THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE PUSHED HIS DAUGHTER AWAY FROM THE DINNER TABLE

Luca sent two trusted men to the Manhattan clinic and ordered them to bring back every record connected to the woman with the scar. He did not tell the rest of the household what he had heard. In the Moretti family, secrets traveled faster than bullets.

Emily insisted on going with him.

“You’re a maid,” Luca said. “You have no idea what kind of danger this is.”

“I know what it looks like when someone is terrified and has no one to trust.” Emily’s voice was steady. “I saw that woman. If she’s Isabella, I might recognize her.”

He wanted to refuse. Instead, he handed Emily a security earpiece and put two guards in the car behind them.

At the clinic, the administrator met them in a locked office. She produced a file under the name Elena Ward. The intake photograph showed a woman with tired eyes, dark hair cut to her jaw, and a pale scar crossing her left wrist.

Luca’s breath caught. He knew the shape of that scar. Isabella had cut herself on a broken wineglass the summer before their wedding. He had held her hand while a doctor stitched it.

The file showed three visits over four months, all paid in cash. The last appointment was canceled by a caller who claimed to be her brother.

“Did you see the person who called?” Luca asked.

“No. But he knew her date of birth and the code word she gave us.”

“What was the code word?”

“Bluebird.”

Luca closed his eyes. Isabella had called Sophie her little bluebird.

Emily leaned over the file. “There’s a note on the last page.”

The administrator turned it around. In shaky handwriting, someone had written: If the man with the serpent ring returns, call the police—not the family.

Luca looked at Emily. “You said the man who came to the clinic wore that ring.”

“Yes.”

“Did you report him?”

“I tried. The officer who took my statement called the clinic the next day and told my supervisor I was making trouble. I lost my job a week later.”

Luca’s expression darkened. “What was the officer’s name?”

“Detective Harlan.”

The name triggered a memory. Harlan had been one of the detectives assigned to Isabella’s disappearance. He had signed off on the search of the riverbank and told Luca there was no evidence of foul play.

Luca called his security chief. “Find Harlan. Quietly. And locate Matteo.”

The administrator handed Emily a small sealed envelope. “She left this for the nurse who helped her. I kept it because I was afraid it might matter.”

Inside was a photograph of Sophie as a toddler, sitting on Isabella’s lap. On the back, Isabella had written: The truth is under the place where we promised forever.

Luca knew the place immediately: the old greenhouse where he had proposed. He had not visited it since Isabella vanished.

When they returned to the mansion, Vanessa was waiting in the foyer. Her composure had returned, but her eyes were restless.

“Luca, we need to talk privately.”

“No.”

“This concerns Isabella.”

He stopped.

Vanessa held out a phone. “I received a message from an unknown number. It said if I wanted to stay alive, I should tell you what happened three years ago.”

“What happened?”

She glanced at Emily, then back at Luca. “I was not in this house when Isabella disappeared. But I knew she was planning to leave you.”

Luca’s voice went flat. “How?”

“She came to see me two days before she vanished. She said she had found proof that someone was using your company to move money and people. She wanted me to help her get Sophie out of the house.”

“Why would she come to you?”

“Because I was engaged to a man who had access to your security records. I was supposed to marry Matteo.”

Luca stared at her.

“You were engaged to my brother?”

“Before you met me. Our families arranged it. Matteo ended it, and I moved on.” Her lips trembled. “I didn’t tell you because I knew how it would look.”

“Keep talking.”

Vanessa said Isabella had begged her to help get Sophie out, but Vanessa refused. She had been afraid of the Moretti family and afraid of losing the life she thought she deserved. The next day, Isabella disappeared.

“You knew she was in danger and said nothing.”

“I thought she was running away. I didn’t know she’d be taken.”

“You thought she was running away from me?”

Vanessa’s silence was answer enough.

Luca’s hands curled into fists. “Why did you scream at my daughter tonight?”

“Because she said something at breakfast. She said Mommy told her to remember the blue room. I panicked.”

“Why?”

Vanessa looked toward the staircase. “Because last week, someone left a photograph in my bedroom. It showed Isabella standing outside this house. The date on it was two months ago.”

Luca’s anger gave way to stunned disbelief. “You kept that from me?”

“I was afraid.”

“Of whom?”

Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears. “The person who took the photograph was standing behind me when I found it.”

Before Luca could ask another question, a guard rushed into the foyer with a tablet. A security camera had just come back online. The feed showed the greenhouse door opening at 2:13 that morning.

A woman in a dark coat stepped inside.

She turned toward the camera.

Even through the grainy image, Luca recognized her face.