Chương 1
“Turn around, sweetheart. You’re serving dinner, not guarding a prison.”
Vanessa Bellini laughed as I backed away from the dining table.
Twenty-six guests sat beneath the chandeliers of Luca Moretti’s Chicago mansion. Crystal glasses caught the light. Candles burned between white roses. Somewhere behind me, the quartet in the music room moved into something slow and expensive.
And I was desperately trying to keep anyone from seeing the back of my uniform.
The black fabric was torn from my left shoulder almost to my waist.
Beneath it, a long scrape burned every time I moved.
I had fastened the dress with three safety pins.
One had already come loose.
“Emma, I asked you for more bread.”
Vanessa pointed toward the silver basket in my hands.
“Or have you forgotten how to do that, too?”
I leaned forward.
Pain shot down my back.
My grip weakened.
Two dinner rolls tumbled onto the white tablecloth.
Vanessa pushed back her chair.
“For God’s sake. Look what you’ve done.”
I reached automatically.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Don’t touch it. You’ve probably got dirt all over your hands.”
Then a man’s voice interrupted her.
“Emma.”
Luca Moretti had put down his fork.
“Stand up.”
My stomach tightened.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Turn around.”
My heart nearly stopped.
Before I could answer, Vanessa gave an embarrassed laugh.
“She caught her uniform on the kennel gate this afternoon. Apparently, she can’t even feed a dog without destroying her clothes.”
Luca slowly looked at his fiancée.
“The kennel?”
“Yes, darling. She was helping with Bruno.”
My hands went cold.
Vanessa had just mentioned the one place she had ordered me never to discuss.
And Bruno wasn’t in his kennel anymore.
Luca turned back to me.
“Emma. Let me see your shoulder.”
“It’s nothing, sir.”
“Then you won’t mind showing me.”
Slowly, I turned.
The room changed.
Not loudly.
A conversation near the fireplace died.
One of Luca’s cousins set down his wine.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Alvarez, stopped halfway through the doorway.
The safety pins had pulled away from the fabric. A long red scrape crossed my shoulder blade and vanished beneath the torn dress. Dried blood darkened the edge near my collar.
Luca stood.
“You’ve been working like this all evening?”
I nodded.
Vanessa sighed.
“For heaven’s sake, Luca. It’s a scratch. She caught herself on the kennel fence.”
“The kennel gates are wood.”
Vanessa’s smile faltered.
“Well, there must be something sharp out there.”
Luca looked at me.
“What happened?”
I stared at the carpet.
“I fell.”
“Against what?”
“The gate.”
He waited.
That was one of the frightening things about Luca Moretti.
He rarely repeated himself because silence usually did the work for him.
I could feel Vanessa staring at me.
Four hours earlier, she had stood beside that kennel and told me exactly what would happen if I spoke.
You need this job, Emma.
Your mother needs you.
Do not make a temporary problem into a permanent one.
My rent was due Friday.
My mother had just come home after surgery.
I did need the job.
So I kept my mouth shut.
Luca said:
“Where is Bruno?”
My eyes lifted before I could stop them.
Vanessa answered too quickly.
“At the vet.”
Luca turned.
“What vet?”
“Dr. Romano.”
Mrs. Alvarez spoke from the doorway.
“Dr. Romano called this morning to confirm Bruno’s annual visit for next Thursday.”
Vanessa looked at her.
The dining room became completely quiet.
Luca said:
“Vanessa?”
Her face remained beautiful, composed, but the smile was gone.
“I used another clinic.”
“Why?”
“He was agitated.”
Bruno was a ten-year-old black Cane Corso who had belonged to Luca since he was a puppy. He was enormous, scarred across one ear, gentle with children, suspicious of delivery men, and so attached to Luca that he slept outside the study whenever Luca worked late.
Agitated was not a word anyone used for Bruno.
Luca looked back at me.
“Did Bruno bite you?”
“No.”
That answer came out immediately.
Vanessa’s eyes flashed.
Luca heard it.
“What happened at the kennel?”
I could not breathe properly.
Mrs. Alvarez crossed the room.
“Mr. Moretti, she needs a doctor.”
Luca nodded.
“Marco, call Dr. Chen.”
One of the men at the far end of the table stood.
Vanessa snapped:
“This is absurd. We have guests.”
Luca looked at the twenty-six people around the table.
“Dinner is over.”
Nobody argued.
Chairs moved.
Guests rose with the quick efficiency of people who understood that the mood of the house had changed beyond repair.
Vanessa stood too.
“This is our engagement dinner.”
“Not anymore.”
Her face whitened.
One by one, guests left the dining room. Some said nothing. Some murmured goodnight. Luca’s aunt kissed Vanessa’s cheek awkwardly and touched Luca’s arm. The quartet stopped playing.
Within minutes, only Luca, Vanessa, Mrs. Alvarez, two security men, and I remained.
Luca came around the table.
He did not touch me.
He crouched slightly so he could see my face.
