Elena’s Green Room
Chapter 06 - Elena’s Green Room
Luca took the phone from Vanessa’s hand before she could hide it.
She did not fight him. She was too clever for that. Instead she let go slowly, making herself look violated, as if everyone had forgotten she was the one who had placed rules beneath a grieving child’s plate.
“Luca,” she whispered, “you don’t understand what’s happening.”
He read the message again.
IF YOU WANT THE CHILD SAFE, STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.
Then he looked at her.
“Explain it.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No.” Her voice broke at the edge, but I no longer trusted broken things. “Not here.”
Teresa gave a soft laugh without humor. “Ah. Now privacy becomes useful.”
Vanessa ignored her. “There are people involved who are dangerous.”
Luca’s gaze did not move.
“You’re standing in my house.”
That sentence reminded everyone what most of them had briefly forgotten.
Luca Moretti might have been a father with fear in his eyes, but he was still Luca Moretti. Men lowered their voices when his name entered a room. Politicians attended his dinners and pretended not to notice who else came through the back doors. Dangerous people had built careers learning where his patience ended.
Vanessa seemed to remember that too.
“Then protect your daughter,” she said. “Not your pride.”
Sophie’s fingers tightened around mine.
I had not realized she had taken my hand until then.
Luca saw it.
Again, that flicker of pain crossed his face. Not jealousy. Not anger. Recognition. His daughter trusted a maid because the adults closest to her had made trust feel unsafe.
He turned to Marco, who had returned with two phones in his hand.
“Take Dr. Bell to the library. Nobody speaks to him without me.”
Dr. Bell looked relieved to be taken anywhere Vanessa was not.
“And the guests?” Marco asked.
Luca glanced toward the dining room.
“The engagement dinner is over.”
The words moved through the house faster than any servant could have carried them. Coats were gathered. Drivers called. Champagne abandoned. The wealthy guests left with practiced dignity and hungry eyes, knowing they had seen something worth retelling carefully.
Vanessa did not leave.
Neither did Teresa.
Neither did Sophie.
And neither, to my terror, did I.
Half an hour later, we stood outside Elena’s green room.
Luca held a brass key in one hand. The door had been fitted with a new lock, one different from the original. I knew because I had dusted that hallway every Tuesday since August. The old lock had a flower pattern around the plate. This one was smooth and modern.
“I didn’t authorize this,” he said.
“No,” Teresa replied. “You didn’t.”
Vanessa stood behind us with her arms folded. “I had it changed because Sophie kept sneaking in and upsetting herself.”
“I came here to smell her perfume,” Sophie said.
Vanessa looked away.
Luca touched the lock.
“Who installed it?”
“The household contractor,” Vanessa said.
“What’s his name?”
She hesitated.
Teresa smiled slightly. “It is unfortunate how many useful details grief makes one forget.”
Luca handed the key to Marco.
Marco tried it.
It did not fit.
The hallway went cold.
Vanessa said quickly, “There must be another key.”
“Break it,” Luca said.
One of the guards stepped forward with tools. He worked quietly, professionally. The click of metal sounded too loud in that beautiful hallway.
When the door opened, Sophie made a little sound.
The room had been half packed.
Cardboard boxes lined the far wall. Elena’s dresses had been removed from the wardrobe and folded into clear garment bags. Photographs had been taken down from the mantel and stacked facedown on a chair.
The writing desk drawers hung open.
Luca stood in the doorway as though he had been struck.
Sophie stepped past him and ran to the vanity.
“My picture,” she whispered.
A silver frame lay on the floor behind the chair. Inside was a photograph of Elena holding Sophie as a toddler, both of them laughing in a garden.
The glass was cracked.
Luca crossed the room slowly and picked it up.
No one spoke.
Then Teresa moved to the writing desk.
“She kept journals,” the old woman said.
Vanessa’s face changed.
Luca looked at her.
“You knew that?”
“Everyone keeps journals.”
“Not everyone changes locks.”
Teresa opened the bottom drawer. Empty.
Then she tapped the back panel with one fingernail.
Hollow.
Luca came to her side. He pressed the wood. A narrow compartment slid open.
Inside was a blue notebook tied with a white ribbon.
Sophie inhaled sharply.
“Mommy’s book.”
Luca took it as if it were made of bone.
The first pages were recipes. Notes about school. Sketches of dresses Sophie wanted for dolls. Ordinary things, which made them sacred.
Then the handwriting changed.
Less steady.
Dates from the final months before Elena’s death.
Luca read silently until his face went blank.
“What does it say?” Teresa asked.
He looked at Vanessa.
Then at Sophie.
Then he closed the notebook.
But Sophie reached up.
“I want to know.”
Luca’s voice broke so quietly I almost missed it.
“Your mother wrote that if anything happened to her, I should keep you away from Bellini blood.”
Vanessa whispered, “That is not what it means.”
Teresa’s cane struck the floor once.
And from the hallway behind us came Marco’s voice.
“Boss. We traced the call.”
Luca turned.
May you like
Marco looked at Vanessa.
“It came from your father’s private line.”
