Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN THE GOLD DRESS
Matteo surrendered his weapon without being asked.
That mattered.
So did the fact that he looked furious rather than afraid.
Dominic ordered him confined to the east study until the access records could be independently reviewed.
Matteo did not argue.
Before guards escorted him away, he looked at me.
“Keep the children upstairs.”
“Why?”
“Because if this is what I think it is, the cake was not the end.”
Then he was gone.
Salvatore remained in the security room.
Dominic still didn’t trust him.
Neither did I.
But the independent technician Dominic called found something within forty minutes.
The override had been restored remotely.
Three weeks earlier.
Using administrator credentials belonging to Matteo.
Except Matteo had been in Sicily that day.
There were flight records.
Hotel footage.
Dozens of witnesses.
Someone had cloned his credentials too.
The trap was wider than any of us understood.
At breakfast, Ethan barely ate.
Lily climbed into the chair beside him and shoved half a pancake onto his plate.
“You need food.”
“I know.”
“You’re skinny.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
Ethan looked at me.
“Can you make her stop?”
“No.”
Dominic sat across from them watching.
His coffee remained untouched.
I knew that because Dominic always drank coffee.
Always.
“Eat,” I told him.
His eyes lifted.
“Excuse me?”
“You haven’t eaten.”
Salvatore, sitting farther down the table under guard, almost smiled.
Nobody ordered Dominic Moretti to eat.
I apparently had lost my survival instincts.
Dominic looked at his plate.
Then took a bite.
Lily nodded approvingly.
“Good.”
For three seconds, the table felt normal.
Then security brought in the guest photographs.
We needed the blonde woman.
Lily sat on my lap while photographs from the party appeared on a tablet.
She rejected twenty-three women.
“No.”
“No.”
“Her dress was ugly.”
I covered her mouth.
Ethan laughed for the first time since the party.
Then photograph twenty-seven appeared.
Lily stopped.
“That lady.”
Dominic leaned closer.
The woman wore a gold sequined gown.
Blonde hair.
Diamond earrings.
Beautiful.
I knew her.
Everyone did.
Victoria Crane.
Dominic’s late wife Isabella’s younger sister.
Ethan’s aunt.
She had kissed Ethan at dinner.
Brought him an antique chess set.
And spent most holidays at the estate.
Dominic’s face emptied.
“You’re certain?”
Lily nodded.
“She talked to the man.”
Ethan whispered, “Aunt Victoria?”
My heart hurt for him.
Dominic closed the tablet.
“Take the children upstairs.”
Ethan stood.
“No.”
“Ethan.”
“I want to know.”
“You’re eight.”
“I was eight yesterday when someone tried to kill me.”
Silence.
Dominic looked as though the sentence had physically struck him.
Ethan continued.
“You always say Morettis don’t hide from things.”
Dominic leaned back.
Sometimes children use our own rules against us.
“Fine.”
He looked at Ethan.
“You stay. But if I tell you to leave, you leave.”
Ethan nodded.
Victoria arrived an hour later.
Dominic told her Ethan had requested family.
Not a lie.
She swept into the sitting room wearing cream trousers and enormous sunglasses.
The moment she saw Salvatore under guard, she stopped.
“What happened?”
Dominic stood.
“Take off the glasses.”
“What?”
“Take them off.”
She did.
Her eyes were red.
Had she been crying?
Or had she prepared herself to look like she had?
Dominic placed her party photograph on the table.
“Lily says she saw you speaking to the man who touched Ethan’s cake.”
Victoria looked at my daughter.
Something flashed across her face.
Too fast.
But I saw it.
Fear.
“I spoke to dozens of people.”
“Who were you speaking to near the cold room?”
“I don’t remember.”
Dominic moved closer.
“You should.”
Her face hardened.
“Do not interrogate me like one of your soldiers.”
“My son nearly died.”
“My nephew nearly died!”
“Then help me.”
Victoria looked at Ethan.
Her expression softened.
“I would never hurt him.”
Ethan said quietly, “Then who did you talk to?”
She swallowed.
“A man named Carlo.”
Salvatore shifted.
“Carlo who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why were you talking to him?”
“He said he worked for the pastry company.”
