Chapter 13
“And if I refuse?”
Dante looked at him.
“Then I’ll stop asking.”
Bellini stayed.
Alessia picked up her suitcase.
Dante saw her.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“You live here.”
“I used to.”
“You weren’t fired.”
She looked around. The foyer was empty now — the staff gone to their rooms, the security men at their posts, Mrs. Conte vanished down the east corridor without a word.
“You stopped them from firing me because you needed to know what I saw,” Alessia said. “Yes.”
“Now you know.”
“Not everything.”
“That sounds like your problem.”
Dante approached her. He stopped a few feet away, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
“You want to leave?”
“Yes.”
The answer came too quickly. He looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because somebody broke into your study, stole a folder, deleted the security footage, and used your dead mother’s access code.” She adjusted her grip on the suitcase. “All good reasons. And someone tried to make me responsible. Better reason.”
“So you’re leaving.”
“So I’m leaving.”
Dante did not stop her.
That surprised her. She had spent the whole day being managed — by Mrs. Conte, by Bellini, by the order of the house — and she had braced herself for one more hand on her arm.
He simply said, “I’ll have a car take you.”
“No.”
He almost argued. She saw it happen — the small forward lean, the breath he took. Then he remembered that the woman in front of him had spent the morning having other people decide her future, and he stopped himself.
“Fine.”
She reached the door.
“Call me when you get home.”
She turned.
“Is that an order?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately, and it was not an order. It was a request.
Something changed in her expression — small, but real, the way a lock changes when the right key goes in.
“Fine,” she said.
She left.
Dante watched the door close.
Matteo appeared from the hallway.
“You let her go.”
“She wanted to leave.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
Dante looked at him.
“It does now.”
Matteo studied him for a moment.
“This is about the maid.”
“This is about whoever thought framing her would stop me from looking.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
At 10:17 that night, Dante’s phone rang.
He answered immediately.
“Are you home?”
“No.”
His body went still.
“Where are you?”