Isabella buried her face in my apron, crying softly. I stroked her hair, glaring at Vanessa.
“You locked her in here,” I said, the pieces snapping together. “You locked Isabella’s door so she wouldn’t hear Rosa moving around at night. You were hiding the only witness.”
“Shut up, you ignorant maid!” Vanessa lunged toward me, raising her hand to strike.
Luca caught her wrist mid-air.
He didn’t squeeze, but Vanessa gasped in pain.
“You told me Elena died on impact,” Luca whispered. “You identified the body. You said it was too badly burned for me to see.”
“It was!” Vanessa cried, tears of desperation ruining her makeup. “Luca, I love you! I did everything to protect you from the pain!”
Rosa coughed, a dry, rattling sound. “She didn’t protect you. She paid the doctors to switch the dental records. The woman in the crash was a stranger.”
Luca dropped Vanessa’s arm. He looked at Rosa, his chest heaving. “If my wife didn’t die in that crash… where is she?”
Vanessa smiled then. A nasty, triumphant smile.
“Dead,” Vanessa hissed. “She died two weeks later in that clinic. Her heart gave out. You can look all you want, Luca. Elena is gone. This old hag is lying just to extort you.”
Luca looked like he was about to tear the room apart. But Rosa slowly stood up from the chair.
“She is lying, Mr. Moretti,” Rosa said softly. “Elena is alive.”
The silence in the room was deafening.
“Where?” Luca demanded, stepping toward her. “Tell me where she is!”
Rosa shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. They moved her before I could memorize the address.”
Vanessa let out a breath of relief. She adjusted her dress, regaining her composure. “See? The old bat is crazy. Throw her out, Luca. And fire this maid while you’re at it.”
But Rosa reached into the pocket of her faded nightgown.
“I don’t know where she is,” Rosa continued. “But Elena managed to slip this into my pocket the night they took her away. She said to give it to the girl with the braided bracelet.”
Rosa walked right past Luca. She stopped in front of me and pressed a crumpled, folded piece of paper into my palm.
“She said her family would know what it means,” Rosa whispered.
I looked down at my wrist. The braided leather bracelet. It belonged to my grandmother.
I unfolded the paper.
It was a child’s drawing. A messy crayon sketch of a lighthouse.
Vanessa saw it and let out a strangled gasp.
“No,” Vanessa whispered.
I looked at the drawing, my heart pounding in my ears. I knew this lighthouse. It was the exact same one my grandmother had painted on the wall of my childhood bedroom.
“Give me that!”
Vanessa lunged for the drawing, her manicured nails clawing at my hand.
I stepped back, shielding Isabella, while Luca’s hand clamped down on Vanessa’s shoulder, spinning her around.
“Don’t touch her,” Luca warned, his voice vibrating with enough menace to freeze the room. He snapped his fingers. Two of his men, who had rushed upstairs at the commotion, appeared in the doorway.
“Take Vanessa to the study. Lock the door. If she makes a sound, gag her.”
“Luca, please! You’re making a mistake!” Vanessa screamed as the men dragged her away, her designer heels dragging across the expensive Persian rug. “That maid is setting you up!”
When the screaming faded down the stairs, Luca turned to me. The dangerous mafia boss was gone. In his place stood a desperate, heartbroken father.
“Emily,” he said quietly. “What is that drawing?”
I looked down at the crumpled paper. The red crayon lighthouse stood tall on a jagged black cliff, with a distinct yellow crescent moon in the corner.
“My grandmother painted this exact image in my bedroom when I was a little girl,” I whispered, tracing the yellow moon. “She always told me it was a place where lost things are kept safe.”
Isabella looked up at me, wiping her eyes. “Mommy drew that? But how did she know about your grandmother?”
I looked at Rosa. The old nurse had collapsed back into the armchair, exhausted.
“Elena knew everything about your grandmother, Emily,” Rosa wheezed. “Because your grandmother, Sophia, was Elena’s nanny in Naples. She was the one who smuggled Elena out of Italy when the rival families tried to kill her.”
The room seemed to tilt.
My grandmother. The quiet woman who baked bread in our tiny Chicago kitchen. She had never spoken of her life in Italy. She only told me to wear the braided bracelet and never take it off.
“Your grandmother hid something for the Moretti family,” Rosa continued, clutching the armrests. “Vanessa found out. That’s why she arranged the crash. She needed Elena out of the way to find the heirloom.”
