WHEN I GROW UP

Matteo ended the call before Dominic could say another word.

Grace watched him place the phone on the table.

“Lock the doors,” Matteo said.

Thomas Bell moved immediately.

Grace stiffened. “Mr. Moretti, I’m not your prisoner.”

“No,” Matteo said. “You’re the only person in this house who may know what my wife said before she died.” He glanced toward the hallway. “And my brother somehow knows we’re talking.”

A soft mechanical click sounded as Thomas secured the dining-room doors.

Grace looked at the ring in her palm.

“I should have told you sooner.”

“You should have told me three years ago.”

“I tried.”

“Then start there.”

She inhaled slowly.

Three years earlier, Grace Bennett had been a night-shift emergency nurse at St. Catherine’s Medical Center. She had been twenty-five, exhausted, saving for graduate school, and completely unaware of the war attached to the name Elena Moretti until an ambulance came through the bay doors shortly after midnight.

Elena had been conscious for eleven minutes.

“She knew she was dying,” Grace said.

Matteo’s jaw tightened.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. Nurses know.”

He looked away.

Grace continued carefully. “She asked me whether anyone from your family had arrived. I said no. She grabbed my wrist hard enough to leave bruises.”

“What did she say?”

Grace hesitated.

Matteo turned back. “Exact words.”

“She said, ‘It wasn’t Ferraro.’”

The rain seemed louder.

Thomas closed his eyes.

Matteo said nothing.

Grace went on. “Then she said, ‘The car was ours. Tell Matteo to look at the driver.’”

Matteo’s expression became unreadable.

Elena had left the charity event in a Moretti sedan driven by a family employee named Raymond Cole. Cole had died at the scene. Matteo had been told the vehicle was struck by another car belonging to men connected to the Ferraros.

“Anything else?”

“She tried to say a name. I couldn’t understand it. Then she took off her ring, put it in my hand, and said, ‘For Mia. He has to choose her.’”

Matteo frowned. “Choose her over what?”

“She never said.”

The door handle turned from outside.

Once.

Twice.

Then Dominic’s voice came through the wood. “Matteo.”

Thomas looked at him.

Matteo didn’t move.

“Open the door.”

“No.”

A pause.

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Then explain it through the door.”

Dominic laughed once, without humor. “In front of staff?”

“Thomas has been family longer than you’ve been honest.”

Thomas looked alarmed by the compliment and the accusation folded into it.

Dominic lowered his voice. “Grace Bennett was dismissed because she falsified her employment history.”

Grace blinked.

Matteo looked at her.

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

The answer came fast enough to surprise him.

“I used my mother’s last name when I applied here. I left nursing off the résumé.”

Dominic’s voice sharpened through the door. “And you think that makes her trustworthy?”

Grace raised her voice. “I changed my name because two men followed me home after I tried to contact Matteo the first time.”

Silence outside.

Matteo’s eyes shifted toward the door.

“Two men?”

“Yes.”

“Did you recognize them?”

“No. But one told me the Moretti family had no interest in hearing from me again.”

Dominic said, “She’s lying.”

Matteo walked to the door until only carved wood separated the brothers.

“Then tell me how you knew she was in here talking about Elena.”

No answer.

That silence mattered more than any speech.

Matteo turned to Thomas. “Take Grace to the blue sitting room. Two guards I choose. Nobody else enters.”

Grace shook her head. “I need to check on Mia.”

“My daughter is asleep.”

“She was anxious tonight.”

“You think I don’t know my own child?”

Grace’s expression softened, which somehow made the question feel worse.

“I think you’re learning her again.”

Matteo flinched as if she had struck him.

Before he could respond, rapid footsteps sounded upstairs.

Then came a small scream.

“Grace!”

Everything changed.

Matteo unlocked the doors himself.

Mia stood halfway down the grand staircase in pink pajamas, barefoot, clutching her stuffed rabbit to her chest. One of the maids hovered behind her, afraid to touch her.

“Grace!” Mia cried again.

Grace moved first.

She crossed the foyer and knelt at the base of the stairs just as Mia ran down the last steps and threw herself into her arms.

“I thought you left.”

“I’m right here.”

“You promised breakfast.”

“I remember.”

Mia buried her face against Grace’s shoulder.

Matteo stopped several feet away.

Dominic stood near the dining-room door, tall and elegant in a charcoal suit. At forty-three, he had the same dark Moretti eyes but a lighter smile, the kind that convinced strangers he was the reasonable brother.

Now he watched Grace and Mia with a look Matteo had never noticed before.

Calculation.

Mia peeked over Grace’s shoulder and saw Dominic.

Her small body tightened.

Matteo saw it.

“Mia.”

She looked at him.

“Come here.”

Her arms tightened around Grace.

His heart sank.

Then Grace whispered something in her ear.

Mia slowly released her and crossed the marble floor toward her father.

Matteo knelt and opened his arms.

She hesitated only a second before stepping into them.

He lifted her.

She felt lighter than he remembered.

“When you have nightmares,” he said quietly, “you can call me.”

“Even if you’re busy?”

“Especially then.”

She studied his face. “What if Uncle Dominic says no?”

Matteo’s gaze lifted over her head.

Dominic’s jaw tightened.

“Uncle Dominic doesn’t decide when you can see your father.”

Mia nodded against his shoulder.

Then, in the careless way children drop grenades without knowing what they are, she said, “Okay. Because he told me Daddy gets dangerous when people talk about Mommy.”

No one moved.

Matteo’s voice became very quiet. “When did he tell you that?”

Mia pointed at Dominic.

“After I found Mommy’s picture in his office.”

Dominic went still.

Matteo looked at his brother.

“What picture?”

Mia wriggled from his arms. “I can show you.”

Dominic stepped forward. “It’s late. She’s confused.”

Mia frowned. “No, I’m not.”

For the first time that night, Matteo smiled fully.

“No,” he said. “She isn’t.”

He took his daughter’s hand.

Grace followed.

Dominic blocked the first step.

Matteo looked at him.

“Move.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Move, Dominic.”

The older brother held his gaze for three seconds, then stepped aside.

Mia led them through the upstairs gallery to Dominic’s private office. The door was locked.

“See?” Dominic said from behind them. “She probably dreamed it.”

Mia looked annoyed. “I know where the key is.”

She reached beneath a decorative console table and pulled a small brass key from behind a carved leg.

Grace bit the inside of her cheek to hide a smile.

Matteo did not.

His daughter unlocked the office.

Inside, the room smelled of cedar and tobacco. Mia walked straight to a low bookshelf, pulled out a thick volume on Roman history, and reached into the empty space behind it.

She removed a photograph.

Matteo took it from her.

It showed Elena standing beside the black Moretti sedan on the afternoon she died.

Dominic was beside her.

That alone meant nothing.

Then Matteo turned the photograph over.