“Emma, I am asking you as your employer. Not as anything else. Are you afraid to tell me what happened?”
I looked at Vanessa.
He followed my gaze.
Then stood.
“Vanessa, leave the room.”
She laughed once.
“Excuse me?”
“Leave.”
“You are humiliating me because a maid tore her dress.”
“Housekeeper,” Mrs. Alvarez said quietly.
Vanessa’s head snapped toward her.
Luca’s expression did not change.
“Leave.”
Vanessa looked at me with something colder than anger.
Then she picked up her clutch and walked out.
The moment the door closed, my knees weakened.
Mrs. Alvarez caught my elbow.
“Sit.”
I sat.
Luca waited until she brought water.
Then:
“Tell me.”
My hands shook around the glass.
“At three-thirty, Ms. Bellini asked me to meet her by the kennels.”
“Why?”
“She said Bruno had to be moved.”
“Where?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Who was there?”
“A man I’d never seen before. Mid-fifties. Gray hair. Work jacket. He had a transport van.”
“What company?”
“No logo.”
“Did Bruno know him?”
That was the question.
I looked up.
“Yes.”
Luca went still.
“When Bruno saw him, he changed.”
“How?”
“He stopped barking.”
Bruno had barked when the van arrived. Deep, furious barks that shook the kennel door.
Then the man stepped out.
Bruno froze.
The man said:
“Easy, Bru.”
Bruno’s entire body changed.
Tail low.
Ears back.
Whine.
Then he pressed himself against the gate like he was trying to get through it.
I told Luca.
His face lost color.
“Who called him Bru?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do.”
Vanessa returned to the doorway.
Nobody had heard her.
Luca turned.
She looked tired now.
Not polished.
Not triumphant.
Just cornered.
Luca said:
“You know the man.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
She did not answer.
I continued because once the first truth broke, the rest became harder to hold.
“Ms. Bellini told me to open the side run. The man clipped a leash to Bruno. I asked where they were taking him because there wasn’t any vet paperwork.”
Luca looked at Vanessa.
“She told me it was none of my business.”
My shoulder began throbbing again.
“I said Mrs. Alvarez should know because Bruno’s medications are logged. Then the man started walking him toward the van.”
“What happened?”
“Bruno pulled toward him. He wasn’t fighting. He wanted to go.”
Luca’s face tightened.
“And you?”
“I tried to shut the outer gate until someone explained.”
Vanessa whispered:
“Emma.”
Luca’s voice hardened.
“Do not speak to her.”
I swallowed.
“The man pulled the gate open from the other side. The metal latch caught my dress. I fell against the edge of the service fence.”
That was the scrape.
Not the wooden kennel gate.
The outer service fence was steel mesh.
Luca knew.
“Then?”
“Bruno slipped his leash.”
The memory came back with brutal clarity.
The man shouting.
Vanessa swearing.
Bruno running not toward the house, not toward the road, but straight behind the old carriage garage.
I followed because I thought he would bolt into traffic.
He disappeared through the hedge.
By the time I reached the lane behind the estate, he was gone.
So was the man.
The van had driven away.
Vanessa arrived thirty seconds later.
She looked at the empty lane.
Then at me bleeding through my dress.
And said:
You saw Bruno run. That is all you saw.
I told Luca.
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then Luca asked Vanessa:
“Where is my dog?”
She looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
“Who was the man?”
Her lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Luca’s voice dropped.
“Vanessa.”
She looked toward the door as if considering whether escape was still possible.
Then:
“Gabriel Neri.”
Luca’s face changed so sharply that Mrs. Alvarez took one step backward.
I knew the name only because everyone in Chicago seemed to know old Moretti stories.
Gabriel Neri had been one of Luca’s father’s drivers.
He had also been convicted eleven years earlier for stealing a Moretti armored truck carrying nearly four million dollars in cash.
According to every story I had ever heard, Gabriel had betrayed the family, vanished after prison, and never been allowed near a Moretti property again.
Luca said:
“That’s impossible.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“No.”
“Gabriel is in Arizona.”
“He moved back six months ago.”
“How do you know?”
She said nothing.
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Why does Bruno know him?”
Vanessa’s face broke then.
Not with guilt.
With fear.
“Because Bruno was Gabriel’s dog before he was yours.”
Luca stared.
I looked between them.
Mrs. Alvarez whispered:
“What?”
Vanessa’s voice shook.
“Gabriel raised him. Trained him. Your father took Bruno after Gabriel went to prison.”
Luca slowly lowered himself into the chair beside me.
The room seemed to tilt.
He had owned Bruno for eleven years.
He had never known.
Then Vanessa said something that made the entire dinner, the torn uniform, even the missing dog feel suddenly small.
“Gabriel didn’t steal that truck, Luca.”
No one moved.
Luca’s eyes lifted.
Vanessa was crying now.
“He took the conviction.”
“For who?”
She looked at him.
May you like
“For my father.”
And somewhere outside, beyond the dark windows of the mansion, Bruno was still missing.
