Chapter 2 - Sing Again
I stared at the strip of paper as if it might explain why Isabella Moretti had locked the door.
It didn't.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Mia is three. She didn't understand the rule.”
“I know exactly how old your daughter is.”
There was something strange in Isabella's voice.
Not anger.
Fear.
She moved behind the desk and opened a drawer.
For the first time since I had met her, her hands weren't perfectly steady.
“You think I'm going to fire you.”
“Aren't you?”
“No.”
That answer frightened me more.
Isabella pulled out a second sheet of paper and placed it beside the cardiac strip.
It was a photograph.
Lorenzo Moretti stood beside a black car, dressed in a dark suit. He looked healthy, powerful, almost brutally alive.
Beside him stood a woman.
She was beautiful, with dark hair and a soft smile.
Something about her made my chest tighten.
I couldn't understand why.
“Who is she?”
Isabella watched me carefully.
“My daughter-in-law.”
I looked at her.
“Lorenzo's wife?”
“Her name was Sofia.”
Was.
The word settled heavily between us.
“She died four years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
Isabella's eyes remained on my face.
“What did Mia sing?”
I swallowed.
“A lullaby.”
“Which one?”
“I don't know the name.”
“You don't know?”
“My mother sang it to me. I sing it to Mia when she's frightened.”
“Your mother.”
Something changed in Isabella's expression.
She walked to a cabinet, opened it, and removed a small digital recorder.
Then she pressed a button.
Static filled the office.
A woman's voice followed.
Soft.
Faint.
Singing.
My breath stopped.
It was the same melody.
Not similar.
The same.
The same unusual pause after the third line. The same rise at the end. The same melody my mother had sung while washing dishes in our tiny apartment when I was a child.
I backed away from the desk.
“Where did you get that?”
Isabella stopped the recording.
“Sofia.”
“No.”
“She used to sing it.”
“My mother taught me that song twenty-five years ago.”
“And Sofia claimed her mother taught it to her.”
My skin prickled.
I stared again at the photograph.
Sofia.
Dark hair.
Gentle eyes.
There was something familiar in her smile.
Before I could ask another question, someone pounded on the door.
“Mrs. Moretti!”
Isabella unlocked it.
Elena stood outside, breathless.
Her face had gone pale.
“What happened?”
“Lorenzo.”
Isabella's entire body stiffened.
Elena looked at me.
Then at the hallway behind us.
“His heart rate is rising again.”
“Why?”
Elena hesitated.
“Mia is outside his room.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
I rushed into the hallway.
Mia stood halfway up the grand staircase, clutching her rabbit.
One of the security guards blocked her path.
“I promised the sleeping mister,” she protested.
“Mia!”
She looked down.
“Mommy, I have to sing better today.”
I hurried toward her.
“Mia, sweetheart, you cannot go upstairs.”
Her lower lip trembled.
“But I promised.”
Then a monitor alarm sounded somewhere above us.
Elena turned.
“That isn't an emergency alarm.”
“What is it?”
She ran upstairs.
Isabella followed.
I picked Mia up and started after them before common sense could stop me.
Lorenzo's medical room was suddenly crowded.
A doctor stood beside the bed studying the monitor.
“What changed?” Isabella demanded.
“Nothing medically.”
The doctor looked at Elena.
“You said the child was here?”
Elena nodded.
“She was speaking in the hallway.”
I stared at Lorenzo.
He looked exactly as he had in the photograph except thinner, bruised by weeks of stillness.
The monitor showed seventy-eight.
Then eighty.
Mia whispered against my shoulder.
“He knows me.”
The room went silent.
“Mia,” I said softly.
She pointed.
“His finger.”
Everyone looked.
Nothing happened.
Then—
Lorenzo's right index finger moved.
Barely.
But it moved.
Elena covered her mouth.
The doctor stepped forward.
“Mr. Moretti? Lorenzo, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
He checked Lorenzo's pupils.
“Lorenzo, squeeze my hand.”
Nothing.
Mia wriggled from my arms before I could stop her.
She walked to the bed.
“Mister?”
The monitor accelerated.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
She reached through the rail and took his fingers.
“You forgot my song.”
The doctor's eyes widened.
“Mia, come back,” I whispered.
But Isabella raised one hand.
“Wait.”
Mia began singing.
Quietly.
The room changed.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed normally.
Halfway through the melody, Lorenzo's fingers closed around hers.
Elena gasped.
The doctor immediately leaned forward.
“Lorenzo?”
His eyelids fluttered.
Once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
But his hand remained wrapped around my daughter's tiny fingers.
Mia smiled.
“See?”
I felt tears burn my eyes.
Then the bedroom door opened behind us.
A man I had never seen stepped inside.
Tall.
Gray suit.
Expensive watch.
Cold eyes.
Two armed guards stood behind him.
Isabella's face changed instantly.
“Victor.”
The newcomer stared at Mia.
Then at Lorenzo's hand around hers.
“What is this?”
“No concern of yours,” Isabella said.
Victor Moretti smiled without warmth.
“Everything involving my brother is my concern.”
Brother.
I instinctively pulled Mia toward me.
Victor's eyes shifted to me.
“And who are you?”
“Clara Bennett.”
“The new housekeeper,” Isabella said.
Victor looked at my daughter.
“A housekeeper's child is touching Lorenzo?”
“She produced the first voluntary response we've seen,” Elena said.
Victor's smile disappeared.
“Get her away from him.”
The monitor jumped.
Mia tightened her hand around Lorenzo's.
“No.”
Victor took one step forward.
Then Lorenzo's hand moved again.
Not toward Mia.
Toward Victor.
One finger lifted weakly from the blanket.
His lips moved.
No sound emerged.
The doctor bent closer.
“Lorenzo?”
His lips moved again.
This time, I heard it.
Everyone did.
One broken word.
“Don’t.”
Victor froze.
Isabella stared at her unconscious son.
May you like
And for the first time since I had entered the Moretti estate, I understood something far more frightening than the fact that Lorenzo Moretti was waking up.
Someone in that room didn't want him to.
