Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
“Trust no Mercante.”
I read the words again.
Then I looked at the man who had taken a bullet for me.
“Your father promised to protect my mother,” I said. “So why would she leave this warning?”
Vincenzo didn't answer immediately.
Outside his bedroom, footsteps echoed along the corridor.
Finally, he said, “Because someone in my family betrayed her.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Then how can I trust you?”
His eyes met mine.
“You shouldn't. Not until I've earned it.”
That answer surprised me more than any promise could have.
I closed the pendant and stepped away.
“I want to leave.”
His jaw tightened.
“It's not safe.”
“Neither is staying here.”
“You're right.”
He reached for the phone beside his bed.
“Gio. Arrange a car. Two guards. Take Miss Anderson wherever she wants to go.”
I stared at him.
“You're letting me leave?”
“I told you I needed a wife. I never said you were my prisoner.”
“You bought me.”
His expression hardened.
“I paid Derek to get you away from him. I should have told you the truth the moment you arrived.”
“That doesn't make what happened acceptable.”
“No,” he said quietly. “It doesn't.”
For the first time, I saw something beyond the wealth, the guards, and the reputation.
I saw a man who knew he had done something wrong.
But I wasn't ready to forgive him.
I chose the only place I had left.
My apartment.
Or what I thought was still my apartment.
When Gio's black SUV stopped outside the brick building, I noticed that the lock on the front door had been replaced.
Inside, my furniture was gone.
So were my clothes.
My paintings.
My mother's photographs.
Everything.
Derek stood in the living room beside Madison, my best friend since college.
Madison was wearing my cream-colored sweater.
I had bought it with my first paycheck.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Derek smiled.
“Violet. You're alive.”
Something in his voice made me sick.
“Disappointed?”
Madison folded her arms.
“You shouldn't be here.”
I looked at her.
“That's my sweater.”
She glanced down.
“Oh. Right.”
Derek stepped forward.
“Listen, babe—”
“Don't call me that.”
His smile vanished.
“You need to calm down.”
“You drugged me. You sold me to a stranger. And now you've emptied my apartment?”
“It wasn't like that.”
“Then explain it.”
He glanced at Gio, who stood behind me.
“Can we talk privately?”
“No.”
Derek's face reddened.
“I had debts.”
“A million dollars' worth?”
“You don't understand the people I owed.”
“Then you should have sold your car.”
Madison laughed.
It was a small sound.
Cruel.
“You always were dramatic, Violet.”
I turned toward her.
“You knew?”
She looked away.
My stomach dropped.
“How long?”
Neither answered.
“How long have you two been together?”
Derek sighed.
“Six months.”
I felt something inside me go strangely quiet.
Six months.
Six months of dinners I cooked.
Of birthdays I planned.
Of listening when he said he loved me.
Madison stepped closer.
“Look, Derek needed money. You were going to marry him anyway. It's not like you had anything important going on.”
I looked around the empty apartment.
“My paintings.”
Derek shrugged.
“Sold them.”
I stopped breathing.
“You what?”
“They were taking up space.”
My paintings were the only things I had made that belonged entirely to me.
Some had taken months.
One was a portrait of my mother, painted from memory.
“Where?”
“A private buyer.”
“Who?”
Derek looked annoyed.
“Why does it matter?”
I stepped toward him.
Gio moved slightly, but I raised a hand.
“No. Let me.”
I stood inches from Derek.
“You didn't just sell me,” I said. “You sold every piece of my life you could get your hands on.”
His expression turned ugly.
“Don't act so innocent. You were worth a million dollars because of that face. You think the mafia king wanted your personality?”
The slap cracked through the apartment.
Derek stumbled backward.
Madison screamed.
Gio didn't move.
I looked at my shaking hand.
Then at the man I had once loved.
“You will never touch me again.”
I turned and walked out.
In the SUV, I finally cried.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just tears slipping down my cheeks while the city blurred beyond the tinted windows.
Gio handed me a clean handkerchief.
“Where do you want to go?”
I stared at the traffic.
“I don't know.”
He waited.
Then I remembered something.
“The buyer.”
“What buyer?”
“The person who bought my paintings. I need to find them.”
Gio took out his phone.
“I can look into it.”
An hour later, he returned with an address.
An old art gallery in the West Loop.
We arrived just before closing.
A gray-haired woman named Evelyn Pierce greeted us.
When I told her my name, her expression changed.
“Violet Anderson?”
“Yes.”
She hurried into a back room.
When she returned, she was carrying a large canvas wrapped in brown paper.
“I was told to give this to you if you ever came here.”
My pulse quickened.
“By whom?”
“A woman. She paid cash.”
“What woman?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“She had dark hair. A scar along her left wrist.”
My mother's wrist had been scarred.
I remembered tracing the mark with my finger when I was little.
Evelyn unwrapped the canvas.
It was my portrait of my mother.
But someone had painted something on the back.
A map.
A street address.
And a date.
NOVEMBER 14. MIDNIGHT.
That was tomorrow.
I looked at Evelyn.
“When did the woman bring this?”
“Three days ago.”
My knees weakened.
Three days.
My mother had been missing for eighteen years.
And someone who looked like her had walked into this gallery three days ago.
Then Evelyn said, “There's something else.”
She handed me a photograph.
It showed my mother standing outside a hospital.
Beside her was a younger man.
I recognized him immediately.
Even without the gray in his hair.
Even without the expensive suit.
It was Vincenzo's uncle.
May you like
Luca Mercante.
And he was holding my mother's hand.
