WHY ARE YOU EATING ALONE?

The alarm was not a fire alarm.

Dante knew that before Carlo reached the hallway.

Three short bursts. Silence. Three more.

Perimeter breach.

“Mrs. Bell, take Lucy downstairs,” Carlo ordered.

“No,” Clara said.

Dante looked at her.

“There’s a secure room below the kitchen.”

“I’m going with her.”

“Good.”

Clara grabbed Lucy’s hand.

The little girl looked frightened now.

Real frightened.

“Mom?”

“It’s okay.”

It wasn’t.

Clara crouched.

“We’re going to play the quiet game with Mrs. Bell. Remember?”

Lucy nodded.

“Can Mr. Dante come?”

Dante’s chest tightened.

“I’ll come when I’m done.”

“Done with what?”

He glanced toward the screaming alarm.

“Making sure dinner stays boring.”

Lucy stared at him.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It will have to.”

Mrs. Bell led them away.

Dante turned to Carlo.

“What do we have?”

“East wall camera went dead. Motion at the old greenhouse.”

“People?”

“Two, maybe three.”

“Rocco?”

His uncle was still in the study.

“If I wanted to kill you,” Rocco said, pressing a handkerchief to his split lip, “I would not choose the greenhouse. Your father built that place with more windows than walls.”

Dante ignored him.

“Lock him in here.”

Rocco laughed bitterly.

“You really think I came to warn you and then brought gunmen?”

“I think I no longer know what you would do.”

That shut him up.

Ten minutes later, the breach was over.

No gunmen.

No assassins.

Only one figure had entered the estate.

A teenage boy.

Seventeen, maybe eighteen.

Soaked from the rain.

Unarmed.

He had climbed the east wall, cut his palm on the iron spikes, and made it halfway to the greenhouse before security found him.

Now he sat in the mud with three rifles pointed at him.

Dante approached slowly.

The boy looked up.

Black hair hung in his eyes.

He had a narrow face, bruised cheek, and a look of exhausted defiance Dante recognized instantly.

Not because he had seen the boy before.

Because he had worn the same expression at seventeen.

“Name,” Dante said.

The boy spat rainwater.

“Leo.”

“Last name.”

“No.”

Carlo frisked him again.

“Nothing. No phone. No wallet.”

Dante crouched.

“You broke into my house with no weapon and no plan.”

“I had a plan.”

“What was it?”

“Find you.”

“You could have knocked.”

The boy laughed once.

“Yeah. I heard you’re big on visitors.”

Dante looked at his bleeding hand.

“Who sent you?”

“Nobody.”

“Why are you here?”

The boy’s face changed.

“Because she told me if anything happened, I had to find Dante Moretti.”

Dante stopped.

“She who?”

The boy reached beneath his wet shirt.

Carlo raised his gun.

“Easy.”

The boy slowly pulled out a chain.

A small silver oval hung from it.

Saint Christopher on one side.

A raven on the other.

Dante felt every muscle lock.

Another medal.

“Where did you get that?”

“My mother.”

“What’s her name?”

The boy stared at him.

“Bianca.”

The world narrowed to a point.

Carlo whispered a curse.

Rocco had come outside despite orders. He stood twenty feet away under the covered walkway.

When he heard the name, all color left his face.

Dante rose slowly.

“What did you say?”

“Bianca Voss.”

“Voss?”

The boy looked toward Rocco.

“You know him?”

Rocco did not answer.

Dante stepped closer.

“Leo. Look at me.”

The boy did.

Dark eyes.

Not Dante’s.

Not obviously.

“Where is your mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“What happened?”

“We live in Milwaukee. She works at a rehab clinic. She got a call. Packed one bag. Told me to stay at a neighbor’s.”

“Then?”

“She never came home.”

Dante’s pulse pounded.

“Why come here?”

“She left a note under my mattress.”

The boy looked at Rocco again.

“It said, ‘If Rocco contacts you, run. If Vale finds you, hide. If neither of those works, find Dante Moretti.’”

Rocco’s face tightened.

Dante turned toward him.

“You want to explain that?”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“I don’t know who this boy is.”

Leo’s eyes flashed.

“She told me you would say that.”

Rocco looked genuinely shaken.

“Bianca is your mother?”

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

The tension shifted.

Dante did the math instantly.

So did Clara when she arrived at the edge of the terrace, having apparently ignored every order to remain below once the danger was contained.

Seventeen.

Leo could not be the baby in Rocco’s photograph.

Dante looked at Rocco.

“You said you didn’t know the child.”

