Chapter 4 - Shadows in the West Wing
Three days had passed since the incident at the ballroom, and the tension inside the Moretti estate had grown thick enough to cut with a knife.
Ricardo was barely home, locked in endless strategy meetings with his capos and lawyers as rumors of an impending turf war with the Russian syndicate spread through the underground like wildfire. Guards patrolled the perimeter twenty-four hours a day, and every window facing the snowy courtyard was reinforced with ballistic glass.
Yet, despite the chaos outside, the mansion felt eerily quiet.
It was two o'clock in the morning when I woke up to the sound of soft, rhythmic crying echoing down the hallway.
At first, I thought it was Leo having another nightmare. I threw on a silk robe over my pajamas and slipped out of my room, tiptoeing down the hallway toward the nursery. But the nursery was empty, the bed neatly made.
The crying was coming from further down.
From the eastern corridor, leading past the grand staircase.
Leading directly toward the forbidden west wing.
My heart hammered against my ribs. Ricardo’s warning echoed clearly in my mind: The west wing is strictly off-limits. No exceptions.
He had said it with a terrifying finality that suggested crossing that threshold was a death sentence. But as I crept closer, the sound shifted—it wasn't just crying anymore. It sounded like muffled piano keys playing a haunting, discordant melody, mixed with the soft murmur of a woman’s voice.
A woman?
I thought Ricardo was a widower. I thought his wife had died years ago, which was why Leo had been so desperately searching for a mother in that crowded restaurant.
Driven by an irresistible mix of dread, curiosity, and protective instinct, I reached the double iron sconces marking the boundary of the west wing.
The air here was colder. The plush carpets gave way to bare, echoing hardwood floors. The walls were lined with heavy, dark oil portraits of stern-looking Moretti ancestors whose painted eyes seemed to follow my every step.
I followed the sound of the piano down the dim hallway until I reached a heavy oak door left cracked open by an inch.
A pale sliver of golden candlelight spilled out across the floorboards.
I crept forward, holding my breath, and pressed my eye against the gap in the door.
Inside, the room was massive, draped in heavy velvet curtains that blocked out the winter moon. In the center of the room stood a grand mahogany Steinway piano. Seated at the bench wasn't a ghost, and it wasn't a prisoner.
It was a woman.
She had long, dark hair cascading down her back, wearing a simple white silk dress that looked decades out of style. Her fingers danced across the ivory keys, playing a melancholic lullaby while she wept silently into her chest.
Before I could process what I was seeing, a heavy hand gripped my shoulder from behind with crushing force.
I gasped, spinning around in sheer terror, ready to scream.
A hand slammed over my mouth, cutting off the sound.
“What in God’s name do you think you are doing?” Ricardo’s voice hissed in my ear, hot and furious, his dark eyes blazing with a terrifying, unhinged rage.
He shoved me backward down the corridor, away from the door, his chest heaving as he slammed the heavy oak door shut with a deafening bang that echoed down the hallway.
“You broke the one rule I gave you, Elena,” Ricardo snarled, backing me against the cold wall, his hands flat against the wood on either side of my head. “The only rule.”
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“Who is she?” I breathed, my heart hammering against his chest as I stared up into his furious, tortured eyes. “Ricardo, who is in that room? You said she was dead!”
“Shut up!” Ricardo roared, his face inches from mine, his voice cracking with a raw, agonizing pain I had never seen in him before. “You don't know what you’ve just stepped into. If my enemies find out she’s here—if Viktor or any of them realize she’s breathing—they won't just kill me, Elena. They will tear this entire house apart to get to her.”
