Chapter 1 - THE GIRL UNDER THE STAIRCASE|
Rain swept across the windows of the Vitale mansion, turning the Chicago skyline into a blur of silver lights and black shadows.
Dominic Vitale had spent fifteen years learning to recognize danger before it entered a room. He could identify a nervous man by the way he held a glass, a liar by the pause before answering, and an assassin by the way his eyes moved toward the exits.
But that night, danger came from a five-year-old girl wearing one pink shoe and clutching his wrist with both hands.
“Shh, Uncle Dominic. She’ll hear you.”
Dominic stopped beneath the grand staircase.
Rose Bennett crouched behind a marble column, her brown curls tangled around her cheeks. Her small face was pale, and her eyes kept darting toward the music room.
“What are you doing down here?”
“I’m following a secret spy.”
For a moment, Dominic thought she was playing one of her elaborate games. Rose had an extraordinary imagination, and her mother, Emily, had once joked that the child could turn a grocery list into a criminal investigation.
But Rose wasn't smiling.
“Who is the spy?”
“The pretty lady who kisses you.”
Dominic's expression changed.
Serena Vale.
For eighteen months, Serena had been his girlfriend. She attended charity galas beside him, sat at his table during private dinners, and knew which rooms in the mansion he considered off-limits.
He had trusted her with information that even some of his oldest associates never received.
“What makes you think Serena is a spy?”
Rose leaned closer.
“She puts secret letters in your piano.”
Dominic glanced toward the music room.
The grand piano had belonged to his late mother. Serena occasionally played it when they entertained guests, but Dominic had never noticed anything unusual about the instrument.
“How many times have you seen her do this?”
“Lots.”
“Rose, listen carefully. Did you see her take anything out of the piano?”
The little girl nodded.
“Yesterday, she opened the little door underneath the keys. She put something inside. Then she talked on the phone.”
“What did she say?”
Rose swallowed.
“She said, ‘When Dominic is gone, nobody can stop them.’”
A cold sensation moved through his chest.
Before Dominic could ask another question, the clicking of high heels echoed from the hallway.
Rose grabbed his sleeve.
“She's coming!”
Dominic lifted the child into his arms and stepped behind the staircase. He positioned his body between Rose and the hallway just as Serena appeared, carrying an empty cream-colored envelope.
She wore a white silk blouse, black trousers, and the diamond earrings he had given her for Christmas. Her expression was relaxed, almost cheerful.
She paused outside the music room.
Then she looked toward the staircase.
Dominic held his breath.
Serena smiled faintly.
“Dominic?”
He didn't answer.
She walked into the music room and closed the door.
Rose pressed her face against his shoulder.
“That's her,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“No, Uncle Dominic. You don't know the worst part.”
He looked down.
“What worst part?”
Rose's lower lip trembled.
“Sometimes, she talks to the man who comes to see Daddy's picture.”
Dominic went completely still.
Emily Bennett, Rose's mother, had died two years earlier. The framed photograph of her stood in a private sitting room on the second floor, a place almost nobody visited.
Dominic had ordered the mansion staff never to disturb that room.
“How do you know someone visits your mother's picture?”
“Because I hide there when I'm scared.”
“Who is the man?”
“I don't know. He wears a black ring with a wolf on it.”
Dominic's blood seemed to turn to ice.
He knew that symbol.
The Wolf Ring had belonged to a criminal network that supposedly collapsed nearly a decade ago. Its members had disappeared, been imprisoned, or turned up dead. Dominic's father had spent years fighting them before his own death.
And now a stranger wearing their symbol was visiting his dead wife's photograph.
Dominic carried Rose upstairs to his private office, locked the door, and called Marcus Reed, his head of security.
“Shut down the mansion's external communications. Quietly. Nobody leaves until I say otherwise.”
Marcus hesitated.
“Is there an immediate threat?”
Dominic looked at Rose, who was now sitting on his desk with her knees drawn to her chest.
“Yes,” he replied. “And I think it's been sleeping under my roof.”
A few minutes later, Marcus arrived with two security officers. Dominic instructed them to stay outside while he questioned Rose.
“Sweetheart, I need you to tell me something. Have you ever seen Serena open the piano when she thought nobody was watching?”
Rose nodded.
“Can you show me?”
She slipped off the desk and took his hand.
They entered the music room through the connecting corridor. The grand piano stood beneath a chandelier, its polished black surface reflecting the lights.
Rose walked directly to its left side and pointed beneath the keyboard.
“There.”
Dominic knelt.
A narrow wooden panel had been fitted beneath the keys. It looked like part of the original design, but the edge was too clean, and the screws were newer than the surrounding hardware.
He removed the panel.
Inside lay a small black envelope.
Dominic opened it.
The first photograph showed his private study. The second showed him entering his bedroom. The third showed Rose sleeping in her bed.
Someone had been watching every room in his home.
Then he found a folded sheet of paper.
Four words were typed across it.
THE HEIR MUST DISAPPEAR.
Dominic's fingers tightened around the page.
Rose tugged his sleeve.
“Uncle Dominic?”
He turned toward her.
“What is it?”
She stared at the photograph of herself.
“That's not the only envelope.”
Dominic slowly raised his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
Rose pointed toward the piano bench.
“There's another one. But Serena said if anybody found it, the little girl would be taken away forever.”
Dominic opened the bench.
Inside was a second envelope.
This one carried his family crest.
May you like
And beneath it, written in his dead wife's handwriting, were the words that made his entire world stop.
DOMINIC, IF YOU'RE READING THIS, SERENA HAS ALREADY FOUND ROSE.
