Chapter 1 - THE FIVE-YEAR-OLD WHO EXPOSED HIS SECRET SPY
“She’s a secret spy, Uncle Dominic. I saw her hiding papers inside your piano.”
My five-year-old daughter whispered those words to the most feared man in Chicago while crouching beneath the marble staircase of his mansion.
Dominic Vitali had trusted his beautiful girlfriend for eighteen months. He had trusted his closest business partner for twenty years. But when he looked down the hallway and saw Serena carrying an empty cream-colored envelope, he realized that one of them might have been lying to him—and my little girl had noticed before anyone else.
The first thing I heard was my daughter whispering, “Shhh, Uncle Dominic. She’s coming.”
The second was the sharp click of expensive heels against marble.
I was standing in the laundry room of Vitali House with a basket of freshly folded towels when I heard the footsteps overhead. I didn’t think much of them until a man’s voice came from the main hallway, unusually low and controlled.
“Rose, what are you doing under there?”
“I’m following a secret spy.”
My hands stopped moving.
I recognized that voice.
Dominic Vitali could silence a room without raising his own. At forty-two, he controlled several freight companies, commercial properties, and restaurants throughout Chicago. Newspapers called him a businessman with alleged ties to organized crime, but people who worked in his house rarely discussed the difference.
I had worked for him for almost two years.
I’d never heard anyone speak to him the way my daughter did.
“Who’s the spy?” he asked.
There was a pause.
Then Rose whispered, “The pretty lady who kisses you.”
A cold feeling moved through my stomach.
I set down the basket and hurried toward the service hallway.
By the time I reached the main staircase, Dominic was crouched beside its lowest marble step. Rose sat behind a decorative column wearing pink sneakers, a yellow sweater, and the serious expression she usually reserved for examining bugs in the garden.
One sneaker had come untied.
Her brown curls were tangled around the collar of her sweater.
In one hand, she held a small notebook decorated with purple butterflies.
Dominic looked up when he saw me.
“Emily.”
“Rose Bennett!”
My daughter flinched.
“Mommy, I’m working.”
“You are supposed to be with Mrs. Alvarez in the breakfast room.”
“She went to get my apple.”
“Then you wait for her.”
Rose opened her mouth to argue.
Dominic raised one hand gently.
“Emily, it’s all right.”
I looked at him.
“With respect, Mr. Vitali, I’m not sure it is.”
His expression changed slightly.
Before either of us could speak again, Rose grabbed his sleeve.
“She’s coming back.”
We heard the heels first.
Then Serena Bellini appeared at the far end of the hallway.
She was thirty-four, beautiful in an almost intimidating way, with dark auburn hair that fell over the shoulders of a cream silk blouse. She wore slim black trousers, gold earrings, and perfume that seemed to reach a room several seconds before she did.
She had lived at the estate for eighteen months.
Everybody assumed she would eventually become Mrs. Vitali.
She stopped when she saw Dominic kneeling beside Rose.
“Darling?”
Her smile was immediate.
“What are you doing on the floor?”
Dominic rose slowly.
“Talking to Rose.”
Serena glanced at my daughter.
Then at me.
“Oh. Our little explorer.”
Something about the way she said our made my shoulders tighten.
Rose moved closer to my leg.
Serena was holding a cream-colored envelope.
It had been folded across the middle.
The top flap was open.
I noticed because Rose was staring directly at it.
“Were you in the music room?” Dominic asked casually.
Serena blinked.
“Yes. I was looking for the Chopin sheet music you mentioned.”
“Did you find it?”
“Not the right arrangement.”
She smiled again.
“Why?”
“No reason.”
For a moment, they looked at each other.
Then Serena stepped closer and kissed his cheek.
“I have a charity committee call in twenty minutes. We can have dinner together afterward.”
“Of course.”
She turned and walked upstairs.
Her heels clicked against the marble until the sound disappeared beyond the second-floor landing.
Only then did Dominic look down at Rose.
“What did you see, sweetheart?”
My daughter lowered her voice.
“Miss Serena puts letters inside the piano.”
His expression remained still.
“What kind of letters?”
“The secret kind.”
“Why do you think they’re secret?”
Rose considered the question seriously.
“Because she looks behind her first.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
Dominic crouched again.
“How many times have you seen her do that?”
Rose opened her notebook.
I stared.
Inside were crooked drawings of a grand piano, little cream rectangles, and several large circles that apparently represented the chandelier in the music room.
There were dates written in my handwriting.
Or rather, copied from the calendar I’d helped her practice reading.
“Monday,” she said, pointing to one page. “Wednesday. Thursday. And the other Monday.”
Dominic studied the notebook.
“Why were you watching her?”
“Because she told me not to play in there.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s doing something wrong.”
“I know.”
Rose looked toward the hallway.
“But yesterday she said, ‘Marco needs the pictures before Friday.’ And then she said you wouldn’t know until it was too late.”
Dominic went completely motionless.
I knew that name.
Marco Bellini was his oldest friend.
His closest business partner.
The man who came to the estate almost every week and treated the house as though he owned part of it.
Dominic closed Rose’s notebook.
Then he looked at me.
“Emily, I need to speak with you.”
I felt my pulse quicken.
“About what?”
He glanced toward the empty staircase.
“About keeping your daughter away from the music room.”
I thought he was angry.
I thought Rose had embarrassed him.
I thought I might lose my job.
May you like
Then he leaned closer and said something I would remember for the rest of my life.
“And I need you to understand that someone in this house may be doing something far more dangerous than your daughter realizes.”
Related Stories
