Chapter 3 - The Boy in the WallsI had never seen a powerful man become terrified before.
Not nervous.
Not angry.
Terrified.
Luca Moretti stood in his son’s empty bedroom holding that note, and for three seconds he looked like any father who had suddenly discovered the universe could take away the only thing he loved.
Then the fear disappeared.
Something colder replaced it.
“Lock the property.”
Rafael was already moving.
Luca spoke into his phone.
“No vehicle leaves either gate. Search every room, every service corridor, every camera feed. Nobody enters or exits.”
Men flooded the hallway.
I stared at the blood on the note.
“Is that Mateo’s?”
Luca looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
I moved toward the open window.
He caught my wrist.
“Don’t.”
“There’s no broken glass.”
“What?”
I pointed.
“The window was opened normally.”
“That does not mean—”
“And the chair.”
A small wooden chair had been pushed beneath the window.
Luca stared at it.
I looked around.
Mateo was six.
He had just shown me his Lego collection downstairs.
He had spent most of breakfast asking whether sharks could sneeze.
And Rafael had told me something important earlier.
“He hid from his last nanny.”
Luca’s eyes sharpened.
“In a dumbwaiter.”
We looked at each other.
“Does this house have one?”
“Old service lift. West hall.”
We ran.
The lift was empty.
Luca cursed.
“Where else does he hide?”
“Closets. Under the library stairs. Occasionally beneath my desk.”
“Any tunnels?”
He stared at me.
“This house is over a hundred years old.”
“So yes.”
“The old service passages were sealed during renovations.”
“Sealed how?”
He didn’t answer.
I grabbed his sleeve.
“Luca.”
“Drywall.”
“Kids love drywall.”
He shouted for Rafael.
Within minutes, we were studying architectural plans in the downstairs office.
The mansion had once belonged to a railroad industrialist.
Behind its formal rooms ran narrow passages once used by servants.
Most had been blocked.
Most.
Rosa suddenly remembered one opening inside a linen closet near Mateo’s room.
We found the panel already open.
Luca entered first.
I followed before he could stop me.
The passage smelled of dust and old wood.
“Mateo?” I called.
Nothing.
We walked thirty feet.
Then I heard something.
A sniffle.
“Wait.”
Luca froze.
Another sound.
I crouched.
A narrow opening appeared behind a wooden support beam.
“Mateo?”
A tiny voice answered.
“Claire?”
Luca closed his eyes.
Just once.
Then dropped to his knees.
“Mateo.”
The boy crawled from the darkness.
Luca grabbed him.
Hard.
Mateo looked startled.
“Papa, I can’t breathe.”
Luca loosened his hold without letting him go.
For a few seconds nobody spoke.
Then I noticed the child’s finger.
A shallow cut.
Blood.
“Mateo, did you write the note?”
He shook his head.
“Did you see who did?”
Another shake.
Luca pulled back.
“Why were you hiding?”
Mateo looked toward me instead of his father.
That told me something.
I lowered myself to his level.
“You’re not in trouble.”
He whispered, “I heard the bad voice.”
Luca became still.
“What bad voice?”
Mateo’s fingers closed around my sleeve.
“The man who makes Papa angry.”
Luca’s face changed.
“Where?”
“On the phone.”
“When?”
“Before Claire came.”
“What did he say?”
Mateo lowered his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You said you heard—”
“Luca.”
He looked at me.
I shook my head slightly.
This wasn’t an interrogation.
It was a frightened six-year-old.
I asked, “Why did you hide?”
Mateo swallowed.
“He said my name.”
That was enough.
Someone had called the house.
Someone Mateo recognized.
Someone who frightened him enough to crawl into a wall.
Luca stood with Mateo in his arms.
“Rafael.”
“Yes.”
“Find every incoming call.”
Rafael nodded.
“And the note?”
“I’ll have it processed.”
We returned to Mateo’s bedroom.
The story emerged slowly.
He had been playing when he heard a downstairs extension ring through an old intercom.
A man’s voice came through after someone answered.
Mateo didn’t know his name.
But he remembered hearing the same voice months earlier during an argument in Luca’s office.
Then someone slipped the note beneath his bedroom door.
Mateo panicked.
He cut his finger opening the hidden panel, accidentally smeared blood on the paper when he picked it up, then placed it on his bed because he thought his father needed to see it.
After that, he hid.
The open window?
