Chapter 6 - The Wife Who Was BuriedLorenzo did not move.
Rain ran down his face, mixing with blood at his temple, turning his white shirt collar pink. His gun remained in his hand, but his fingers had gone slack around it. He stared at Isabella as if one wrong breath might make her disappear.
She stood three feet away beneath the storm-dark sky, hair plastered to her cheeks, nightdress clinging to her thin frame, Leo’s blanket pressed between her hands as if she needed something to hold or she would fall apart.
“Lorenzo,” she said.
His name broke in her mouth.
The most feared man in the country made a sound I had never heard from a grown man.
Not a sob.
Not a word.
Something torn from a place deeper than either.
He crossed the distance between them and stopped just short of touching her.
His hand lifted.
Shook.
Dropped.
“Tell me you are real,” he whispered.
Isabella reached for him and placed his palm against her cheek.
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
His knees nearly buckled.
Nico turned away, giving them privacy with the loyalty of a man who had served grief too long. Matteo cried openly now, silent tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on his face.
I stood at the hatch with Leo in my arms and Darren bleeding somewhere below, alive or dead I did not know. I should have felt fear. Instead I felt nothing for him at all.
That frightened me almost as much as the rest.
Leo whimpered.
The sound snapped Lorenzo back.
He opened his eyes and saw his son.
Saw him truly this time. Awake. Fed. Breathing. Held by the maid he had nearly shot and saved by the wife he believed buried.
Isabella turned toward me.
Lorenzo followed her gaze.
For a second, all three of us were trapped in an impossible triangle of loss. His wife alive. His son starving by design. My daughter gone. My body the bridge between one family’s nightmare and another’s miracle.
“Give him to his father,” Isabella said softly.
My arms tightened before I could stop them.
Then I hated myself for it.
Leo was not mine.
He had never been mine.
But his weight had filled a space in my arms that grief had carved raw, and letting go felt like burying Lily all over again.
Isabella saw the battle on my face.
She stepped close and touched my wrist.
“You gave him life tonight,” she said. “No one can take that from you.”
I nodded, tears slipping down before I could swallow them back.
Then I placed Leo in Lorenzo Rossi’s arms.
He held the baby like someone handling a relic pulled from fire. Leo fussed once, then settled against his father’s chest. Lorenzo bent his head over him, eyes squeezed shut.
“My lion,” he whispered.
The code I had asked for through the chapel door.
The real Lorenzo.
A shout came from the house.
Nico stiffened. “We have to move.”
We were in a covered courtyard behind the greenhouse, rain hammering the glass roof overhead. The mansion loomed around us, windows blazing now as lights came on across three floors. Somewhere inside, Serafina was rewriting the story faster than we could survive it.
“She will claim Isabella is an impostor,” Nico said. “She will say Mara helped stage it. She will say you were unstable with grief.”
Lorenzo’s face hardened around his pain. “Let her.”
“Boss—”
“I want her to say every lie out loud.” He looked at Isabella. “Can you walk?”
She lifted her chin. “I have been waiting seven months to do more than walk.”
Lorenzo almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he looked at me. “And you?”
“My ex is in the tunnel.”
“Dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you care?”
The question hit too close.
I looked at the hatch.
Darren had stolen my daughter before she had a chance to open her eyes. He had laughed through consequences. He had found his way into this house because evil recognizes useful evil.
“No,” I said.
Lorenzo studied me, then nodded once. No judgment. Perhaps in his world, there was honesty in refusing to mourn monsters.
Nico led us along the covered corridor toward a stone door half hidden behind ivy. As we moved, Lorenzo shifted Leo carefully and handed his gun to Isabella without a word.
She took it like she knew its weight.
I noticed that.
So did Lorenzo.
“You remember,” he murmured.
“I remember everything.”
Again, that almost-smile. Sadder this time.
We entered a back corridor lined with old portraits. This part of the mansion had no polished marble, no chandeliers, none of the false perfection guests saw. Its walls were cracked. Pipes ran exposed along the ceiling. The Rossi estate beneath its beauty looked wounded.
Like all of us.
Nico stopped at a security keypad.
“Serafina changed the codes,” he said.
Lorenzo reached around him and typed six numbers.
The light flashed red.
He typed another sequence.
Red.
Isabella stepped forward and entered a third.
Green.
The door unlocked.
Lorenzo stared at her.
She looked back. “Your birthday. Leo’s birth month. The day you proposed.”
His throat moved.
“Serafina never understood sentiment,” Isabella said. “She thinks it makes people weak. It makes them predictable only to someone who loves them.”
Inside was the old security room.
Dust covered the monitors. Half were dead, their screens black. But six still worked, showing grainy views from hidden cameras that had not been updated with the new system.
Nico sat at the controls and began flipping switches.
“There,” he said.
On one screen, Serafina stood in the main hall surrounded by guards. She was fully dressed now in a black silk blouse, hair perfect, face calm. Beside her stood Dr. Bellini, wiping blood from his mouth with a handkerchief.
On another screen, two men dragged Claudia, the unconscious nurse, down a hallway.
“She’s a loose end,” I said.
Lorenzo’s face darkened. “Nico.”
“Already on it.”
Nico lifted an old radio. “Valez. Do you copy?”
Static.
Then a woman’s voice whispered, “I copy.”
Mrs. Valez, housekeeping manager.
My heart jumped.
“Is Claudia alive?” Nico asked.
“For now,” Valez answered. “They’re taking her to the laundry service exit.”
“Stop them.”
A pause.
“I have three maids and a meat tenderizer.”
Nico smiled grimly. “Use all four.”
The radio clicked off.
Lorenzo looked at me. “You said Valez hired you.”
“Yes.”
“She may have saved your life.”
“Or brought me here.”
“Both can be true.”
On the central monitor, Serafina lifted her phone. A moment later, Lorenzo’s phone vibrated.
He put it on speaker.
“Brother,” Serafina said.
Lorenzo’s voice went cold. “Sister.”
“You need to end this before you destroy what remains of our family.”
“I have my son.”
“You have a sick infant stolen by a grieving maid.”
“I also have my wife.”
Silence.
For the first time all night, Serafina had no immediate answer.
Then she laughed.
It was delicate and cruel.
“Oh, Lorenzo. What did they show you?”
Isabella’s hand tightened around the gun.
“Bring your little ghost to the main hall,” Serafina said. “Let everyone see how grief has ruined you.”
Lorenzo looked at Isabella.
She nodded.
“Gladly,” he said.
Serafina’s voice sharpened. “And bring the maid. I want her where I can see her.”
The call ended.
Lorenzo turned to me. “You can stay here.”
“No.”
All eyes moved to me.
I was tired. Bleeding from one palm. My body ached. Milk dampened my uniform. I had buried my daughter, survived Darren, and entered a mansion that wanted to turn me into a villain.
But Leo was alive because I had broken one rule.
I was done obeying monsters.
“She used my daughter’s death to set this up,” I said. “She used my body, my grief, my fear. If she wants me in the hall, I’ll be there.”
Lorenzo nodded slowly.
Then the old security room door slammed shut behind us.
The keypad flashed red.
Nico cursed and tried the handle.
Locked.
On the monitor, Serafina looked directly into a hidden camera no one had told her about.
She smiled.
May you like
Then she raised one finger and pointed down.
Smoke began pouring from the vents.
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