Chapter 2 - THE NAME IN THE ARCHIVE
Frankie escorted Evelyn to a sitting room beside the library. He did not touch her, but positioned himself between her and the corridor with the ease of someone accustomed to assessing exits.
“Am I in danger?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Please don’t call me ma’am. It makes me feel like I should be holding a teacup.”
“Evelyn, then.”
Her phone lit up with a message from Sophie: WHERE ARE YOU? LUCA SAYS STAY INSIDE.
Evelyn replied that she was safe. A moment later, Rocco entered with Luca. Luca looked handsome in his formal suit, but tension had tightened his jaw.
“Sophie is fine,” he said before Evelyn could ask. “She’s with my mother.”
“What happened?”
Rocco handed her a printed page. It was a copy of the evening’s guest list. Her name appeared beside the address of her antique-lighting restoration workshop.
“That’s public,” Evelyn said. “It’s on my website.”
“Someone circled it,” Rocco replied. “And wrote a note beside it.”
The words were simple: ASK ABOUT THE HARTWELL LAMP.
Evelyn frowned. “My grandmother owned a brass lamp. It’s been in our family forever. But why would anyone here care?”
Rocco studied her face. “Has anyone tried to buy it?”
“No. It isn’t for sale.”
Luca exchanged a glance with his brother.
Evelyn folded the page. “You two know something.”
“We know the name Hartwell appears in a file connected to a property dispute,” Luca said. “Your grandfather owned a warehouse near the old canal. The land changed hands after he died.”
“My mother said it was sold to pay debts.”
“That may be true,” Rocco said. “The records are incomplete.”
“Then why is someone asking about a lamp?”
Rocco’s phone rang. He listened, then ended the call. “The archive was forced open. A folder marked Hartwell is missing.”
“What was in it?”
“Records about the warehouse sale,” he said. “And a photograph.”
“Of whom?”
Rocco hesitated. “Your grandmother, standing beside my father.”
Evelyn stared at the photograph he showed her. Rose Hartwell stood in front of a brick warehouse beside Antonio Ventresca, the family patriarch. The date on the back was twenty-six years earlier.
“My grandmother never mentioned him.”
“Perhaps she had a reason,” Rocco said.
Evelyn called her mother. Margaret answered quickly, asking why Evelyn had disappeared from the party. When Evelyn asked whether she had known Antonio Ventresca, the line went quiet.
“Your grandmother knew many people,” Margaret finally said.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Do not involve yourself in matters you don’t understand.”
The call ended.
Rocco watched her. “She knows something.”
“She always knows something. She just calls it protecting the family.”
May you like
He walked toward the window. “My father kept secrets. I’ve spent years trying to separate the ones that protected people from the ones that protected his business.”
Evelyn looked again at the photograph. “Then let’s find out what my grandmother was protecting.”