“I didn’t.”

Leo frowned.

“What child?”

Dante ignored the question.

“Who is your father?”

Leo’s jaw hardened.

“Dead.”

“Name.”

“Michael Voss.”

Clara moved closer.

“Voss. Same as the doctor.”

Leo looked at her.

“Adrian Voss is my grandfather.”

Dante felt sick.

Vale.

Voss.

A false name.

Bianca living under the surname of the man who had hidden her.

“Your mother married his son?”

Leo nodded.

“Before I was born.”

Dante stared at him.

This made no sense.

Bianca had been married to Dante for four years before the crash.

Leo was already eleven when she disappeared.

Unless Bianca Voss was not Bianca Moretti.

“Do you have a photograph of your mother?”

“No phone.”

Dante gestured to Carlo.

“Bring him inside.”

Leo stood.

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why your face did that when I said her name.”

Dante looked at him.

“There may be two women named Bianca.”

Leo laughed.

“Great. Very useful.”

Inside, Mrs. Bell gave him dry clothes.

Clara brought Lucy back upstairs only after Carlo declared the estate secure.

The little girl stared at Leo.

“Are you a bad guy?”

Leo stared back.

“Are you always like this?”

“Yes.”

“Then no. I’m not.”

“Okay.”

They accepted each other immediately.

Adults made everything harder.

Leo used Clara’s phone to access an old cloud account.

He found a family photograph.

When Dante saw the woman, he almost collapsed.

It was Bianca.

Not similar.

Not maybe.

Bianca Moretti.

She stood beside a younger man and an eleven-year-old Leo at a county fair.

The image had been taken five years ago.

Dante’s wife was smiling.

Alive.

Clara looked from the photograph to Dante.

“Could the date be wrong?”

“No.”

His voice cracked on the word.

Leo stared at him.

“You know her.”

Dante sat down.

“She was my wife.”

Leo’s face emptied.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No. My mom was married to my dad.”

“What year did your father die?”

“Six years ago.”

“When?”

Leo hesitated.

“October.”

Bianca’s crash was in November.

One month later.

Dante’s mind raced.

“How long have you known Bianca?”

Leo’s eyes narrowed.

“My whole life.”

“Was she your birth mother?”

Silence.

The answer came before the words.

Leo looked away.

“No.”

Clara sat beside him.

“What happened to your biological mom?”

“She died when I was a baby. My dad remarried when I was three.”

Dante’s heart hammered.

“When did Bianca marry Michael Voss?”

“Fourteen years ago.”

Impossible.

Dante had met Bianca twelve years ago.

Married her ten years ago.

Leo stood abruptly.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“My mother didn’t have two husbands.”

“Neither did my wife.”

Rocco entered.

He looked at the photograph.

Then whispered, “Twins.”

Everyone turned.

Dante stared at him.

“What?”

Rocco’s eyes were fixed on Bianca’s face.

“Bianca had a sister.”

Dante felt anger rising again.

“She told me she was an only child.”

“She believed she was.”

“How do you know?”

“Because your father knew her parents.”

Rocco sank into a chair.

“Bianca and her twin were separated as infants after their mother died. One was adopted by the Carsons in Chicago.”

“Bianca.”

“Yes.”

“The other?”

Rocco looked at Leo.

“Beatrice.”

Leo shook his head.

“My mom’s name is Bianca.”

“She may have used her sister’s name.”

Dante remembered Samuel’s notebook.

Beatrice Moore.

B.M.

Same birthday as Bianca.

The patient at St. Catherine’s.

Clara spoke slowly.

“So Samuel may have followed Vale to a clinic where he saw records for Beatrice, not Bianca.”

Rocco nodded.

“And the woman in your photograph holding the baby?”

“I assumed it was Bianca.”

“It could have been Beatrice.”

Leo looked between them.

“You people are insane.”

Lucy, sitting beside him, whispered, “Sometimes.”

No one corrected her.

Dante turned to Rocco.

“Why didn’t you tell me Bianca had a twin?”

“Because I did not know until after the crash.”

“Who told you?”

“Your father’s old attorney. He found adoption records when I was trying to understand why Vale had a woman who looked exactly like Bianca under another name.”

Dante paced.

“So which woman survived the crash?”

Nobody knew.

Which woman had lived as Leo’s stepmother?

Nobody knew.

Which woman had been photographed holding a baby?

Nobody knew.

Then Leo spoke.

“My mom has a scar.”

Dante stopped.

“Where?”

“Back of her neck. Small crescent.”