Chapter 3 - THE PHOTOGRAPH
The rosary felt like ice against my palm.
Dominic’s father, Vincenzo DeLuca, had died in a tragic car accident fifteen years ago. It was a known fact. A blown tire on a wet highway. It wasn't a murder.
“Mrs. DeLuca,” I said gently, crouching beside her chair. “Your husband died in an accident.”
“That is what the police were paid to write,” Rosa snapped, her lucidity suddenly fierce. “But I saw the police report before it was altered. The brake lines were cut. And the man who ordered it was standing in my garden three nights ago, kissing my son’s fiancée.”
I rocked back on my heels.
If this was true, Victoria wasn't just a greedy woman stealing family heirlooms. She was actively conspiring with the family’s greatest enemy.
But Rosa’s mind was fragile. Tomorrow, she might not even remember my name.
“Who is he?” I asked. “Who was in the garden?”
Before she could answer, the heavy oak door behind me swung open.
Victoria stood in the doorway. She had changed out of her red silk gown and was wearing a dark trench coat. She looked pale, desperate, and dangerous.
“Get away from her,” Victoria hissed.
I stood up, instinctively blocking Rosa from view. “Mr. DeLuca told you to stay in your room.”
“Dominic doesn't own me,” she sneered. She stepped into the room and locked the door behind her.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I was a housekeeper in a cotton uniform. She was a woman cornered, with everything to lose.
Victoria reached into her coat pocket.
For a terrifying second, I thought she was pulling out a gun.
Instead, she pulled out a thick envelope and threw it onto the small coffee table. It landed with a heavy thud.
“There is fifty thousand dollars in there,” Victoria said, her voice shaking. “Cash. You take it, you take your little brat from the staff quarters, and you leave tonight. You tell Dominic you made a mistake about the necklace because you were jealous.”
I stared at the money. Fifty thousand dollars. It was more than I made in a year. It could pay for Leo’s specialized tutoring. It could get us out of the tiny room above the garage.
But I looked at the silver rosary in my hand.
“I don't want your money,” I said.
Victoria’s face twisted in rage. “You stupid girl. You think Dominic will protect you? You think he actually cares about the help?”
“He cares about his mother.”
“His mother is a lunatic!” Victoria shouted. She lunged forward, grabbing my shoulders.
We struggled. Her manicured nails dug into my skin. As I pushed her back, her coat swung open, and something slipped from the inner pocket, falling to the Persian rug.
Victoria gasped, immediately dropping to her knees to grab it.
But I was faster.
I snatched the object from the floor and backed away.
It was a photograph. An old Polaroid, slightly yellowed at the edges.
I flipped it over.
My breath stopped in my throat.
It wasn't a picture of Victoria.
It was a picture of me.
I was maybe nineteen in the photo, standing outside a cheap diner where I used to waitress, holding a newborn baby wrapped in a blue blanket. Leo.
But there was someone else in the photo. A man standing behind me, his hand resting casually on my shoulder. A man whose face I hadn't seen in seven years.
Leo’s father.
A man who had walked out on us when Leo was two weeks old and never returned.
“Why do you have a picture of him?” I whispered, the room spinning around me.
May you like
Victoria slowly stood up. The panic in her eyes had been replaced by a cruel, triumphant smile.
“Because, Hannah,” she said softly. “The man you let into your bed seven years ago wasn't just a mechanic. He’s Vincenzo DeLuca’s killer. And he’s coming back for his son.”
