Chapter 2 - The House with No Innocent Rooms
By sunset, the Moretti mansion no longer resembled a home.
Armed men guarded every corridor. Servants were separated and questioned in the ballroom. Phones were collected. Vehicles were searched. The kitchen staff stood in one line, the household staff in another. Even the family doctor was forced to surrender his medical bag.
Sarah sat with Emma in a small sitting room beside the laundry wing. Two guards stood outside the door. Emma had stopped crying, but she kept touching the empty pocket in her backpack where the injector had been.
Sarah noticed every time.
I will get you another one, she whispered.
When?
Soon.
You said we do not have money until Friday.
Sarah swallowed.
Then I will borrow it.
From Mister Moretti?
No.
Emma lowered her voice. Is he bad?
Sarah looked toward the closed door.
She had worked in the mansion for eleven months. Long enough to know that Alejandro Moretti owned construction companies, nightclubs, warehouses, and men who never asked questions. Long enough to understand why police cars slowed near the estate but never entered. Long enough to know that some servants disappeared after making mistakes.
But she had also seen Alejandro pay for a gardener's heart surgery. She had watched him sit alone on the terrace at midnight with a photograph of a woman and infant. She had heard him threaten a man for striking a waitress.
Bad was too small a word for men like Alejandro. So was good.
He is dangerous, Sarah said.
Emma thought about that.
Like a lion?
Yes.
But the lion could not breathe.
No.
So I helped him.
Sarah pulled her close.
You did the right thing.
The door opened.
Rocco entered with another guard. His expression had changed since the study. He no longer looked at Emma as an intruder. He looked at her as a puzzle.
Mister Moretti wants to see you both.
Sarah stood slowly.
Is that a request?
Rocco almost smiled.
In this house, there is very little difference.
Alejandro waited in the library, his shirt replaced and his breathing measured. A doctor had given him additional medication and recommended hospitalization. Alejandro had refused. The city hospital was too exposed, and until he knew who had poisoned him, he trusted no ambulance route.
Four people sat across from him.
His younger brother, Luca, elegant and pale in a charcoal suit.
His cousin Bianca, who managed the family charities and wore a silver silk blouse fastened with pearl buttons.
His attorney, Gabriel Voss, whose dark jacket revealed silver cuff links.
And Doctor Elias Crane, the physician who had served the Moretti family for seventeen years.
Emma entered holding Sarah's hand.
Her gaze moved across the adults and stopped on Gabriel's cuff links.
They were silver.
Many men wore silver cuff links, Sarah told herself.
Alejandro noticed where Emma was looking.
Come here, he said.
Sarah tensed.
She stays with me.
Alejandro did not argue. He gestured to a chair near the fire.
I owe your daughter my life.
You do not owe us anything.
Everyone in the room turned toward Sarah. People did not reject debts from Alejandro Moretti.
Alejandro leaned back.
Why not?
Because debts to powerful men are never free.
Luca's eyebrows lifted. Bianca looked amused. Gabriel studied Sarah more carefully.
Alejandro's mouth almost formed a smile.
Then call it payment. Your daughter needs a replacement injector.
Two, Sarah said automatically. One for school and one for home.
Alejandro looked at Rocco.
Make it ten.
Sarah shook her head.
Two is enough.
Emma tugged her sleeve.
Mommy, maybe three.
The room softened for half a second.
Then the lights went out.
A shot cracked from the corridor.
Rocco pushed Alejandro behind the stone fireplace. Another guard covered Sarah and Emma. Glass exploded near the windows.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Someone shouted that the west stairwell was breached.
Alejandro reached beneath the table and drew a pistol.
The library doors slammed open.
A guard stumbled inside with blood on his shoulder.
It came from the service tunnel, he gasped. Someone opened it from inside.
There were only six people with access to the old service tunnels.
Alejandro.
Luca.
Bianca.
Gabriel.
Doctor Crane.
And Rocco.
All six were now in or near the library.
Unless one had given away a code.
Unless one had planned the attack before the lockdown.
A second shot struck the wall.
Emma screamed.
Alejandro turned toward the sound and saw a thin red laser crawl across Sarah's chest.
He moved before anyone else.
He seized Sarah by the arm and pulled her down as the window cracked behind her. The bullet buried itself in the bookshelf.
Rocco fired toward the garden. A dark figure dropped behind the hedge.
Then the estate lights returned.
The attacker was gone.
The service tunnel door stood open.
On the library carpet, beside the bullet mark, lay a small object that had not been there before.
A child's pink hair bow.
Emma touched the matching bow still tied in her ponytail.
Sarah stared at the one on the floor.
Alejandro picked it up with a handkerchief.
Someone had planted it to point suspicion toward the maid and her child.
Or someone had taken it from Emma earlier.
Alejandro's gaze moved to Sarah.
Did your daughter have two bows this morning?
Sarah's face went white.
Yes.
When did she lose this one?
Emma answered before her mother could.
The nice lady fixed my hair after lunch.
Bianca's smile disappeared.
What nice lady? Alejandro asked.
Emma looked around the room.
Then she raised one small finger and pointed.
May you like
Not at Bianca.
At someone standing behind Alejandro.
