The Woman in Room Twelve

“She took your son.”

Luca repeated the words slowly.

The air in the bedroom seemed to freeze.

Sofia pressed the child’s drawing against her chest, her composure entirely breaking.

“Vanessa told me if I didn’t sign the Moretti inheritance waiver tonight, handing my half of the estate to her, Leo would disappear.”

Luca didn’t yell.

His face went completely blank.

It was the expression of a man shifting from a brother to a boss.

“Where is he?” Luca asked.

“I don’t know. She said she’d bring him here after the dinner, once the papers were signed.”

Luca turned on his heel.

I ran after him, Sofia close behind.

We reached the top of the grand staircase just as the front doors of the mansion banged open.

Three of Luca’s security men were dragging a struggling figure back inside.

It was Vanessa.

She had tried to run.

The thirty-one dinner guests were standing in the foyer in panicked silence. Dr. Mercer was gripping the banister.

Luca descended the stairs.

Every step echoed like a gunshot.

The security men forced Vanessa into a chair in the center of the foyer.

Her red satin dress was torn at the hem.

Her perfect hair was ruined.

Luca stopped exactly two feet in front of her.

He didn’t raise a hand. He just looked down at her.

“Where is my nephew?”

Vanessa flinched.

She looked past Luca and saw Sofia standing at the top of the stairs with me.

“I told you to stay in the room!” Vanessa shrieked at her.

“Where is the boy, Vanessa?” Luca’s voice was a terrifying whisper.

Vanessa lifted her chin, trying to muster a final scrap of leverage.

“If you hurt me, Luca, the Commission’s men will put that child on a plane to Italy tonight. You’ll never see him.”

“You sold a six-year-old boy to pay your gambling debts.”

“I did what I had to do!” she screamed, her mask finally shattering. “You gave me nothing! A ring, a title, but no power! I was drowning, Luca!”

Luca pulled his phone from his pocket.

“Marco,” he said into the receiver.

The head of his security stepped out of the shadows of the dining room.

“Yes, Boss.”

“Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves. Not the guests, not the staff.”

Luca looked back at Vanessa.

“You’re going to tell me exactly where he is.”

“No,” Vanessa sneered. “You kill me either way. But if I don’t check in with my men in twenty minutes, the boy is gone.”

I looked at Vanessa’s torn dress.

Then I noticed her evening clutch sitting on the console table where Luca had dropped it earlier.

“Mr. Moretti,” I said quietly.

Everyone looked at me.

I walked over to the table and picked up the clutch.

“Before dinner, I saw Mrs. Bellini’s driver bring her car around to the front. But he didn’t park it in the garage. He left it running near the service gate.”

Vanessa’s eyes widened in genuine panic. “Put that down!”

I opened the clutch.

I pulled out a small, heavy piece of metal.

A valet key.

“She wasn’t planning to stay for the engagement dinner,” I said, looking at Luca. “She was going to get the signature, take the money, and run before you ever knew.”

Luca took the key from my hand.

“Marco,” Luca ordered. “Search her car. Every inch.”

Vanessa lunged forward, but the guards shoved her back into the chair.

“You’re a dead man, Luca!” she screamed. “The Commission knows about the twin! They know Antonio broke the rules to hide her!”

Luca ignored her. He walked up the stairs to Sofia.

He didn’t touch her, sensing her fragility, but his eyes were fiercely protective.

“We will find him,” he promised his sister.

Two minutes later, Marco ran back through the front doors.

He wasn’t holding a weapon.

He was holding a glossy piece of paper.

“Boss,” Marco panted. “It was in her glovebox.”

He handed it to Luca.