Chapter Thirty-Six
LUCIA
The first thing I do is count.
Four men downstairs.
Two on the second floor.
One outside my door.
The guard changes at midnight.
I know because the electronic lock beeps when the first man opens the door for the second to look inside.
I pretend to be asleep.
The new guard is heavier. His footsteps are slower, and his right shoe squeaks when he turns.
I count the seconds between his passes.
Forty-three.
The windows in my mother’s room open, but only three inches. Metal stops have been fitted inside the frames.
Not recently.
Matteo has locked people in this room before.
Or prepared for the possibility.
I inspect the bathroom.
The cabinets contain unopened cosmetics in brands I use.
A new toothbrush.
A new hairbrush.
Bottles of shampoo and lotion selected by someone who studied my preferences without asking for them.
The closet is filled with clothes in my size.
Dresses I didn’t choose.
Shoes I’ve never worn.
Nightgowns with the tags removed.
Matteo planned this before inviting me to lunch.
I sit at my mother’s desk and take out the final letter she wrote him.
I can’t come to Barrington next week. Please don’t ask me to explain.
Seven months before I was born.
She knew.
Maybe not for certain, but enough to disappear.
Enough to hide me from my father.
I read it until the words blur.
Then I begin counting again.
An older woman brings breakfast in the morning.
She has silver threaded through her dark hair and a small gold cross at her throat. The tray trembles slightly when the guard unlocks the door but remains in the hall.
“Where is Matteo?” I ask.
“Mr. Moretti is in his office.”
“I want my phone.”
The woman sets the tray on the table near the windows.
“I’m sorry, miss.”
“What’s your name?”
She glances toward the guard.
“Rosa.”
She turns to leave.
Her attention catches on the sapphire at my throat.
For the first time, her composure slips.
“You recognize it.”
Rosa looks at the guard again.
“Your mother wore it.”
“You knew her?”
“A long time ago.”
“Rosa,” the guard warns.
She lowers her eyes and leaves.
I know two things now.
Rosa remembers my mother.
And Matteo doesn’t want her talking to me.
He allows me to call after breakfast.
He stands close enough to take the phone whenever he chooses.
Marco answers before the first ring finishes.
“Lucia.”
Hearing him say my name settles something inside me.
“Are Dario and Bruno safe?” I ask.
“They’re both here. They’re safe.”
“Are they hurt?”
“Bruised. Nothing serious. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I say.
It’s a lie, but it’s a good one.
I hear Gio in the background.
“Lucy?”
“I’m here.”
The sound of his voice nearly undoes me.
“Where are you?” Marco asks.
“My mother’s room.”
“Are you alone?”
I look at Matteo.
“No.”
“Can you speak freely?”
“No.”
I close my eyes.
“Did you sleep?” Gio asks.
“A little.”
“Is the door locked?” Marco asks.
“Yes.”
Matteo reaches for the phone.
“That’s enough.”
“Lucia—” Gio begins.
The call ends.
Matteo joins me for lunch.
He has it served in my mother’s room, as though sharing a table will make the lock irrelevant. Sunlight lies across the white cloth, illuminating the china and polished silver someone arranged for us.
“Did you sleep well?”
“No.”
“You’ll become accustomed to the room.”
“I don’t intend to.”
His expression tightens.
“Lucia.”
“Give me my phone.”
“You’ll be allowed to call every day.”
“Allowed.”
“I don’t want them influencing you.”
“You mean you don’t want me speaking to anyone who disagrees with you.”
He sets down his fork.
“I know you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
That surprises him.
“I’m paying attention.”
“To what?”
“The guard outside my door. The stops on the windows. The room you prepared before I agreed to visit.”
“I wanted you to be comfortable.”
“You planned to keep me.”
“I prepared for the possibility.”
“That’s a prettier way to say it.”
He reaches across the table.
I move my hand before he can touch it.
Pain crosses his face.
It almost makes me feel guilty.
That is part of the cage too.
“You’re my daughter,” he says. “I want the opportunity to know you.”
“You had that.”
“The Catenzios were always there.”
“Because I wanted them there.”
“You don’t know what you want yet.”
There it is.
The same argument in a different voice.
I lean back.
“What would convince you that I know my own mind?”
“Time.”
“How much?”
“As much as necessary.”
He expects me to fight.
So I don’t.
I pick up my fork.
“Then I suppose we have time.”
His expression softens.
The first lock opens.
#
That afternoon, two guards take me into the garden.
I walk slowly.
Not because I want to admire the flowers.
Because I’m counting.
Twenty-six steps from the west staircase to the terrace.
Forty-one from the terrace to the first camera.
The guard on my right watches me.
The one on my left watches the house.
The eastern side of the property is divided from the main garden by a stone wall. Beyond it, I can see the roof of a smaller building near the water.
A boathouse.
One guard catches me looking.
“The main dock is south,” he says.
