The Maid Knew Where His Mother Was Buried—And His Fiancée Knew Why

Alessandro ordered the gates opened. By the time a guard reached them, the man had disappeared.

He had left the envelope wedged between the iron bars.

Inside was the photograph and a single page torn from an old property file. At the bottom was an address on Bell Street. Across the top, someone had written:

ASK YOUR FATHER WHY THE GRAVE WAS EMPTY.

Alessandro read it twice.

“My father signed her death certificate,” he said.

“Your father wasn’t a doctor,” Mara replied.

“He signed the papers authorizing the burial.”

The difference seemed to hit him as he spoke.

Victoria reached for the page. “This is ridiculous. Anyone can write a message.”

Alessandro moved it out of her reach. “You’re staying here.”

“I’m your fiancée.”

“Then you’ll understand why I need you where I can find you.”

He asked his head of security, Luca, to remain with Victoria. Mara noticed Luca did not meet her eyes.

Twenty minutes later, she and Alessandro arrived at the Bell Street address. It was a narrow row house squeezed between a laundromat and a closed bakery. The lock on the front door was broken.

Inside, the rooms had been turned over. Drawers lay on the floor. A kitchen chair had been smashed. Mara ran to the back bedroom, calling her mother’s name before she could stop herself.

Nobody answered.

Alessandro found a framed photograph face down under the bed. Isabella stood beside a little girl with dark curls.

Mara at seven.

“You knew her,” he said.

“She raised me.”

Alessandro looked up sharply. “Is she your biological mother?”

“Yes.”

He sat on the edge of the bare mattress.

Mara had expected questions. She hadn’t expected to see him calculate the years. Isabella had been his mother, too. He was twelve years older than Mara.

“My father knew about you,” Alessandro said quietly.

“I don’t know what he knew.”

From the front room came a crash.

Alessandro reached Mara in two strides and pushed her behind him. Luca was supposed to have sent guards ahead. There had been no sign of them.

A woman stepped into the bedroom holding a metal lamp.

She was in her late sixties, breathing hard. “You’re not taking anything else.”

Mara recognized her from her mother’s stories. “Mrs. Bell?”

The woman lowered the lamp. “Mara?”

She looked at Alessandro, and her expression changed.

“Your mother said you might come,” she told him. “She also said the first person to betray her would call himself your friend.”