THE SOUND BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR

The air in the nursery went freezing cold.

“I’m not lying,” I said, holding my ground even as Luca loomed over me. “I was eighteen. A woman came into my mother’s diner at three in the morning. She was bleeding. She traded this bracelet for a bus ticket and a burner phone.”

Luca’s chest rose and fell heavily. “My sister died in a car crash.”

“Then whoever died in that crash wasn’t the woman at the diner,” I said.

Vanessa stepped forward, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. “Luca, listen to her. She’s making up stories to save her job. She stole it. She’s a thief and a liar. I want her packed and out of this house in ten minutes.”

Luca didn’t look at Vanessa. He looked at Leo, who was still clutching my apron, refusing to let go.

“She doesn’t leave,” Luca said softly. “Grace stays. In fact, she’s moving into the room next to Leo’s. She is his nanny now.”

Vanessa gasped. “You can’t be serious! She’s a maid!”

“She’s the only person in this house my nephew isn’t terrified of,” Luca snapped.

I knelt down to Leo’s level. I wasn’t a nanny. I was a bookkeeping student drowning in debt. But looking into this little boy’s eyes, I knew I couldn’t leave him with Vanessa.

“I’ll stay,” I said.

Later that night, I went to the staff quarters to pack my few belongings. The house was dead quiet.

Vanessa’s true motive was suddenly glaringly obvious. Luca’s sister had left a massive trust fund for Leo. If Leo was declared mentally unstable, control of the money went to his guardian—Luca. And soon, by marriage, Vanessa.

I opened the closet to grab my winter coat.

As I pulled it off the hanger, I realized it wasn’t mine. It was a designer cashmere coat Vanessa had discarded in the staff room weeks ago.

I went to toss it aside, but a heavy crinkle in the pocket stopped me.

I reached inside.

My fingers closed around a crumpled photograph.

I pulled it out into the dim light. It was Vanessa, smiling, arm-in-arm with a tall, scarred man.

I recognized the man instantly. He was the one who had chased the bleeding woman into my mother’s diner ten years ago.