Chapter 3 - THE MAID WHO CARRIED ANOTHER FAMILY'S SECRET
"My mother?"
Alessia's voice barely escaped her throat.
Dante looked up from the letter.
"Rosa Romano is your mother?"
She nodded slowly.
"Yes."
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Dante asked, "Where is she?"
Alessia looked away.
"In a care facility outside Chicago."
"Why?"
"She has a neurological condition. Some days she remembers everything. Other days she doesn't recognize me."
Dante's expression softened.
"I'm sorry."
Alessia folded her arms.
"Why would your mother know mine?"
He studied the letter.
"That's what we need to find out."
Alessia thought about the suitcase waiting in the foyer.
About Mrs. Conti's eagerness to dismiss her.
About Lorenzo Bellini watching her with that strange, satisfied smile.
A sick feeling spread through her chest.
"Mr. Moretti."
"Dante."
She blinked.
"What?"
"When we're speaking privately, you can call me Dante."
She hesitated.
"Fine. Dante."
He waited.
"What if Bellini already knows who my mother is?"
Dante's expression changed.
"Explain."
"Mrs. Conti hired me seven months ago. She said she'd received a recommendation from someone I never met."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
Dante turned toward Marco.
"Get Alessia's employment file."
Marco nodded.
Minutes later, they returned to the library.
Mrs. Conti stood waiting near the fireplace.
Her face was pale.
Dante placed Alessia's employment record on the table.
"Who recommended Miss Romano?"
Mrs. Conti swallowed.
"Mr. Bellini."
Alessia felt the floor shift beneath her.
"What?"
Mrs. Conti looked at her.
"He personally requested that we consider your application."
"But I applied through an agency."
"Yes. He selected your file."
Dante's jaw tightened.
"Why?"
Mrs. Conti shook her head.
"He didn't explain."
Dante opened the file.
A small handwritten note was attached to Alessia's application.
Place her near the private wing. Observe her visitors and correspondence.
Alessia stared at the words.
Bellini hadn't merely hired her.
He had been watching her.
Dante turned toward Mrs. Conti.
"Did you follow these instructions?"
She lowered her eyes.
"Yes."
Alessia felt sick.
For seven months, she'd believed she had found honest work.
Now she realized her employment might have been part of a trap.
"Did he read my letters?" she asked.
Mrs. Conti said nothing.
"Answer me."
The older woman whispered, "Sometimes."
Alessia stepped backward.
Her mother's medical bills.
The letters from the care facility.
The photographs she'd kept inside her bedside drawer.
Someone had been studying her life.
Dante closed the file.
"Mrs. Conti, you're suspended pending an independent investigation. You'll remain available for questioning."
The housekeeper began crying.
"I was only following instructions."
Dante's voice remained steady.
"That doesn't excuse what you did."
When she left, Alessia sank into a chair.
Dante sat opposite her.
"Alessia, I need to ask you something."
She looked up.
"Has your mother ever mentioned my father?"
Alessia closed her eyes.
A memory surfaced.
Rosa sitting beside a hospital window.
Her fingers trembling around an old photograph.
Repeating the same sentence again and again.
Salvatore didn't fall. Someone pushed him.
Alessia opened her eyes.
"Yes."
Dante leaned forward.
"What did she say?"
Her voice cracked.
"She said your father wasn't murdered by a rival family."
Dante went still.
May you like
Alessia whispered the words she had dismissed for years.
"She said Lorenzo Bellini killed him."
