.

I was proof.

Proof of betrayal. Proof of blood. Proof of a secret someone had buried for nearly three decades.

Vincent released Carlo and stepped back.

“I want records. Hospital files. Employment documents. Security logs from the night Teresa vanished.”

Carlo straightened his suit with shaking hands. “You won’t find them.”

“Why?”

Carlo smiled.

“Because people like Teresa don’t leave records. They leave rumors.”

The door opened again.

A younger guard entered and handed Vincent a sealed envelope.

“This was found in Miss DeMarco’s car.”

Vivian went white.

Vincent opened it.

Inside were photographs.

Photographs of me.

Leaving my apartment. Standing at my mother’s grave. Walking to the employment agency. Entering Belladonna House through the servants’ entrance.

At the bottom of the envelope was one sentence written in black ink.

MAKE SURE THE LOCKET IS GONE BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

Vincent lifted his eyes to Vivian.

She began to cry.

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