Chapter 2 - THE ROOM BEHIND THE KITCHEN
Emma stayed very still in Aleandro’s arms.
Too still.
A child her age should have squirmed.
Asked questions.
Touched the gold watch at his wrist.
Pointed at paintings.
Instead, she curled against him as though trying to take up less space.
Aleandro noticed.
He noticed everything now.
The bare feet.
The thin cotton dress despite the cold stone floors.
The way she kept looking over his shoulder, checking the corridor behind them.
And the way her injured finger remained tucked tightly inside her palm.
“Your name?”
He asked softly.
The child blinked.
“Emma.”
“Emma what?”
“Bell.”
Aleandro knew the name.
Not the child.
Elena Bell had been hired as a maid eight months earlier.
Quiet.
Efficient.
Widowed, according to the personnel report.
He remembered signing the authorization.
He remembered nothing else.
That irritated him.
Not because he expected to know every servant personally.
He employed thirty-two people on the estate.
But because a three-year-old had apparently been living under his roof long enough to learn which shirts belonged to him and which corridor led to his dressing room.
And he had never seen her.
“Your mother is sick?”
Emma nodded.
“Hot.”
“Fever?”
Another nod.
“How long?”
Emma lifted three fingers.
Aleandro’s jaw tightened.
“Three hours?”
She shook her head.
“Three sleeps.”
He stopped walking.
Three days.
“Mama still works.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“She says we need room.”
Emma pointed toward the back hallway.
“Mister says sick means no money.”
Aleandro resumed walking.
But something inside him had changed.
His pace was faster now.
The kitchen staff noticed him first.
A dishwasher dropped a spoon.
The sous-chef turned pale.
A pastry assistant immediately stepped away from the tray she was decorating.
Aleandro ignored them.
He passed through the main kitchen and toward the staff corridor.
A housekeeper named Sofia stepped in front of him.
“Mr. Romano.”
Her face changed when she saw Emma.
“Sir, I can explain.”
“Move.”
“Mr. Romano—”
“Move.”
She moved.
Emma’s arms tightened around his neck.
Aleandro felt it.
“Who is your mother’s supervisor?”
Emma buried her face against his shoulder.
Sofia answered.
“Mrs. DeLuca.”
Lucia DeLuca.
Head housekeeper.
Fifty-six.
Twenty-three years with the Romano family.
She had worked for Aleandro’s father.
She had held Aleandro’s coat at his mother’s funeral.
She had keys to nearly every room in the estate.
Aleandro had trusted her longer than he had trusted some blood relatives.
“Where is she?”
“In the laundry office.”
“Find her.”
Sofia hesitated.
“Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Aleandro reached the staff quarters.
The difference between the main estate and the back corridor was not supposed to be dramatic.
That had been one of his mother’s rules.
Staff housing should be clean.
Heated.
Private.
Respectable.
Instead, the corridor smelled damp.
One ceiling light flickered.
A space heater sat outside one room with its cord wrapped in electrical tape.
Aleandro stopped.
“Who authorized this?”
Nobody answered.
Emma pointed.
“That one.”
A narrow door.
Room 6.
Aleandro pushed it open.
The room was dark.
The curtains were closed despite the afternoon.
A woman lay beneath a thin blanket on a small bed.
Her hair was damp against her face.
Her skin was flushed.
Beside the bed sat a plastic basin.
A half-empty glass of water.
Two aspirin.
Nothing else.
“Elena.”
The woman startled awake.
She tried to sit.
Then saw Aleandro holding her daughter.
Her face turned white.
“Mr. Romano.”
She pushed the blanket away.
“I’m sorry. Emma wasn’t supposed to leave the room.”
Aleandro stared.
That was her first concern?
Not why the head of the Romano family was standing in her quarters.
Not why her daughter was in his arms.
That Emma had broken a rule.
He set the child gently beside her.
Emma immediately climbed onto the bed.
“Mama.”
Elena touched her face.
“You were supposed to stay here.”
“I fix shirt.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Fear moved over her face.
“Aleandro—”
“Mr. Romano,” she corrected herself quickly.
He ignored it.
“How high is your fever?”
“I’m fine.”
“That was not my question.”
“I don’t know.”
“When did a doctor last see you?”
Silence.
“Three days?”
Elena looked away.
Aleandro stepped closer.
“What happened?”
“It’s only the flu.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I can work tomorrow.”
“You’re not working tomorrow.”
Panic crossed her face.
“I need the hours.”
“Why?”
Elena said nothing.
Emma answered.
“For room.”
Aleandro slowly turned.
“What does she mean?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Emma.”
The child went quiet.
Aleandro crouched beside the bed.
“Elena.”
She opened her eyes.
“Tell me.”
She swallowed.
“Mrs. DeLuca said staff housing isn’t free anymore.”
Aleandro went still.
“What?”
“She deducts it from wages.”
“How much?”
“Four hundred a week.”
Aleandro stared at the room.
A single bed.
A dresser.
A bathroom shared with the room next door.
Four hundred dollars a week.
“For this?”
Elena’s face tightened.
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Why is Emma here?”
“She had daycare.”
“Had?”
“I fell behind.”
“With what?”
“The housing deduction.”
Aleandro felt something dark begin to settle inside him.
“And you brought her here?”
“Only after hours.”
Emma looked at her mother.
Elena corrected herself.
“Mostly.”
Aleandro understood immediately.
The child had been hidden.
In rooms.
Behind kitchen doors.
In laundry corridors.
While Elena worked.
“How long?”
“Six weeks.”
“Who knows?”
Elena looked toward the doorway.
That was answer enough.
Several people.
Maybe many.
“Why wasn’t I told?”
A bitter, exhausted laugh escaped her.
