Chapter 3 - THE ROOM THAT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO OPEN
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Dominic ordered the mansion searched from the basement to the roof.
Nobody was allowed to leave. Security checked every vehicle, every service entrance, and every delivery that had entered the property since Dominic's shooting.
Lucy expected the search to reveal a suspicious employee with a dramatic confession.
Instead, it revealed something far more disturbing.
Clara Bellini had never officially existed.
Her employment documents were convincing, her references impeccable, and her bank information apparently legitimate. Yet the address on her identification belonged to an abandoned post office, and the hospital listed as her former employer had no record of her.
Someone had created an entire identity to place her inside the Moretti mansion.
“That's not a kitchen problem,” Lucy muttered as Raphael showed her the report.
“No,” Raphael said. “It's a security failure.”
“Your boss is going to be delightful about that.”
“He's already threatened to fire half the department.”
“Only half? He's getting soft.”
Raphael almost smiled.
Then his expression turned serious.
“Lucy, I need you to tell me everything you remember about Clara.”
“She was quiet. Never joined conversations. Wore her hair in a braid. Had a tiny scar near her left eyebrow.”
“Anything else?”
Lucy thought.
“She always asked which rooms were off-limits. I assumed she was nervous about breaking something expensive.”
“Which rooms?”
“The wine cellar. The west wing. Your boss's father's study.”
Raphael stopped walking.
“What did she say about the study?”
“That she liked old architecture.”
He stared at her.
Lucy sighed.
“Yes, I hear how suspicious that sounds now.”
The study sat behind a locked door at the end of a corridor rarely used by the household. Dominic's father, Vittorio Moretti, had died twelve years earlier. The room had been sealed at his express request, and Dominic had never explained why.
When Lucy accompanied Dominic and Raphael to the corridor, she expected dust, locked cabinets, and possibly a skeleton with an excellent tailor.
Instead, she found a fresh scratch beside the lock.
Someone had tried to open it recently.
Dominic examined the mark.
“Get me the master keys.”
Raphael hesitated.
“Dominic, we should wait for the forensic team.”
“Get me the keys.”
Lucy touched his sleeve.
“Maybe don't break into the room your dead father specifically told you not to open until we know what we're dealing with.”
Dominic looked down at her hand.
“You're suggesting I respect a twelve-year-old instruction from a dead man?”
“I'm suggesting that for once, you consider the possibility that someone wants you to do exactly the opposite of what you should.”
He studied her.
Then he stepped back.
“Fine. The forensic team gets five minutes.”
“Growth,” Lucy whispered.
“I heard that.”
“You were meant to.”
The security specialist arrived with a kit and opened the lock without damaging it.
Inside, the study smelled of old paper and cedar. A desk stood beneath tall windows. Shelves lined the walls. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust except a rectangular patch on the desk where something had recently been removed.
Dominic approached it slowly.
His father's handwriting remained on a framed letter beside the lamp.
Dominic didn't touch it.
Lucy noticed his hands had begun to tremble again.
This time, she didn't tease him.
“Do you want me to stay back?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
He seemed surprised by it himself.
Lucy moved beside him.
On the desk lay a small envelope, apparently overlooked by whoever had searched the room. Dominic opened it.
Inside was a photograph of a woman holding a newborn baby.
The woman had dark hair and a wide, familiar smile.
Dominic went pale.
“Who is she?” Lucy asked.
“My mother.”
“But I thought she died when you were a child.”
“She did.”
He turned the photograph over.
Someone had written a date on the back, followed by six words.
The night your father chose the wrong son.
Raphael stepped closer.
“Dominic?”
Dominic didn't respond.
Beneath the photograph was a second paper: a hospital birth record bearing his father's signature.
The child's name was Dominic Moretti.
The mother's name was Elena Moretti.
But the birth date was impossible.
It placed Dominic's birth nearly a year before the date he had always known.
Lucy read it twice.
“Maybe it's a clerical error.”
“No,” Dominic said.
He sounded as though he was speaking from very far away.
“My father had this document hidden for a reason.”
A noise came from the corridor.
Raphael drew his weapon.
One of the guards shouted, followed by the crash of something heavy hitting the floor.
Dominic moved instinctively in front of Lucy despite his injury.
The lights went out.
For several seconds, the room was completely dark.
Then a phone screen illuminated the doorway.
A woman stood there, her face hidden beneath the hood of a dark coat.
She looked directly at Dominic.
“You shouldn't have opened that room,” she said.
Dominic took one step toward her.
“Who are you?”
The woman lowered her hood.
Lucy recognized the scar near her eyebrow.
Clara Bellini.
The woman who had supposedly disappeared.
Clara's gaze shifted to the birth record in Dominic's hand.
May you like
Then she spoke six words that turned the room colder than the darkness.
“Because your mother is still alive.”
