Chapter 3 - THE HOUSE WITH NO LOCKED DOORS
By six that evening, Grace had learned three things about Matteo DeLuca.
First, he did not ask twice.
Second, he did not appear to understand the meaning of the phrase modest vehicle.
And third, when Leo wanted something badly enough, Matteo became considerably less terrifying.
“I am not moving into your house,” Grace said for the fourth time as a black SUV glided through iron gates taller than her apartment building’s lobby.
“You are recovering there,” Matteo corrected.
“That is moving in with a medical excuse.”
“It is temporary.”
“How temporary?”
“Until you are safe.”
“That is not a unit of time.”
From the back seat, Leo leaned between them.
“It can be.”
Grace turned carefully, protecting the bandages under her loose borrowed sweater.
“You are not helping.”
Leo grinned.
Matteo stared straight ahead, but Grace saw the corner of his mouth move.
The DeLuca home was not what she expected.
She expected marble lions, gold staircases, men with shoulder holsters guarding every lamp.
There were guards.
That part was real.
But the house itself was an old stone mansion overlooking the Hudson, softened by ivy and wide windows glowing against the rainy evening. Inside, there were books stacked on tables, a child’s sneakers abandoned beneath a piano bench, framed finger paintings mixed among expensive oil portraits, and a faint smell of garlic drifting from somewhere deeper in the house.
It looked lived in.
That surprised her more than the guards.
A woman in her sixties came hurrying from the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron.
“Madonna mia.”
She ignored Matteo completely and went to Grace.
“You are too pale.”
“I get that a lot lately.”
The woman frowned at her, then turned on Matteo.
“You brought her through the front in this cold?”
“She was in a heated car.”
“You could have covered her better.”
“She refused the coat.”
“Because it cost more than my annual salary,” Grace said.
The woman’s stern face cracked into a smile.
“I am Rosa.”
“Grace.”
“I know. This one has spoken of nothing else all day.”
She pointed at Leo.
Leo became deeply interested in Rex.
Grace’s chest tightened.
Rosa led her upstairs to a guest room larger than Grace’s entire studio. The bed was covered with a quilt instead of silk. A vase of white daisies sat on the dresser.
Not roses.
Not something extravagant.
Daisies.
“My favorite,” Grace murmured.
Matteo stood in the doorway.
“You dislike roses.”
Grace turned.
“How do you know that?”
“You told the florist at Lumina last winter.”
She stared.
“You heard me?”
“I was at the bar.”
“You were listening to me argue with a florist?”
“You were explaining that roses smelled like funerals and daisies looked honest.”
Grace felt strangely exposed.
She remembered that night. A wedding reception. The florist had mocked the restaurant’s simple table arrangements, and Grace had muttered that she would take daisies over roses any day.
Matteo had been twenty feet away, speaking to a senator.
She had assumed she was invisible.
Apparently she had been wrong for longer than twenty-four hours.
“Why do you remember that?” she asked.
He seemed to dislike the question.
“I remember things.”
Then he walked away.
Grace stood staring at the empty doorway.
Rosa made a soft humming sound behind her.
“What?” Grace asked.
“Nothing.”
“That was absolutely something.”
Rosa smiled and handed her a folded set of pajamas.
“Dinner at seven.”
By seven-thirty, Grace wished she had stayed upstairs.
Not because of the pain.
Because Matteo’s security chief had arrived.
Francesca Moretti was tall, sharp-featured, and dressed in a dark suit that made her look like a prosecutor who had lost patience with the entire justice system. She shook Grace’s hand once, sat across from her in Matteo’s library, and placed a thick folder on the desk.
“We searched your apartment again,” Francesca said.
Grace looked at Matteo.
He lifted one shoulder.
“I gave permission,” Grace said sarcastically.
“No, you did not,” Francesca replied. “But whoever entered before us was looking for something specific.”
That killed the sarcasm.
“What?”
“Paper.”
Francesca opened the folder.
Photographs showed the apartment in greater detail.
The mattress had been cut, yes.
But books had also been shaken upside down. Picture frames had been opened. The cheap backing of Grace’s grandmother’s old mirror had been torn away.
“They were looking for a document,” Francesca said. “Or something thin enough to hide inside one.”
“The pawn receipt?” Grace asked.
“Possibly.”
“Did you find it?”
“No.”
Grace closed her eyes.
“I keep everything.”
“Everything?” Matteo asked.
“Receipts. Tax forms. Warranties for appliances I don’t own anymore. I grew up with a grandmother who believed throwing away paperwork was how the government won.”
Leo, sitting on the rug with building blocks, looked up.
“What did the government win?”
“No idea,” Grace said.
Francesca slid another paper across the desk.
It was an enlarged copy of the pawn-shop receipt.
Grace stared.
“How—”
“You emailed yourself a photograph of it two years ago,” Francesca said. “Your old email backup still existed.”
Grace took the page.
