Chapter 4 - HANNAH COLLINS GOES HOME
Hannah was discharged from the hospital late that afternoon with orders for rest, medication, and a firm warning not to put weight on her right leg any more than necessary.
She expected one of the household drivers or perhaps Daniel to pick her up.
Instead, Luca Moretti himself walked into the discharge area.
He wore a charcoal suit and looked as if he had not slept at all. There was a roughness around his eyes she had never seen before.
“You came back,” Hannah said before she could stop herself.
His expression shifted almost imperceptibly.
“I said I would.”
She felt suddenly self-conscious in the plain clothes the hospital had returned to her: dark jeans carefully pulled over the bandaged thigh, a soft blue sweater, her hair tied back because the cut on her cheek made everything else feel too complicated.
“I can take a taxi,” she said.
“No.”
“I don’t live far.”
“All the more reason for me to see where you’re going.”
He took the discharge papers from her hand and thanked the nurse before Hannah could argue further. Then he escorted her carefully to the car, one hand hovering near her back in case she lost balance.
Her apartment was on the third floor of a small brick building on the north side. No elevator.
When they reached the front entrance, Hannah stopped.
Luca looked up at the stairs, then back at her.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
She let out the first small laugh she’d managed since the night before. “I usually don’t notice.”
He glanced at her injured leg. “Today you’re noticing.”
He helped her up all three flights, slowly and with an impatience directed not at her but at the building itself, as if he might buy it just to install an elevator out of irritation. By the time they reached her door, Hannah was breathless and embarrassed.
Her apartment was tiny.
One bedroom. Small kitchen. Mismatched furniture. Clean but modest. Books stacked on a side table. A faded sofa with a crocheted blanket over one arm. Potted herbs in the window. Framed photographs on the wall.
It felt painfully ordinary after the scale of his mansion.
Luca took it all in without comment.
“You live alone?” he asked.
She nodded. “My mother died two years ago. Before that, I was taking care of her.”
He looked at a framed photo on the shelf: Hannah beside an older woman with the same eyes.
“She looks kind.”
“She was.”
He set her bag on the table. “Who’s helping you while you recover?”
“No one. I’ll manage.”
His gaze shifted back to her.
“With stitches in your leg and glass pulled out of your arms?”
“I’ve handled worse.”
He didn’t like that answer.
She could tell by the way his jaw tightened.
“I’ll send someone,” he said.
“No.”
The refusal came out faster than she intended.
Luca turned fully toward her.
Hannah sighed and rested one hand on the back of a chair.
“Mr. Moretti…”
“Luca.”
She blinked. “What?”
“If you’re going to argue with me in your own apartment, use my first name.”
That startled another laugh out of her. “Fine. Luca. I don’t need one of your employees hovering over me.”
“You need help.”
“I need rest. Quiet. And not to feel like I’m suddenly part of your household drama.”
He was silent for a moment.
Then: “You already are.”
The truth of it sat heavily between them.
“She asked whether you were coming back,” he added.
Hannah’s expression softened instantly. “Lily?”
He nodded.
“How is she?”
“Frightened. But better. Angry, too, I think. She doesn’t understand all of it, only that someone she trusted was cruel to her.”
Hannah looked down.
“She’s too little for that.”
“Yes.”
He moved toward the window and glanced out at the street below.
“Vanessa escaped.”
Hannah looked up sharply. “What?”
“She had help. Michael’s gone too.”
A chill went through her.
“Do you think she’d come after Lily?”
Luca turned back.
“If she does, she won’t get close.”
Something in the certainty of his voice made Hannah believe him.
He stepped nearer again, lowering his tone.
“I also don’t know whether she blames you more than she blames me.”
Hannah understood immediately.
Because she had broken the painting.
Because she had revealed the room.
Because she had destroyed Vanessa’s plan.
“She won’t come here,” Hannah said, though the words sounded weak.
Luca looked around the apartment. “That’s not a gamble I intend to take.”
He pulled out his phone and sent two messages.
“What are you doing?”
“Putting a man downstairs in the car until tomorrow.”
“Luca—”
“You can refuse everything else,” he said. “Not that.”
She stared at him.
He stared back.
And in that moment Hannah understood something important about Luca Moretti: he was not a man used to being disobeyed, but he was trying—very deliberately—to make this about her safety rather than his control.
“All right,” she said at last. “One man. Outside. Until tomorrow.”
He nodded once.
Then his eyes landed on a narrow stack of rolled papers beside the bookshelf.
“What are those?”
Hannah followed his gaze. “Old architecture plans.”
“You study architecture?”
“Used to.” Her mouth curved sadly. “I was in school before my mother got sick. I left to work full-time.”
That explained more than he expected.
“You recognized the concealed room because you’d seen plans.”
“Yes. When the house underwent renovations last year, I was helping inventory old documents in the basement archive. I came across some of the original layouts.”
He considered that.
“You remembered it under pressure.”
“So did Lily when she cried my name from behind the wall.”
His gaze held hers.
Then he nodded, as though acknowledging something deeper than the sentence itself.
At the door, before leaving, he paused.
“Hannah.”
She looked up.
“If I ask you to come back to the house when you’re stronger, not as staff tonight but so Lily can see you… would you?”
The question mattered more than it should have.
Hannah leaned on the chair and studied him.
“Yes,” she said softly. “For Lily, yes.”
He accepted the answer and left.
An hour later, she heard a knock. She expected him to have forgotten something.
Instead, the driver stood there with groceries, prescriptions, fresh bandages, and a note in clean blunt handwriting:
You said you didn’t want someone hovering. This is not hovering.
—L.M.
May you like
Hannah sat on the sofa and laughed despite herself.
Then she cried for the first time since the portrait shattered.
