Chapter 2 - The Man Behind the Reputation
The main staircase was beautiful in the way museums were beautiful.
Nothing invited touch.
My shoes disappeared into the dark runner as I climbed, the leather folder tucked against my ribs. At the top, a grandfather clock counted the seconds with a mechanical patience that made me painfully aware of each one.
The patron’s office was at the end of the west corridor.
Everyone called him Mr. Vericio in front of outsiders.
Inside the house, the older men sometimes called him il capo.
I called him nothing because I had spoken directly to Luca Vericio exactly twice.
The first time, he had asked whether the dining room windows had been cleaned.
The second, he had held a door open for me.
Neither interaction had prepared me for what waited beyond his office door.
It stood slightly open.
That was wrong.
I knocked anyway.
“Mr. Vericio?”
No answer.
I pushed the door open just enough to enter.
The desk lamp was burning.
Then I saw the blood.
A dark trail crossed the Persian rug.
The folder slipped from my hands.
Luca Vericio sat collapsed in a brown leather chair beside the windows.
His white dress shirt hung open. Blood had dried along his ribs and across one shoulder. Tattoos covered his chest and forearms, but it was not the ink that stopped me.
It was his face.
The man everyone feared had one hand pressed over his eyes.
His breathing shook.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
A glass rested on the table beside him, untouched. A handgun lay several feet away on the carpet.
He heard me.
His hand dropped.
For one terrible second, neither of us moved.
Luca was 34, perhaps 35. I had never known exactly. In the mansion he always appeared perfectly assembled: dark suits, polished shoes, controlled expression.
Now his hair was wet with sweat.
His knuckles were split.
A bruise darkened his cheek.
And beneath the blood on his shirt, an ugly wound ran along his side.
“Get out.”
His voice was barely recognizable.
I should have obeyed.
Instead, I stared at the wound.
“You need a doctor.”
His expression changed.
Not because I had contradicted him.
Because I had looked directly at him.
“Rosalie.”
The fact that he knew my name startled me.
“Leave.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I am aware.”
“You’re bleeding through the towel.”
He looked down as if noticing it for the first time.
Then he laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Remarkable observation.”
I stepped toward him.
His hand moved toward the gun.
I stopped.
“You can shoot me,” I said, “but you’ll still be bleeding.”
His eyes lifted.
They were darker than I remembered.
“What?”
“My mother used to say threatening the person trying to help you is inefficient.”
Silence.
I could hear my own heartbeat.
Then something happened that I would remember for years.
Luca Vericio smiled.
Barely.
It vanished almost immediately.
“You should be afraid of me.”
“I am.”
That answer surprised him more than bravery would have.
I swallowed.
“I’m just more afraid you’ll die before somebody gets here.”
His eyes remained on mine.
“Why would that concern you?”
The question was quiet.
Real.
I looked at him and understood something nobody had ever told me.
He did not expect kindness.
Not from anyone.
I moved closer.
This time, he did not reach for the gun.
“May I look?”
“You’re a maid.”
“Yes.”
“Are household employees receiving medical degrees now?”
“My mother was a nurse before she became ill. I learned enough to know that arguing wastes blood.”
He leaned his head against the chair.
“You always talk this much?”
“Only when people are being difficult.”
Another almost-smile.
I knelt.
His body went rigid when my fingers touched the edge of his shirt.
I froze.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
His gaze snapped to mine.
The sentence had affected him.
I did not know why.
I carefully lifted the blood-soaked cloth.
The wound looked like a bullet had grazed his side rather than entered it, but it was deep.
“You’re lucky.”
“That is not a word generally associated with me.”
“I need clean towels, antiseptic, bandages.”
“No doctor.”
“I didn’t say doctor.”
“Rosalie.”
“I heard you.”
I went to the adjoining washroom.
When I returned, Luca had not moved.
I cleaned the wound slowly.
He never complained.
But his fingers tightened against the chair whenever the antiseptic touched raw flesh.
“Who did this?”
I regretted the question immediately.
His eyes hardened.
“Forget you saw me.”
“All right.”
“You’re not curious?”
“Of course I’m curious.”
That seemed to amuse him.
“Then why agree?”
“Because people are allowed to have things they don’t want to explain.”
His face became unreadable.
I finished wrapping the bandage.
When I looked up, he was staring at me.
Not at my uniform.
Not through me.
At me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That doesn’t look like nothing.”
He leaned back.
“You saw a gun on the floor. Blood everywhere. A man your coworkers spend their lives avoiding.”
“Yes.”
“And your first instinct was to bring me antiseptic.”
“You were hurt.”
“That is your explanation?”
“It seemed sufficient.”
For several seconds, Luca said nothing.
Then he whispered something in Italian.
I understood enough from my grandmother to recognize the words.
Madonna mia.
I stood.
“You need water.”
“I need you to forget this room.”
I poured him a glass anyway.
His hand shook when he reached for it.
He saw me notice.
Humiliation flashed across his face.
I immediately looked away.
That was when his voice changed.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Look away.”
I turned back slowly.
He held the glass with both hands now.
I understood.
“You didn’t want me watching.”
Nobody spoke.
The clock outside struck 10:15.
Luca stared at me as though I had said something impossible.
Then footsteps sounded in the corridor.
His entire body changed.
The wounded man disappeared.
The boss returned.
He reached for the gun.
I heard voices.
One belonged to Bianca.
“Luca?”
He looked at me.
Then at the blood.
Then at the open door.
“Behind the bookcase,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Now.”
I moved.
A narrow recessed space beside the shelves concealed me from the doorway.
Bianca entered seconds later.
“My God.”
Her heels stopped.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I said I’m fine.”
I pressed myself against the wall.
Then Bianca said something that made the blood in my body turn cold.
“You should have stayed at the warehouse until they finished cleaning up.”
Luca said nothing.
Bianca continued.
“Especially after what happened to Matteo.”
My breath caught.
Matteo Bellucci.
My father.
Dead for 14 years.
A man I had never once heard mentioned inside this house.
The silence in the office became unbearable.
Then Luca spoke.
“What did you just say?”
Bianca realized her mistake.
May you like
Too late.
And behind the bookcase, I stopped breathing.