MERCER & SONS PAWN.
Except the store had not been called Mercer & Sons.
It had been called Harbor Exchange.
Item: women’s ring, 14k gold, single stone.
Payout: $460.
Buyer initials: L.B.
Luca Bianchi.
Sofia DeLuca’s brother.
Grace studied the receipt until the words stopped meaning anything.
“Why would your brother-in-law own a pawn shop?”
Matteo leaned against the desk.
“He did not, exactly.”
“Enzo said he owned it.”
“He owned the company behind it. Luca used pawn shops, check-cashing businesses, and small lenders to move money quietly.”
“Illegal money?”
Matteo’s silence was an answer.
Grace looked at Leo.
He was still building a tower.
She lowered her voice.
“So he was part of your organization.”
“He was part of the family.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.” Matteo’s eyes met hers. “It is not.”
Grace felt frustration rise.
“You keep giving me half answers.”
“And you keep asking questions whose complete answers may put you in greater danger.”
“I already have glass holes in my back.”
“Which is precisely why—”
“No.” Grace stood too fast.
Pain caught her and bent her forward.
Matteo crossed the room instantly.
She put up a hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Grace breathed through the burning in her shoulder.
“I am tired of men deciding what I can handle.”
Matteo’s expression changed.
She knew he heard what she had not said.
David.
The money.
The lies.
“You want the truth?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Luca believed someone inside my family was stealing from us.”
Grace waited.
“He said money was being moved through legitimate companies into accounts we did not control. He became obsessed with tracing it.”
“And then he disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Six months before Sofia died.”
“Yes.”
Grace folded her arms carefully.
“What did Sofia think?”
Matteo looked toward the fire.
“That her brother was paranoid.”
“And you?”
“I thought he was using drugs again.”
Grace heard the regret beneath the words.
“What happened to your wife?”
Matteo’s eyes returned to her.
“Car accident.”
Leo’s tower collapsed.
The room went silent.
The boy stared at the blocks.
Grace’s heart squeezed.
She should not have asked in front of him.
“I’m sorry.”
Leo shook his head.
“Mama’s car went off the bridge.”
Matteo looked as if someone had put a hand through his chest.
Leo began rebuilding.
“She couldn’t swim,” he added.
Grace looked at Matteo.
He gave the smallest shake of his head.
Later.
Francesca closed the folder.
“There is something else.”
Grace nearly laughed.
“Of course there is.”
Francesca did not smile.
“Your employment file.”
“What about it?”
“You applied to Lumina online eleven months ago.”
“Yes.”
“You were rejected.”
Grace frowned.
“No, I wasn’t. Julian called me three days later.”
“He did. After someone reopened your application.”
A chill moved over Grace’s skin.
“Who?”
Francesca glanced at Matteo.
For once, he looked genuinely surprised.
“That was not me,” he said.
Grace’s eyes returned to Francesca.
“Who reopened it?”
“We don’t know yet. The administrative account was old and shared.”
“Why would anyone care where I worked?”
Francesca turned her laptop around.
On the screen was an internal security list dated eighteen months earlier.
Names.
Businesses.
Addresses.
Most meant nothing to Grace.
Then she saw one entry.
BENNETT, EVELYN — DECEASED.
Her grandmother.
Under it:
BENNETT, GRACE E. — POSSIBLE CONTACT.
Grace’s chair scraped backward.
“What is this?”
Matteo stepped closer to the screen.
His face hardened.
“Where did you get that file?” he asked Francesca.
“From Sofia’s old encrypted drive.”
Matteo went completely still.
“You told me it was corrupted.”
“It was. Until this morning.”
Grace looked between them.
“You had my name before I ever worked at Lumina?”
Francesca’s answer was quiet.
“Sofia did.”
Grace could hear her pulse.
“My grandmother died nine years ago. I never met your wife. Why would Sofia DeLuca know my name?”
Francesca opened another file.
An audio icon appeared.
“This recording was created four days before Sofia died.”
Matteo’s face lost color.
“Play it.”
Francesca hesitated.
“Play it.”
She clicked.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman’s voice.
Warm.
Tired.
Afraid.
“Matteo, if you’re hearing this, then Luca was right and I was wrong.”
Matteo gripped the back of a chair.
Leo did not look up from his blocks.
The recording continued.
“There is money missing, but it is not about the money. The accounts lead to something older. Something Papa did before you and I were born. Luca found a name in the original ledgers.”
Grace stopped breathing.
“Evelyn Bennett.”
Her grandmother’s name filled the library in a dead woman’s voice.
Sofia inhaled shakily on the recording.
“If anything happens to me, find Evelyn Bennett’s ring. Luca said it does not contain the proof.”
Grace leaned closer.
“It opens it.”
The recording ended.
No one spoke.
Grace stared at Matteo.
May you like
He stared at the blank screen.
Then, from the hall, the house alarm began to scream.
