Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Blue RoomThe scream did not last long.
That was worse than if it had.
It rose once, sharp and offended, then cut off as if someone had covered a mouth or closed a very heavy door.
Emma lifted her head from my shoulder.
“Mama?”
“It’s okay.”
My voice lied better than I expected.
Alessandro watched me lie and said nothing.
He moved his wheelchair with one hand, smooth and practiced, toward a panel hidden in the walnut wall. When he pressed his thumb against it, the panel slid open to reveal screens.
Security monitors.
Dozens of them.
Hallways.
Gates.
Garages.
Kitchen entrances.
The staff room where I had left Emma.
My chest tightened when I saw the little folding chair with the red crayon still beneath it.
One screen showed the blue room.
It was not blue.
It was ivory and gold, a formal sitting room with silk chairs, a marble fireplace, and windows looking out over the frozen garden. The name must have come from the painting above the mantel: a stormy blue sea under a bruised sky.
Valentina Rossi stood in the center of the room.
She was beautiful in the way expensive things were beautiful. Controlled. Polished. Untouchable. Her burgundy nails flashed as she argued with Nico, who stood between her and the door.
Two other men waited behind him.
Valentina’s face was red with fury.
“What is she saying?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Alessandro pressed a button.
Sound filled the office.
“—absurd,” Valentina snapped. “I have been with this family for six years. Six years, Nico. Move.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can and you will.”
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Does he know you’re enjoying this?”
Nico did not react.
“I said no.”
Valentina laughed, but there was panic beneath it.
“Where is my phone?”
“Being held.”
“On whose authority?”
Alessandro leaned closer to the microphone.
“Mine.”
Valentina froze.
Every camera in that room seemed to catch the same moment from a different angle. Her face turned toward the ceiling speaker, and all the fury drained out of it.
For one second, she looked afraid.
Then she recovered.
“Alessandro,” she said, softening her voice. “Whatever this is, it can wait until we speak privately.”
“No.”
“Are you angry because I adjusted your dose? You were in pain. I followed the protocol.”
“I did not ask about my dose.”
Her gaze flicked toward Nico.
“Then what is this about?”
Alessandro’s voice stayed calm.
“The injection you gave me this morning.”
She gave a small, wounded laugh.
“Your B12? Really? You are interrogating me over a vitamin injection?”
Emma leaned toward the screen.
“That’s her.”
I tightened my arms around my daughter.
Alessandro looked at Emma.
“The shiny lady?”
Emma nodded.
“She poked you. Then you went like this.”
Again, she made that tiny pained face. The twist of the mouth. The flinch. The turning away.
Valentina could not see Emma, but somehow her body stiffened as if she had felt the child point at her.
“Who is in your office?” she asked.
Alessandro did not answer.
“Alessandro.”
Still nothing.
“Is it the maid?” Valentina asked.
My blood turned cold.
“She brought a child into your private office? Is that what this is? You are taking the word of some agency girl and her toddler over me?”
Agency girl.
Not woman.
Not employee.
Not mother.
Agency girl.
I felt something hot and ashamed rise behind my eyes.
Alessandro’s face went blank.
That, I was beginning to understand, was dangerous.
“You will wait there,” he said.
“For what?”
“For Dr. Mercer.”
At the name, Valentina’s lips parted.
There it was again.
Fear.
Quick.
Gone.
But not before every person watching saw it.
“I don’t consent to any examination,” she said.
“No one asked you to.”
The sound cut off.
Alessandro closed the wall panel.
The office became quiet again.
Emma yawned.
The normalness of it almost broke me.
My daughter was tired. Hungry. Probably confused. She did not understand that she had just placed herself in the center of something dark and old and violent.
I shifted her on my hip.
“Mr. Moretti, I need to take her out of here.”
His eyes moved to Emma’s face.
“She needs breakfast.”
“She had cookies.”
“That is not breakfast.”
I stared at him.
He pressed the desk phone again.
“Mrs. Bellini.”
A woman answered.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Prepare eggs, toast, fruit, and warm milk for the child. Bring it to the west sitting room.”
A pause.
“The child, sir?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“Of course, sir.”
He hung up.
I shook my head.
“We can’t stay.”
“You can.”
“I don’t want my daughter near this.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then let us leave.”
He looked toward the door.
“If Valentina is guilty of what I suspect, the safest place for both of you is not outside these walls.”
I laughed once.
It came out sharp.
“Outside these walls is exactly where normal people go when something dangerous happens.”
“Normal people are followed, threatened, bribed, frightened, or made to disappear.”
The words landed with horrible weight.
Emma pressed Mr. Rabbit against my neck.
“She won’t disappear,” she murmured sleepily.
I closed my eyes for one second.
When I opened them, Alessandro was studying me with an expression I could not name.
“You are a single mother,” he said.
I stiffened.
“That is not your business.”
“No. But it is true.”
“How do you know?”
“The agency file listed emergency contacts. You had none.”
My cheeks burned.
“I have myself.”
“Yes,” he said. “That was clear from the way you crossed the room when you found her here.”
I did not want kindness from him.
Kindness from men like Alessandro Moretti always came with a hook.
“I need this job,” I said quietly. “But I need my child more.”
“I am not asking you to choose.”
“You don’t have to ask. Men like you never ask. You arrange the room until everyone else has only one door.”
For the first time, something like respect moved across his face.
“Fair.”
The word surprised me.
He turned his chair back toward the desk.
“Take her to the west sitting room. Eat with her. Stay there until Dr. Mercer arrives. After that, if you still want to leave, Nico will drive you home himself.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then Nico will drive you home now.”
That surprised me even more.
“You would let us go?”
“Yes.”
“Even after what she saw?”
His jaw tightened.
“Especially after what she saw.”
I did not know whether to believe him.
The door opened before I could answer.
Nico stood there, grim and silent.
“Boss. Dr. Mercer is fifteen minutes out.”
“Good.”
Nico’s eyes flicked to me.
“And Valentina?”
“In the blue room. Angry.”
“Angry is manageable.”
Nico hesitated.
“She asked who the child was.”
Alessandro’s hands stilled on the armrests of his wheelchair.
“And?”
“I told her nothing.”
“Keep it that way.”
Emma suddenly leaned out of my arms toward Alessandro.
“You didn’t eat.”
Everyone looked at her.
She pointed sternly at him.
“Cookie.”
Alessandro looked at the napkin.
Nico looked at the floor.
I almost laughed, which was absurd because my heart was still racing.
Alessandro picked up the broken half-cookie.
Slowly, as if accepting surrender from a much smaller enemy, he took one bite.
Emma smiled.
“Good job.”
Nico coughed into his fist.
Alessandro swallowed.
For one strange second, the room felt human.
Then a crash echoed from somewhere down the corridor.
Glass breaking.
A man shouting.
Nico’s hand went under his jacket.
Alessandro’s eyes turned to steel.
“Take them to the sitting room,” he ordered.
Nico stepped toward us.
But before we reached the door, the house alarm screamed.
May you like
And from the direction of the blue room, Valentina Rossi shouted one word that made every guard in the west wing start running.
“Fire!”
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