“I wasn’t asking.”
We continue along the path.
The eastern wall meets the kitchen wing near a set of narrow service doors.
No camera is mounted directly above them.
There will be one somewhere else.
Men like Matteo don’t leave doors unwatched.
But sometimes they watch the obvious door and forget the wall beside it.
I file it away.
Rosa brings dinner that evening.
The guard outside my room sits in a chair and reads. Every few minutes, I hear a page turn.
Rosa places the tray on the table.
“Did my mother trust you?” I ask.
Her hands pause.
“I don’t know.”
“You said you knew her.”
“I worked in the kitchen when she stayed here.”
The guard turns a page.
“I need you to send a message.”
Fear moves across Rosa’s face.
“I can’t.”
“Nothing dangerous. Tell Angela I’m sorry I missed dinner. Ask her to save me some lasagna.”
“That’s all?”
“Tell her I’m unharmed and still in my mother’s room.”
Rosa studies me.
“Please.”
She straightens the napkin beside my plate.
“I’ll try.”
When she returns for the tray, she doesn’t look at me.
I don’t know whether the message will reach Belmont.
It has to be enough that I tried.
#
On the second day, a lawyer arrives after breakfast.
His name is Charles Whitaker. He wears a gray suit and carries a leather case.
Matteo sits near the fireplace while Whitaker places a stack of papers on my mother’s desk.
“What are those?”
“A petition for annulment,” Whitaker says.
I look at Matteo.
“You brought an attorney into my locked room.”
“I want you to understand your options.”
“I already have the option to divorce Marco.”
“The marriage was coerced,” Whitaker says. “An annulment would establish that it was never legally valid.”
“And what else?”
He hesitates.
There is always something else.
I turn the first page.
The annulment petition is followed by documents transferring the remaining Rossi assets into a Moretti-controlled trust.
“You want control of my money.”
“I want to protect your inheritance,” Matteo says.
“From Marco?”
“From everyone.”
“Including me.”
Whitaker clears his throat.
“You would receive a generous allowance.”
I laugh.
Neither man finds it funny.
“My money would be placed under my father’s control, and he would give some of it back if I behaved.”
“That is not what this says,” Matteo argues.
“It is exactly what it says.”
I slide the papers across the desk.
“I’m not signing.”
“You don’t have to decide today.”
“I just did.”
Whitaker gathers the documents.
He avoids looking at me.
Matteo waits until he leaves.
“Marco arranged that marriage while you were surrounded by armed men.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t believe it was a free choice.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Then why defend it?”
“I’m not defending the way it began.”
“Then what are you defending?”
“The choices I made afterward.”
His jaw tightens.
“You’re confusing gratitude with love.”
“You keep telling me what I feel.”
“Because I’ve seen this before.”
“No. You’ve seen business arrangements. Alliances. Women married to men they feared.”
“And that is different from your situation?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t fear Marco.”
He looks toward the locked door.
Perhaps he remembers that I didn’t fear him when I arrived either.
My second call lasts thirty-one seconds.
“Are you eating?” Angela asks.
“Yes.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“A little.”
Then Gio says my name.
“Lucy?”
I close my eyes.
“I’m here.”
I want to tell him I can hear the water moving beyond the windows.
I want to tell him I’m counting everything.
I want to tell him I’m trying.
Matteo takes the phone.
The call ends.
Rosa brings dinner that night.
“Did the message reach Angela?” I ask.
She gives the smallest nod.
Relief weakens my knees.
“You knew my mother,” I say.
Rosa looks toward the open door.
“I shouldn’t speak about this.”
“He locked me inside her room.”
Pain moves across her face.
“That isn’t what she would have wanted.”
“No.”
She adjusts the napkin beside my plate.
“Your mother loved your father very much.”
“But she left.”
“She was afraid.”
“Of Matteo?”
“Of the Morettis.”
I wait.
Rosa lowers her voice.
“Mr. Moretti’s father was still alive then. He believed family belonged to the family.”
The words chill me.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Maria asked questions.”
“What questions?”
“What would happen if she had a child.”
I grip the back of the chair.
“What did they tell her?”
“I don’t know. But she left soon afterward.”
The guard turns a page in the hall.
“Is there another way out of this room?”
Rosa’s gaze snaps to mine.
“I can’t help you.”
“You just did.”
Fear enters her expression.
Not for herself.
For me.
She leaves without another word.
Before she returns for the tray, I take the butter knife and wedge it beneath the bottom drawer of the nightstand.
#
On the third morning, I ask Matteo to have breakfast with me.
He arrives pleased.
He thinks I’m softening.
I pour his coffee.
“Tell me about your father.”
The pleasure disappears.
“Why?”
“Rosa mentioned him.”
His cup stops halfway to his mouth.
“What did she say?”
“That my mother feared the Moretti family.”
“My father was a difficult man.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“What do you want to know?”