Mateo had opened it because he believed bad people couldn’t find him if they thought he had escaped outside.
It was brilliant.
And heartbreaking.
Someone had entered the private wing of Luca’s house and frightened his son without physically touching him.
Which meant security had failed.
By evening, three guards had been suspended.
Every employee had been questioned.
I should have gone home.
Instead, I sat on Mateo’s bed while he refused to sleep.
Luca stood by the window.
“You should leave,” he told me quietly.
Mateo immediately grabbed my hand.
“No.”
Luca looked at him.
Then at me.
“I meant eventually.”
“I know.”
Mateo’s eyes were heavy.
“Claire?”
“Yeah?”
“Do bad people know where you live?”
The question hit me.
I tried to keep my voice light.
“Probably not.”
Luca didn’t react.
That meant they probably did.
Mateo squeezed my fingers.
“You can sleep here.”
“Buddy, your dad has approximately four hundred bedrooms.”
“Thirty-two,” Luca said.
I stared at him.
“That correction made it worse.”
Mateo smiled.
Then finally closed his eyes.
Twenty minutes later, he was asleep.
I slipped my hand from his.
Luca and I walked into the hallway.
I expected him to return to business.
Instead he leaned against the wall.
The most feared man in the room from last night suddenly looked exhausted.
“His mother died when he was two.”
I didn’t know why he was telling me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Car accident.”
His eyes remained on Mateo’s door.
“He remembers almost nothing about her.”
“That may be a mercy.”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
“He should remember being loved.”
I had no response to that.
Luca looked at me.
“You lost your mother.”
“Yes.”
“Cancer.”
I stiffened.
“You promised to stop digging.”
“That information came before the promise.”
“Convenient.”
He nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology surprised me.
“Why does Mateo recognize that voice?”
Luca’s face closed.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Was he threatened before?”
Silence.
“Luca.”
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
“What happened?”
“A package arrived.”
“What was inside?”
He hesitated.
“A photograph of Mateo leaving school.”
My skin turned cold.
“You still send him to school?”
“Not that one.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
His jaw tightened.
“Children cannot live locked inside fortresses.”
“Neither can they live like targets.”
Something flashed in his eyes.
“I know that better than you.”
“I’m not judging you.”
“You are.”
“Yes.”
That surprised him.
“I’m judging you because somebody got close enough to slip a threat under his bedroom door.”
He stepped closer.
“Do you think I do not understand what almost happened today?”
“I think you understand danger better than safety.”
His face hardened.
I should have stopped.
Instead I continued.
“Mateo didn’t run to your guards. He didn’t call for help. He hid inside a wall.”
“You have known him six hours.”
“And somehow he trusted me enough to answer.”
The words landed.
Luca looked away first.
I immediately regretted how cruel they sounded.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“You’re correct.”
That was worse.
He looked through the open doorway at his sleeping son.
“I built walls around him because I believed walls were the same thing as protection.”
I folded my arms.
“They’re not.”
“What is?”
“People.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“Reliable ones.”
We stood there longer than necessary.
Something shifted.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Recognition, maybe.
Two people who had spent too much time surviving suddenly seeing another person who understood the cost.
Rafael appeared downstairs.
“Luca.”
His tone changed everything.
We followed him into the office.
A laptop displayed security footage.
At 11:16 that morning, a man wearing an electrician’s uniform entered through the service gate.
Valid contractor badge.
Valid work order.
Except Bellamy Electrical confirmed they had sent nobody.
The camera captured his face for less than two seconds.
Luca stared at the screen.
His entire body became still.
“You know him,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
Luca’s answer was barely louder than breathing.
“My brother.”
I stared at him.
“Your brother threatened Mateo?”
“Half brother.”
“Why?”
Luca did not answer.
Rafael did.
“Because fifteen years ago, Luca inherited something Dominic believed belonged to him.”
“What?”
Rafael looked at Luca.
Luca looked at me.
“Everything.”
The phone rang.
Nobody moved.
Then Luca picked it up.
A man’s voice came through the speaker.
Warm.
Almost cheerful.
“Little brother.”
Luca’s hand tightened.
“Dominic.”
“I heard Mateo met someone special.”
My blood went cold.
Dominic laughed softly.
“The waitress.”
Luca’s eyes found mine.
Dominic continued.
“She’s pretty.”
May you like
A pause.
“And she lives alone.”
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