Chapter 1 - THE FOURTH STRIKE
The riding crop stopped an inch from Mara’s face.
Someone had caught it.
Victoria turned, fury already forming on her lips. Then she saw the man holding the crop, and every word died in her throat.
Alessandro Romano stood at the foot of the staircase.
The house went silent.
Mara kept her eyes on the marble floor. She had spent nearly two years learning when to speak, when to step aside, and when to pretend she hadn’t heard her own name used as a joke. But she had never seen Victoria look afraid.
“She spilled wine on my dress,” Victoria said.
Alessandro’s hand tightened around the crop. “So you raised this at her?”
“It was an accident. I wasn’t going to—”
“You raised it four times,” said Teresa, the housekeeper.
Victoria whipped around. “I’d be careful if I were you.”
“You should have been,” Alessandro said.
He took the crop from Victoria’s hand and snapped it in half. The crack made Mara flinch.
His eyes moved to her. “Did she hurt you?”
“No, sir.”
“Look at me.”
Mara lifted her head. Alessandro’s expression shifted. She couldn’t tell what he saw in her face, but for one uneasy second he looked as if he knew her.
Then he noticed the pendant at her throat.
A small silver oval. A star engraved inside a circle.
“Where did you get that?”
Mara covered it with her palm. “My mother gave it to me.”
“What’s her name?”
She looked past him, toward the long hallway leading to the private rooms.
“Isabella,” she said.
Alessandro went still.
Victoria gave a brittle laugh. “There must be hundreds of women named Isabella.”
“What’s her full name?” Alessandro asked.
Mara’s mouth had gone dry. She had imagined this moment so many times. She had never imagined reaching it with Victoria standing close enough to hear.
“My mother told me never to say it inside this house.”
“Why?”
“Because the person who put her in the ground still lives here.”
No one moved.
Victoria took one step back. Alessandro noticed.
Mara’s fingers closed around the pendant. “And your fiancée knows where she’s buried.”
Alessandro turned to Victoria. “Tell me she’s lying.”
Victoria stared at Mara.
From somewhere upstairs came the click of a door closing.
May you like
Mara knew that sound. She had heard it every night for six months.
It came from the room at the end of the west hall—the room Alessandro had been told was empty.
