Chapter 2 - The Child Who Drew the Truth
The Moretti estate had been locked within three minutes.
Every gate closed.
Every guest was searched.
No one left.
Yet Sophia and Emma had vanished as though the walls had swallowed them.
Gabriel De Luca was still alive when the private physician reached him. The knife had missed his heart, but he had lost a dangerous amount of blood.
Aleandro ordered him transferred to a secure clinic under armed protection.
The same clinic, Matteo pointed out quietly, where Sophia had undergone fertility treatment.
Aleandro stared at him.
“No.”
Matteo understood.
They moved Gabriel to a private surgical center owned by a neutral family.
The engagement hall became an investigation site.
Not an official one.
The Morettis did not invite ordinary police into family matters unless absolutely necessary.
But Aleandro was no longer certain the family itself could be trusted.
He stood beside the head table while his security chief, Luca Ferraro, reviewed the cameras.
Every feed had failed at the same moment.
Not jammed.
Disabled from inside the estate’s control room.
“Who had access?” Aleandro asked.
“Your brother. Your uncle Vittorio. Your mother. Me.”
“And?”
Luca hesitated.
“Sophia.”
Aleandro looked at him.
“She had access to the security system?”
“You authorized it six months ago.”
He remembered.
Sophia had wanted to coordinate renovations without asking security every time a designer entered the estate.
He had approved her access without concern.
The only woman who had made him forget to watch a door.
Now two people were missing, one man had been stabbed, and a secret pregnancy had been exposed in front of three hundred witnesses.
Matteo approached holding Emma’s drawing notebook.
“It was found beneath the table.”
Aleandro opened it.
Most pages contained childish pictures of the estate.
The fountain.
The kitchen.
The gardens.
Her mother, Elena, wearing a black housekeeping uniform.
Then he found a drawing of the engagement table.
The figures were represented with large heads and thin arms.
Aleandro recognized himself from the black suit and red pocket square.
Sophia wore blue.
Gabriel had a gold circle on his hand.
Beneath the table, Emma had drawn Gabriel touching Sophia’s ankle.
But there was another detail.
Behind Sophia’s chair stood a tall woman in a green dress.
The woman held something red.
A knife.
“Who wore green tonight?” Aleandro asked.
Matteo looked toward the abandoned seats.
“Aunt Camilla.”
Camilla Moretti was Vittorio’s wife.
She had been absent since the lights returned.
Her husband claimed she fainted and was resting upstairs.
Aleandro headed toward the family wing.
Vittorio blocked the corridor.
“Camilla is unwell.”
“Move.”
“She saw a man stabbed.”
“She may have watched it before it happened.”
Vittorio’s face darkened.
“You accuse my wife because of a child’s drawing?”
“I accuse no one.”
“Then why are you storming into her room?”
“To ask why Emma drew her holding a knife.”
For one second, Vittorio looked afraid.
Then he stepped aside.
Camilla’s bedroom door was locked.
Aleandro broke it open.
The room was empty.
A green evening gown lay across the bed.
One sleeve was stained with blood.
On the dressing table rested Gabriel’s missing ring.
Matteo swore.
Aleandro picked up neither item.
He looked toward the open window.
A narrow service balcony ran along the exterior wall.
“Where does this lead?”
“To the old nursery staircase,” Matteo said.
The staircase connected the family wing to the kitchens and the underground wine tunnels.
Exactly the kind of route servants used without being seen.
Aleandro ordered guards into the tunnels.
Then Elena, Emma’s mother, appeared at the doorway.
Her face was gray with fear.
“You have to find my daughter.”
“We will.”
“She told me something this afternoon.”
Aleandro turned.
“What?”
Elena hesitated.
“She said Miss Sophia had been crying in the greenhouse.”
“With whom?”
“She did not know the man’s name. She described someone with a silver cane.”
Only one person at the party used a silver cane.
Vittorio.
Aleandro looked back toward the corridor, but his uncle had disappeared.
He grabbed his phone.
“Seal the underground garage.”
Luca’s voice came through.
“Already done.”
“Find Vittorio.”
A guard shouted from the stairwell.
They had discovered Camilla in the old nursery.
She was unconscious, her wrists tied with silk cord.
When she woke, she immediately denied stabbing Gabriel.
“Someone struck me before dinner,” she said. “When I woke, I was wearing a servant’s robe.”
“Who attacked you?”
“I did not see.”
“Why is your gown stained with blood?”
“It was taken.”
“And Gabriel’s ring?”
“Planted.”
Aleandro studied her.
She looked genuinely terrified.
But fear did not equal innocence.
“Why did Emma draw you holding a knife?”
Camilla began crying.
“Because I was holding one in the greenhouse earlier.”
Everyone went still.
“What were you doing there?”
“Cutting ribbon from the floral arrangements.”
“Who was with you?”
Camilla looked toward the hallway.
“Vittorio.”
Aleandro’s patience disappeared.
“What did he say?”
“He said the wedding must never happen.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“Why?”
Camilla pressed both hands to her mouth.
“Because Sophia’s child could destroy the Moretti bloodline.”
Aleandro felt something cold move through him.
“What does that mean?”
Camilla shook her head.
“My husband has been obsessed with succession since your father died. He believes Matteo is too weak and you are too independent.”
Matteo’s face hardened, but he remained silent.
Camilla continued.
“He said a child would make your position permanent.”
“What child?”
“Yours.”
“Sophia may not be carrying mine.”
Camilla looked at him in confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
“The clinic records were altered.”
Her fear deepened.
“Then he succeeded.”
Aleandro stared at her.
“Vittorio altered the records?”
“I do not know. But he met with the clinic director several times.”
A radio crackled.
One of the guards had found blood in the southern tunnel.
Not much.
Several drops leading toward the underground garage.
A black sedan was missing.
The vehicle belonged to Isabella Moretti.
Aleandro looked around.
“Where is my mother?”
No one answered.
Then Emma’s drawing notebook slipped from Matteo’s hand and fell open to its final page.
The picture showed a car beneath dark clouds.
Inside were three figures.
Sophia.
Emma.
And an older woman with white hair.
Isabella.
May you like
Above them, in a child’s uneven writing, Emma had drawn a single word.
HELP.
