Chapter 3 - The Woman at the Gate
Vittorio did not confront Bianca first.
He went to the staff.
People who lived on power often forgot that servants saw everything. Drivers noticed faces. Housekeepers noticed packages. Footmen remembered who had been told to lie.
The head housekeeper, Mrs. Allen, met him outside the music room with one hand pressed nervously to her apron.
“Did you see who brought Nico’s gift?” Vittorio asked.
She hesitated only a moment. “I saw the woman at the side entrance.”
“What woman?”
Mrs. Allen lowered her voice. “A woman in a dark coat and scarf. She said the package was only for Master Nico and had to be placed directly in his hands.” She swallowed. “Miss Bianca came around the corner just as the boy took it.”
“And then?”
“Miss Bianca told me to leave.”
That was all she had seen.
The butler had noticed the same woman only in passing—a slim figure, gloved hands, dark glasses despite the afternoon sun. No obvious face. No name. No car left on record. She had arrived on foot from the back lane and gone the same way.
Vittorio was about to head upstairs to Bianca’s suite when Bodyguard 2 spoke from the end of the hall.
“Sir.”
The man looked deeply uncomfortable even using the word.
Vittorio stopped and turned.
“Say what you need to say.”
Bodyguard 2 glanced down the corridor, making sure no one else was close enough to hear. “I’m done working for her.”
That alone was interesting.
But Vittorio said nothing.
The man took a breath. “Miss Bianca lost control the second she saw the package. She didn’t just want it gone. She wanted whatever was inside it kept from you.”
Vittorio’s expression hardened. “You knew she meant to handle Nico roughly?”
The guard’s face tightened with shame. “I knew she wanted the boy moved away from the package. I didn’t think—”
“No,” Vittorio cut in. “You didn’t.”
The man dropped his eyes.
After a moment, he reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a folded security still printed from the gate camera station.
“I took this before the footage could be erased.”
Vittorio unfolded it.
The image was grainy but clear enough.
A woman stood in profile at the side gate, one hand extended with the gift box. Her face was partially turned away, hidden by dark glasses and a scarf. But one detail was unmistakable.
Pinned at her collar was an old silver brooch shaped like a treble clef.
Vittorio knew that brooch.
He had bought it twelve years ago at a conservatory fundraiser in Boston because Serena had laughed at it and said it looked too sentimental to be elegant.
Then she wore it for years.
His hand tightened around the photograph.
“She’s alive,” he said before he realized he had spoken aloud.
The bodyguard did not answer.
Vittorio folded the still carefully and slipped it into his pocket.
“Why give this to me?”
The man swallowed. “Because whatever Miss Bianca is hiding, it made her attack a child in front of witnesses. And when you said something terrible was coming for her…” He looked briefly toward the staircase. “She believed you.”
So did he.
Vittorio turned toward Bianca’s wing at last.
He found her in the small gold sitting room outside her suite, pressing a cold towel to her cheek.
The moment she saw the expression on his face, her own went guarded.
He laid the printed gate still on the side table between them.
Bianca stared at it, and for the smallest fraction of a second, all color vanished from her face.
“You know who this is,” Vittorio said.
Bianca recovered fast—too fast. “A stalker in a brooch?”
“Don’t insult me.”
“I don’t have to. You do it to yourself every time you chase ghosts.”
He took one step closer. “Then tell me why you destroyed Nico’s gift before he could open it.”
Bianca’s jaw tightened.
Then she said exactly the wrong thing.
“Because some things should have stayed gone.”
Vittorio didn’t speak for several seconds.
When he finally did, his voice was terrifyingly calm.
“If this has anything to do with Serena…”
Bianca looked away.
May you like
And that silence told him more than denial ever could.
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