Chapter 3 - THE ROOM ELENA NEVER LEFT
The locked room stood at the end of the west corridor, behind a pair of walnut doors Luca had not opened in four years.
He had preserved it exactly as Elena had left it: the cream curtains, the antique dressing table, the books beside the bed, and the pale-blue shawl she used to wrap around her shoulders during winter.
After her funeral, Luca had ordered the room sealed.
He told himself he was protecting his daughter from painful memories.
The truth was simpler.
He could not bear to enter a room that still smelled faintly of the woman he had failed to save.
Now, as he walked toward it with Sophia's photograph in his hand, he wondered whether grief had made him blind to something happening inside his own home.
Marco followed close behind.
“Boss, the security logs show no forced entry.”
“Then somebody had a key.”
“We're checking the staff records.”
“Check everyone. Including the people who have worked for me for twenty years.”
Behind them, Vanessa insisted she had never entered Elena's room without permission.
Luca didn't answer her.
At the door, he removed a key from his pocket. The lock turned with a heavy click.
The air inside smelled of dust and lavender.
Everything appeared untouched.
Sophia hid behind Clara, who had insisted on accompanying the child after Luca's security team confirmed that her contractions were not progressing. Clara had been advised to rest, but she refused to leave Sophia alone with the growing tension.
“It's okay,” Clara whispered. “We're just looking for answers.”
Sophia nodded, though her fingers remained wrapped around Clara's hand.
Luca walked to the dressing table.
The photograph had been taken near a hospital window. He recognized Elena's wedding band, the small scar above her left eyebrow, and the silver bracelet he had given her during their first anniversary.
But the baby in the picture had a bracelet marked BABY A.
Sophia's birth certificate identified her as the only child delivered that night.
Luca opened the top drawer.
Inside were Elena's old letters, a jewelry box, and a small envelope marked with his name.
He tore it open.
Luca,
If you're reading this, then someone has finally found the courage to ask the question I was too afraid to ask while I was alive.
Please don't trust the records simply because they carry an official seal.
I wanted to tell you everything, but I was watched. I was told that if I spoke, one of our daughters would disappear.
Luca stopped reading.
“Our daughters?”
His voice sounded unfamiliar.
He continued.
I don't know which child is safe. I only know that the woman who promised to help me is not the woman she claims to be.
Look beneath the place where you first asked me to marry you.
The letter ended without a signature.
Luca read it again.
Vanessa had gone silent behind him.
“Did you know about this letter?”
“No.”
“Look at me.”
She did.
For the first time, he saw something in her expression that resembled genuine terror.
“I swear I didn't write it, Luca.”
“I didn't ask whether you wrote it.”
She swallowed.
“I never saw it.”
Clara approached the dressing table.
“Sir, what does she mean by the place where you first asked your wife to marry you?”
Luca stared at the letter.
“The conservatory.”
Elena had loved the old glass conservatory behind the estate. On a spring evening, four years before their wedding, Luca had asked her to marry him beneath the orange trees. He had never told anyone how she had laughed and cried at the same time.
He hurried downstairs.
The conservatory had been renovated twice since Elena's death. New tiles covered the floor, and a marble fountain stood where a wooden bench had once rested.
Luca ordered the guards to clear the room.
He remembered the bench.
He remembered kneeling beside it, opening a ring box, and asking Elena to build a life with him.
He crouched where the bench had stood.
A loose section of flooring shifted under his hand.
Beneath it lay a small metal case.
Inside were two hospital bracelets, a sealed envelope, and a tiny gold pendant engraved with the letter G.
One bracelet read SOPHIA MORETTI.
The other read GRACE—FEMALE INFANT, UNIDENTIFIED.
The date was the same.
Luca's hands began to shake.
The sealed envelope contained a copy of a neonatal transfer form. The signature authorizing the transfer belonged to Dr. Nathaniel Shaw, the obstetrician who had delivered Elena's babies.
At the bottom of the form was a handwritten note.
Infant B transferred to private care at the request of the family representative.
“Who was the family representative?” Luca asked.
Marco examined the document.
“The name has been removed.”
Luca looked toward Vanessa.
She shook her head before he could speak.
“I don't know anything about this.”
“Then why does Sophia know a woman named Grace?”
“I don't know!”
For once, her answer sounded less like an excuse than a desperate plea.
Luca returned to the metal case.
There was another item beneath the papers: a small audio recorder.
He pressed PLAY.
At first, there was only static.
Then Elena's voice emerged, weak and breathless.
“If anything happens to me, Luca, please find the second baby.”
A pause.
Then another voice spoke.
A man's voice.
“You were never supposed to keep both of them.”
Luca stopped the recording.
He knew that voice.
He had heard it at family dinners, business meetings, and Christmas celebrations.
It belonged to the one man he had trusted more than anyone else.
May you like
His father.
END OF CHAPTER 3
