Chapter 2 - The Little Girl in Pink
The door opened three inches.
A small face appeared in the gap.
Brown eyes.
Pink cheeks.
A loose curl falling across her forehead.
I recognized her vaguely. She belonged to one of the women who worked downstairs, although I had never learned her name.
She pushed the door wider.
The little girl couldn't have been more than five.
Her pink flower-girl dress was slightly too large around her shoulders, and she held a bouquet of roses that looked almost comically enormous in her tiny hands.
“You're not supposed to be in here,” I said.
She considered that.
Then she entered anyway.
I almost laughed.
Almost.
She closed the door carefully behind herself.
“What’s your name?”
“Rosie.”
“Rosie what?”
“Rosie Bennett.”
Bennett.
That was when I remembered.
Her mother was Clara Bennett, one of the upstairs maids. Quiet woman. Late twenties. Brown hair usually tied at the nape of her neck. She had worked at the estate for about a year.
Rosie approached me.
I noticed something clutched in her other hand.
One of the wedding favors.
A tiny silver bell.
She placed it on my desk.
“You forgot your party.”
“My party is over.”
She frowned.
“Because the pretty lady left?”
Children had a brutal gift for simplicity.
“Yes.”
Rosie stared at me for several seconds.
“Mommy says people leave when they're scared sometimes.”
I looked at her.
“Your mother says that?”
She nodded.
“Mommy gets scared too.”
Something in her voice changed.
Before I could ask what she meant, Rosie walked closer.
Then she did something nobody had done since the ambush.
She touched my face.
Her tiny palm rested against my cheek.
Every instinct built through thirty-nine years of violence and suspicion told me to pull away.
I didn't.
“Don't be sad, Mr. Lorenzo.”
Her expression became intensely serious.
“I'll marry you when I grow up.”
A laugh escaped me.
Not a polite laugh.
Not the cold sound I used at business dinners.
A real one.
It hurt.
Rosie smiled proudly.
“You think that's funny?”
“Yes.”
Her face fell.
“No.”
I caught myself.
“No, Rosie. I mean—”
The study door flew open.
“Rosie!”
Clara Bennett stood there.
She had apparently run through half the mansion. Her breathing was uneven, and several strands of chestnut hair had escaped her neat bun.
Her maid's uniform was simple black and white.
But it wasn't her appearance that held my attention.
It was fear.
Not fear that Rosie had disturbed me.
Fear of me.
Clara hurried forward.
“I am so sorry, Mr. Vitali. She disappeared while I was helping clear the terrace. I told her—”
“Mommy, I'm marrying him.”
Clara stopped.
I looked away because I suddenly found the window extremely interesting.
“Rosie,” Clara whispered, horrified.
“When I'm big.”
“That's enough.”
“But his other wife ran away.”
“She wasn't my wife,” I said.
Both of them looked at me.
Rosie brightened.
“Then you're free.”
Clara turned crimson.
For the first time that day, I forgot Bianca.
Only for thirty seconds.
But I forgot her.
Clara crouched and collected her daughter.
“Please forgive her.”
“There is nothing to forgive.”
She stood.
That was when her sleeve shifted.
A bruise circled her wrist.
Dark.
Recent.
My smile disappeared.
Clara noticed where I was looking and immediately pulled her sleeve down.
“Rosie, say goodbye.”
Rosie waved.
“Bye, Mr. Lorenzo.”
“Goodbye, Rosie.”
Clara reached the doorway.
“Mrs. Bennett.”
She stopped.
“It's Miss Bennett.”
“Who did that to your wrist?”
Her face emptied.
“Nobody.”
“I'm familiar with what nobody looks like. That isn't it.”
Her fingers tightened around Rosie's hand.
“It was an accident.”
I had heard that sentence from frightened people my entire life.
I let her leave.
But when the door closed, I pressed the intercom.
“Enzo.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Find out everything you can about Clara Bennett.”
Silence.
Then, “Everything?”
“Everything.”
I looked through the window.
Workers were dismantling the wedding arch.
Across the garden, Don Ferretti was speaking quietly to one of his men.
He glanced toward my study.
And smiled again.
Something cold settled inside me.
“Enzo.”
“Yes?”
“And find Bianca.”
“You said you wouldn't.”
“I changed my mind.”
Twenty minutes later, Enzo returned.
He carried no file.
Only a phone.
His expression had changed.
“What?”
“We found the car that was supposed to take Bianca to the airport.”
“And?”
“It never reached the airport.”
My fingers tightened around the wheelchair.
“Where is she?”
“We don't know.”
Enzo hesitated.
“There was blood inside the car.”
The room went silent.
“And Clara Bennett?”
Enzo looked toward the hallway where Rosie had disappeared.
“That's the strange part.”
He placed his phone before me.
On the screen was an old photograph.
Clara stood beside a man I recognized immediately.
Marco Ferretti.
Don Ferretti's youngest son.
May you like
My enemy's dead son.
And Clara was wearing a wedding ring.