“You don’t get told things like this.”
Aleandro’s expression changed.
“What does that mean?”
Elena immediately regretted saying it.
“Nothing.”
“No.”
He lowered his voice.
“What does that mean?”
She looked at him.
For a moment, fear lost to exhaustion.
“It means your house runs because everyone is terrified of being the one who brings you a problem.”
Aleandro did not move.
“You want clean rooms.”
She gestured weakly.
“You get clean rooms.”
“You want meals on time.”
Her voice trembled.
“You get meals on time.”
“You want quiet.”
She looked toward Emma.
“So people make things quiet.”
The words landed harder than any accusation.
Aleandro looked at the child.
Three years old.
Hidden because quiet was safer.
He thought of the house he had walked through every night.
Perfect floors.
Perfect schedules.
Perfect silence.
He had mistaken control for order.
The door opened.
Lucia DeLuca entered.
She stopped when she saw Elena awake.
Then saw Aleandro.
“Sir.”
Her composure was almost immediate.
“Mrs. DeLuca.”
“You came home early.”
“That seems to be upsetting everyone today.”
Lucia gave a careful smile.
“I’m sure this looks worse than it is.”
Aleandro glanced at Elena.
“Does it?”
Lucia’s eyes hardened for half a second.
Then softened.
“Elena has been ill. We’ve been trying to help.”
Aleandro looked around.
“With two aspirin?”
“She refused a doctor.”
Elena said quietly:
“No, I didn’t.”
Lucia turned toward her.
“Excuse me?”
Elena looked afraid again.
Aleandro saw it.
“Let her speak.”
Lucia’s jaw tightened.
Elena swallowed.
“I asked Monday.”
Lucia smiled thinly.
“You asked whether you could go to urgent care during shift hours.”
“I had a fever.”
“And I told you someone would need to cover.”
“There was no one.”
“That is not the same as refusing medical care.”
Aleandro looked at Lucia.
“Did you tell her she would lose wages?”
“She wasn’t working.”
“Did you deduct housing?”
Lucia paused.
“The staff contribution policy—”
“There is no staff contribution policy.”
Lucia’s face changed.
Aleandro stepped closer.
“My mother wrote the housing terms herself.”
“Times have changed.”
“Not in my house without my signature.”
Lucia folded her hands.
“We had rising costs.”
“So you charged employees?”
“It was temporary.”
“How many?”
Silence.
“How many?”
“Eleven.”
Elena looked at her.
That surprised even her.
Aleandro’s voice became quiet.
“How much money?”
“I would need records.”
“You have them?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He looked at the doorway.
“Sofia.”
She appeared immediately.
“Call Dr. Marino.”
Elena tried to sit up.
“No, please, I can’t afford—”
Aleandro turned.
“You are not paying.”
Her eyes widened.
“And bring a pediatric nurse for Emma’s hand.”
“It’s nothing,” Elena said.
Aleandro looked at the child’s finger.
“Twelve stitches cost her twelve punctures.”
Emma hid her hand.
He crouched beside her.
“Little one.”
She looked at him.
“You never have to bleed to keep your mother employed.”
Emma blinked.
She did not fully understand.
Elena did.
Tears filled her eyes.
Lucia exhaled sharply.
“This is becoming dramatic.”
Aleandro stood.
The room seemed to shrink around him.
“Dramatic?”
Lucia held her ground.
“You’ve run this estate for years without wanting to know every housekeeping detail.”
True.
Again.
The truth used like a blade.
Aleandro accepted the cut.
“That was my mistake.”
Lucia looked almost victorious.
Then he continued.
“But you mistook my absence for permission.”
Her smile disappeared.
“I did what was necessary.”
“No.”
He looked at Emma.
“You did what was profitable.”
Lucia’s face hardened.
Aleandro turned to Sofia.
“Take Mrs. DeLuca’s keys.”
Lucia laughed.
“You’re suspending me?”
“Yes.”
“Because a maid got sick?”
“Because you charged employees for housing I provide for free.”
“You don’t know the whole situation.”
“I intend to.”
Lucia’s eyes flicked toward Elena.
There was something in that glance.
Warning.
Aleandro saw it.
“What else?”
Nobody spoke.
Aleandro looked at Elena.
She stared at her blanket.
“What else has she done?”
Elena’s lips parted.
Lucia interrupted.
“Be careful.”
Aleandro turned slowly.
Lucia realized too late what she had said.
Not to him.
To Elena.
“Leave the room,” Aleandro said.
Lucia lifted her chin.
“I served your father.”
“And today you are leaving.”
“You’ll regret embarrassing people who kept this house running while you were playing war downtown.”
Aleandro stepped aside.
“Go.”
Lucia walked past him.
At the doorway, Emma whimpered.
Lucia looked back.
The child immediately hid against Elena.
Aleandro watched.
Then he knew.
This was bigger than illegal deductions.
Bigger than a fever.
Bigger than a torn shirt.
He sat beside Elena again.
“Tell me what she did.”
Elena stared at him.
“You can’t protect me from everyone.”
Aleandro’s face changed.
“No?”
She shook her head.
“Not if the person helping her is family.”
Aleandro went still.
“What family?”
Elena looked toward the hallway.
Then whispered:
“Your uncle.”
Vittorio Romano.
Aleandro’s father’s younger brother.
The man who managed every domestic and charitable account connected to the estate.
The man who had raised Aleandro after his father died.
The man Aleandro called Uncle Vittorio.
Elena swallowed.
“Mrs. DeLuca isn’t keeping the money.”
Aleandro felt the room grow cold.
“She sends it to him.”
May you like
And for the first time that afternoon, the torn shirt stopped being the strangest thing Aleandro had come home early enough to find.
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