Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“What would have happened if Maria told you she was pregnant?”
He sets down the cup.
“I would have married her.”
“She was already promised to Alexei.”
“That could have been handled.”
A chill moves over my skin.
“What would your father have done?”
“He would have protected the child.”
There is that word again.
Protected.
“How?”
“The child would have been a Moretti.”
“Even if Maria didn’t want that?”
“It wouldn’t have been solely her decision.”
I stare at him.
“My mother asked you, didn’t she?”
His expression changes.
“She asked what my family would expect if we had children.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That any child of mine would be acknowledged.”
“Claimed.”
“Lucia—”
“She was afraid you would take me.”
“I would never have taken you from her.”
“But your father would have.”
He looks away.
That is answer enough.
“And you would have let him.”
“No.”
“You just told me it wouldn’t have been her decision.”
“My family was different then.”
“Was it?”
His gaze returns to mine.
“You are nothing like Viktor.”
“No.”
“Viktor kept me locked inside his house because my name made me valuable.”
“I’m trying to give you your family.”
“By making me surrender everyone I chose.”
“The Catenzios are using you.”
“I chose them.”
“You chose them because you were frightened and alone.”
“And my mother chose to hide me because she knew exactly what this family would do.”
His hand strikes the table.
The dishes jump, and coffee spills into the saucer.
“I am not my father.”
I don’t flinch.
“Then open the door.”
Silence settles between us.
He doesn’t move.
Neither do I.
“Viktor called it protection,” I say. “Marco called it strategy. You call it love.”
I look toward the hall.
“It doesn’t matter what you call it—the door is still locked.”
Matteo rises.
For a moment, I think I’ve pushed him too far.
Then he walks to the door.
“I’ll give you time to calm down.”
The lock beeps after him.
I stare at the empty chair.
He thinks time is on his side.
He doesn’t understand that every hour inside this house teaches me something new.
#
That afternoon, Matteo allows me into the garden again.
The same two men accompany me.
The guard on my right watches me.
The one on my left watches the house.
At three fifteen, they switch positions.
At three thirty, a delivery truck arrives at the kitchen wing. Both guards look toward it.
At three thirty-two, one of the service doors opens.
Rosa steps outside carrying a bag of kitchen waste. She crosses to a narrow enclosure against the eastern wall.
Behind her, the service door begins to swing closed.
For four seconds, no one is watching it.
I count.
Rosa returns to the house.
As she passes me, she doesn’t look up.
Her hand brushes the side of her apron.
Then she glances toward the roof above the east terrace.
Only once.
It is enough.
Rosa comes to my room after midnight.
She collects my untouched tea and keeps her back to the guard.
“The window opens onto the terrace roof,” she whispers. “A narrow door beyond it leads to the service stairs.”
“Is it locked?”
“No. No one can reach that roof from outside.”
“Where do the stairs go?”
“Kitchen. Cellar.”
“What’s in the cellar?”
“Wine. Storage.”
She lifts the tray.
Then she adds, “There used to be a passage to the boathouse.”
“Used to be?”
“Mr. Moretti closed it years ago.”
“Locked or sealed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you send another message to Angela?”
Rosa goes still.
“Please.”
“If they find out—”
“They won’t.”
I have no right to promise her that.
I do it anyway.
“What should I say?”
I think of the Catenzio house.
The pool on the east side.
Angela’s roses growing beside it.
The joke Gio made the first time I asked when they ate dinner.
Eight.
Ten if Marco is joining us.
“Tell Angela I’m sorry I missed dinner. Ask her to save me some lasagna.”
Rosa waits.
“Tell her I’ll help water the roses after dinner, when Marco comes home.”
Rosa looks confused.
“That’s all?”
“They’ll understand.”
#
On the fourth day, I stop arguing.
I eat breakfast.
I thank the guard when he opens the door.
I ask Matteo to bring the photographs back to my room.
By lunch, he looks relieved.