I frowned.
“No outside pastry company was hired.”
I had personally supervised the cake.
Chef Paolo’s team made it.
Victoria looked at me.
“Then I didn’t know that.”
“What did Carlo want?” Dominic asked.
“He asked where the cold room was.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“And you told him?”
“Yes.”
Dominic’s hand curled.
Victoria’s voice rose.
“He said the sugar sculpture needed refrigeration!”
“He was carrying a silver box?”
“I don’t remember.”
Lily whispered, “You said he gets everything.”
Victoria froze.
Dominic went still.
“What?”
Lily repeated it.
“You said, ‘After tonight, he gets everything.’”
Victoria’s face collapsed.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t talking about Ethan.”
“Then who?”
Tears suddenly filled Victoria’s eyes.
“My son.”
Silence.
Ethan stared.
Dominic looked confused.
“You don’t have a son.”
Victoria laughed through tears.
“That’s what my father made everyone believe.”
Salvatore stood abruptly.
Guards moved.
Victoria looked at him.
“You knew.”
Salvatore’s face had gone pale.
“Victoria.”
“You knew what Isabella and I went through.”
Dominic’s voice cut through the room.
“What son?”
Victoria sat.
Twenty-two years earlier, at sixteen, she had become pregnant.
Her father, Antonio Rossi, considered the scandal unacceptable.
The baby was born privately.
A boy.
Victoria was told he had died within hours.
“He didn’t,” she whispered.
“Three years ago, after Isabella died, I learned he had been adopted.”
Dominic’s face tightened at his wife’s name.
“Who?”
Victoria reached into her bag.
She produced a photograph.
A man in his early twenties.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
I recognized him.
Not immediately.
Then my blood turned cold.
Thomas Reed.
One of Dominic’s junior security officers.
The man who had served drinks near the ballroom.
The man whose shift ended nine minutes before Ethan’s cake was served.
Victoria said, “His name is Thomas now.”
Salvatore whispered, “Dear God.”
Dominic stared at the photograph.
“Thomas is your son?”
“Yes.”
“And when you said ‘he gets everything’?”
“My father left money in a private trust. It transfers to Thomas when his identity is legally restored.”
Lily had heard part of a completely different conversation.
Victoria was not necessarily the killer.
Then Salvatore said, “Where is Thomas?”
Nobody knew.
Dominic called security.
No answer.
Thomas had left the estate at 6:02 the previous evening.
His apartment was empty.
His phone was off.
Dominic looked toward me.
“Was Thomas ever in the staff wing?”
“Yes.”
Every guard had been.
Then I remembered something.
Three weeks earlier, Lily had fallen near the laundry stairs.
Thomas carried her to me.
He had been kind.
Patient.
She liked him.
My stomach tightened.
“Lily.”
She looked at me.
“Was Thomas the man in the cold room?”
She studied his photograph.
Then shook her head.
“No.”
Dominic exhaled.
Not relief.
More confusion.
Thomas was involved somehow.
But Lily had seen someone else.
Victoria covered her face.
“I told Thomas about the trust two weeks ago.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“Why?”
“He wanted to know why I suddenly started contacting him.”
“And what happens to your father’s money if Thomas dies?”
She looked up.
“It goes to Isabella’s descendants.”
Ethan.
The inheritance circles were becoming impossible.
Then Ethan suddenly said, “Dad.”
“What?”
“Thomas gave me something yesterday.”
Dominic froze.
“What?”
“A birthday card.”
“Where is it?”
“My room.”
We found it inside Ethan’s desk.
No money.
No message except:
FOR WHEN YOU’RE OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW WHAT YOUR FAMILY DID TO MINE.
Inside the envelope was a key.
Dominic recognized it immediately.
A safe-deposit key.
And beneath it, three words:
ASK ABOUT ISABELLA.
Dominic’s late wife had died four years earlier in a highway accident.
At least that was what everyone believed.
But when Dominic looked at the key, I saw the exact same fear I had seen when Ethan’s cake tested positive.
Whatever Thomas wanted us to find had nothing to do with a birthday.
May you like
It had begun before Ethan ever blew out a candle.
And perhaps before Isabella Moretti died.
