Chapter 7 - The Locked Wing
Matteo moved before anyone else.
He handed Nico back to Liana and pushed her behind the concrete wall beside the stairs.
"Stay down."
This time she did not argue.
The guard with them drew his weapon but kept it pointed toward the floor as he climbed.
Matteo followed two steps behind.
At the top, sunlight poured through a broken greenhouse panel.
The outside guard stood near the door, holding his forearm.
Blood ran between his fingers from a shallow cut caused by falling glass.
"What happened?" Matteo demanded.
"A rock."
The guard pointed outside.
A fist-sized stone lay on the floor wrapped in white paper.
No attacker remained in sight.
Matteo unfolded the paper.
There was one sentence printed in block letters.
CAMILA SHOULD HAVE STOPPED TOO.
Liana came up the stairs behind him.
She read it over his shoulder.
"They know we're here."
"They knew before we came."
Matteo looked toward the distant roofline of the mansion.
The greenhouse was hidden from most windows.
But not from the east wing.
That wing had been closed since Camila died.
Matteo had ordered it locked because it contained her dressing room, private sitting room, and office.
He had not been inside since the week after the funeral.
"We're going back," he said.
Rosa looked frightened.
"Matteo—"
"Someone watched us from the house."
He pointed toward the east wing windows.
"I want to know who."
They returned through the garden rather than the main path.
At the patio, the property looked absurdly peaceful.
The pool glittered.
A tray of untouched lemonade still sat where staff had left it before the afternoon collapsed into secrets.
Liana glanced at the exact place where she had taken Nico from Matteo.
"This morning I thought my biggest problem was whether Rosa would fire me for wearing the wrong dress."
Matteo looked at her floral sundress, now dusty at the hem.
"I think you're past probation."
"Is that a joke?"
"I don't know."
For the first time, Liana laughed.
It lasted less than a second.
Nico smiled at the sound.
Matteo saw it.
Something tightened inside him.
He wanted his son to smile because of him again.
The thought was selfish and painfully ordinary compared with everything else happening.
It was also the most honest thought he had had all day.
Inside the mansion, Matteo ordered the remaining staff into the downstairs dining room.
No one was to leave until he understood who had been using the east wing.
Marisol had not arrived yet.
Her driver claimed they were twenty minutes away.
Matteo did not trust the estimate.
He took Liana and Rosa upstairs.
The doors to the east corridor were locked.
His biometric access failed.
"Again?" Liana asked.
"Someone changed the permissions."
Rosa pulled a ring of old keys from her pocket.
"Electronic locks were added later. The original deadbolt is still inside the frame."
She tried three keys.
The fourth turned.
The corridor beyond smelled faintly of dust and Camila's perfume.
Matteo stopped at the threshold.
Every object hurt.
A framed photograph from their trip to Madrid.
A pale scarf hanging over the back of a chair.
A ceramic bowl Camila bought because she said its crooked shape made it honest.
Liana watched Matteo's face change.
"You don't have to go first."
He looked at her.
"Yes, I do."
They moved down the corridor.
Camila's office door stood open.
Matteo knew he had locked it seven months ago.
The desk drawers had been searched.
Papers lay out of order.
One picture frame was broken.
A rectangle of dust on the shelf showed where something had been removed.
Liana pointed to the floor.
"Footprints."
Faint marks crossed the dust toward the adjoining dressing room.
Matteo followed them.
The closet appeared empty.
Then Nico made a soft sound.
He looked toward the back wall and reached out.
Liana followed his gaze.
"What is it?"
Nico reached again.
Matteo stepped closer to the wall.
A full-length mirror stood between two built-in cabinets.
He remembered Camila complaining that the mirror never sat straight.
He gripped the edge.
It moved.
Behind it was a narrow door.
Rosa whispered, "I never knew that was there."
Matteo pushed it open.
A hidden room appeared beyond.
Small.
Windowless.
Recently used.
A folding cot sat against one wall.
There were bottled waters, clean clothes, a first-aid kit, and a battery-powered baby monitor.
Liana stepped inside slowly.
On the cot lay a gray sweatshirt.
The same color as the hooded woman's sweatshirt in the nursery footage.
She touched it.
"Elena was here."
Matteo examined the baby monitor.
Its receiver was set to the frequency of Nico's nursery.
Someone could have listened to him from this room.
He felt violated in a way money and locks could not repair.
Liana opened a drawer beneath the cot.
Inside were photographs.
Dozens of them.
Nico asleep.
Nico smiling.
Nico with Camila.
Nico with Rosa.
And Nico in Elena's arms.
Some had been taken after Camila's death.
Matteo picked one up.
Elena wore the plain navy uniform of the night nurse he had known as Ana Morales.
Her face was turned toward Nico, but the scar through her eyebrow was unmistakable.
"I met her," Matteo whispered.
Liana looked at him.
"What?"
"I met Ana."
He stared at the photograph.
"I spoke to your sister."
He remembered a quiet woman standing beside the nursery door at five in the morning.
He had thanked her for getting Nico to sleep.
She had looked at him for a long time before saying, He just wants someone to stay.
Matteo had barely listened.
He had been answering an email.
Now the memory felt unbearable.
A tiny knitted sock lay beneath the stack of photographs.
Liana picked it up.
It was yellow, uneven, and only large enough for a newborn.
"Elena made this," she said.
Matteo looked at it.
"How do you know?"
"Because she was terrible at knitting."
Liana laughed through tears.
"She tried to make me a scarf once and somehow produced a triangle."
Inside the sock, one crooked letter had been stitched in blue thread.
N.
Liana pressed it to her lips.
The hidden room stopped looking only like a surveillance post.
It became something sadder.
A place where a mother hid close enough to hear her son breathe.
Matteo imagined Elena sitting on the narrow cot at three in the morning, listening through the monitor while the rest of the house believed she did not exist.
His defensive anger rose and then collapsed.
Whatever legal contract had been signed, no contract could make that grief imaginary.
"She wasn't trying to steal him," Liana said.
Matteo looked at the photographs spread across the cot.
"No."
For three weeks he had treated the hooded woman as the danger.
Now he understood she may have entered the nursery because danger was already inside the house.
Liana found a small notebook beneath the photographs.
Most pages contained feeding times, sleep schedules, and notes about Nico's moods.
Elena had written like a caregiver who knew every breath of the child.
Then Liana found a page addressed to her.
Li, if you ever see this, I'm sorry I let you mourn me.
Her knees buckled.
Matteo caught her elbow.
Liana sank onto the cot.
She read aloud in a broken voice.
"I thought being dead on paper would keep you safe."
A tear fell onto the page.
"I was wrong."
Nico touched her cheek.
Liana kissed his fingers.
The next line was darker.
Dominic knows who you are now.
If he learns where you live, leave.
Do not trust anyone who tells you I chose the clinic.
I did not.
Do not trust anyone who tells you Camila's crash was an accident.
It was not.
Matteo leaned closer.
The final sentence had been underlined twice.
And if Matteo says he never knew my name, ask him about the check.
Liana stopped crying.
She slowly raised her eyes to Matteo.
"What check?"
His face changed.
That was enough.
Liana stood.
"You know."
"Liana—"
"What check?"
Matteo looked toward Nico.
May you like
Then away.
And the silence between them became an answer before he spoke.