“You seem better today.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“About what?”
“My mother.”
He waits for more.
I give him just enough.
“I understand why you don’t want to lose me.”
His face softens.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me immediately.”
He takes my silence as acceptance.
“I only want time.”
“So you keep saying.”
He hears no challenge in it.
That is what he wants to hear.
He tells me about Providence.
The Moretti family.
The house he tried to give me.
He tells me I could study anything I wanted. Travel anywhere, eventually. Take my place in the organization or remain separate from it.
Every future he describes begins with his permission.
I listen.
I ask questions.
By dinner, he believes the fight has gone out of me.
We eat downstairs for the first time since he locked me in the room.
Rosa serves us.
She doesn’t look at me.
That tells me the message was sent.
The clock on the mantel reads eight twelve.
Matteo pours more wine.
“To new beginnings,” he says.
I lift my glass.
“To understanding.”
He smiles.
I don’t drink.
At nine thirty, I tell Matteo I’m tired.
He walks me upstairs himself.
“I thought we might have breakfast on the terrace tomorrow.”
“That would be nice.”
He kisses my forehead.
The tenderness almost breaks me.
Some part of him truly loves me.
That is what makes him dangerous.
He believes love excuses the lock.
“Good night, Lucia.”
“Good night.”
The door closes.
The lock beeps.
I wait.
At nine forty-three, the guard passes my door.
At nine forty-five, his chair creaks.
At nine forty-seven, a page turns.
At nine fifty, the second-floor telephone rings.
He answers it.
I retrieve the butter knife from beneath the nightstand drawer.
I kneel beside the window and fit the rounded tip into the first screw securing the metal stop.
The knife slips.
I try again.
The screw turns.
Slowly.
One comes free.
Then the other.
I catch the metal stop before it strikes the floor.
The window opens.
Night air rushes into the room, carrying the smell of salt and damp leaves.
The drop to the terrace roof is less than six feet.
I climb onto the sill.
My mother’s sapphire rests against my throat.
For a moment, I look back at her room.
Her photographs.
Her letters.
The life she left behind because she was afraid someone would claim her child.
Then I lower myself onto the roof.
The rough surface scrapes my palms.
I find the narrow door Rosa described.
The handle resists when I turn it, swollen by years of salt air.
I brace one foot against the wall and pull.
The door opens with a soft groan.
I slip inside and close it behind me.
The service staircase is dark.
I leave my shoes on the landing and descend barefoot, keeping one hand against the wall.
Voices drift from the kitchen.
Someone laughs.
A pan strikes the edge of a sink.
I wait until the kitchen door swings closed.
Then I cross the lower hall and find the cellar stairs.
Nine fifty-six.
The wine cellar smells of stone, oak, and damp earth. Rows of bottles disappear into the darkness.
At the far end, a storage rack stands against the eastern wall.
I push it.
Nothing.
I pull.
It shifts an inch, one wooden leg dragging over the floor.
I grip it with both hands and pull again.
Behind it is a narrow wooden door.
No lock.
Only an iron latch painted the same color as the wood.
I lift it.
The passage beyond is cold and damp.
I slip inside and pull the door closed behind me.
Nine fifty-eight.
The tunnel slopes toward the water.
I can hear it before I reach the end.
Waves against stone.
The passage ends at a metal gate.
Locked.
For one terrible moment, I think Rosa was wrong.
Then I find the manual release mounted on the wall.
I pull it down.
The mechanism groans.
Too loud.
The gate begins to rise.
An alarm sounds somewhere behind me.
I duck beneath the metal bars and run.
The boathouse doors are closed, but a narrow side entrance opens onto the dock.
Wind off the bay strikes my face.
Beyond the pilings, Narragansett Bay stretches black beneath the night sky.
I hear shouting from the tunnel.
Lights come on near the house.
Then an engine turns over somewhere on the water.
I step onto the dock.
For six years, I waited for someone to open the door.
Not this time.
No more cages.