Chapter 3 - Vincent's Betrayal and the Missing Necklace
Vincent reached inside his jacket.
Both guards moved instantly.
They drove him against the wall and pulled a compact gun from beneath his coat.
Lily screamed.
I covered her eyes.
Dominic stared at Vincent.
For fourteen years, Vincent Russo had guarded his family.
He had attended Ethan’s christening.
He had stood beside Dominic at his wife’s funeral.
He had slept outside Ethan’s hospital room when the boy was four.
Now he smiled.
Not nervously.
Almost proudly.
“You think this was about Ethan?”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“What does that mean?”
“The cake wasn’t the objective.”
“What was?”
Vincent’s eyes shifted toward me.
Then toward Lily.
“The cake was bait.”
I felt Lily stiffen against me.
“Bait for what?” I whispered.
Vincent looked directly at my daughter.
“To find out whether she could recognize me.”
Silence swallowed the kitchen.
Dominic’s stare sharpened.
“Recognize you from where?”
Vincent smiled wider.
“Ask Maria.”
Every face turned toward me.
“I don’t know what he means.”
“Oh, she doesn’t,” Vincent said. “That’s the beautiful part.”
Dominic stepped closer to him.
“Explain.”
“No.”
Dominic’s calm became more frightening than shouting.
“Vincent.”
“You spent years searching for the person who betrayed your wife.”
My skin prickled.
Dominic’s wife, Isabella, had died in a car accident four years earlier.
At least that was what everyone had been told.
Vincent continued.
“You searched enemies. Rivals. Business partners. Drivers. Mechanics.”
Dominic’s face became unreadable.
“What does Isabella have to do with Maria?”
Vincent looked at me again.
“Everything.”
Dominic seized his collar.
“What did you do?”
Vincent laughed softly.
“I didn’t do anything tonight that wasn’t planned years ago.”
Before Dominic could demand more, a guard entered carrying a tablet.
“Sir, we checked the kitchen cameras.”
“And?”
“There’s no footage of Vincent entering the cold room.”
Vincent smiled.
“But,” the guard continued, “someone deleted eleven minutes from Camera Four.”
Dominic released Vincent.
“Who has authority to erase footage?”
The guard swallowed.
“You.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“And Vincent.”
Vincent laughed.
Then Lily twisted in my arms.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“The man wasn’t alone.”
Every adult in the room turned toward her.
“What?” Dominic asked.
Lily rubbed her sleepy eyes.
“There was a lady.”
My heart began pounding.
“What lady?”
“She was outside the cold room.”
“What did she look like?”
Lily pointed toward me.
“Like Mommy.”
I stopped breathing.
Dominic stared at me.
Vincent’s smile vanished.
For the first time all night, he looked genuinely afraid.
“Lily,” I whispered, “what do you mean like Mommy?”
“She had your hair.”
Dark brown.
Half the women working in the mansion had dark brown hair.
“What else?”
Lily thought carefully.
“She had your necklace.”
My hand moved instinctively to my throat.
A tiny silver oval hung there.
Inside was the only photograph I owned of my mother.
She had disappeared when I was four.
No explanation.
No goodbye.
Just a faded photograph and a necklace left behind with my grandmother.
Dominic looked at it.
Vincent suddenly struggled against the guards.
“Take the kid upstairs.”
Dominic turned slowly toward him.
“Why?”
Vincent said nothing.
Dominic looked back at Lily.
“Did you see the lady’s face?”
Lily nodded.
My breath caught.
“Was it Mommy?”
“No.”
She reached for my necklace.
“But she had one too.”
Something inside me went cold.
Because my grandmother had always told me there had only ever been two necklaces like mine.
One belonged to my mother.
The other had disappeared with her.
Dominic ordered Vincent taken to the basement security room.
May you like
Then he dismissed everyone except me.
Lily fell asleep again within minutes.
