I slip quietly from my chair, moving past the untouched fruit bowl and into the shadows near the hallway. Servants keep to their tasks, heads bowed, but one or two glance up, curious, maybe sympathetic. I ignore them. The phone call is everything now. My feet barely make a sound against the rug as I edge closer to the study.
Vittorio’s voice is clearer here, leaking through the half-open door. “No. No more gifts, no more threats. Tell Sharov if he wants a war, he can bleed for it.” There’s a pause, then something softer, almost desperate. “Enzo did what he had to. You tell them that.”
A chill rolls down my spine. Enzo. He never talks about him to me. I push a little closer, peering into the narrow strip of light that spills from the study.
Before I can catch more, a hand clamps gently around my arm. I jerk back, heart leaping, but it’s only Lucia, my aunt, her face pinched with worry.
“Isabella,” she whispers, glancing nervously at the study door, “let your uncle finish his business. Come help me with the flowers in the parlor.”
Her grip is soft but insistent. I want to pull away, press further into the shadows and listen for just one minute more, but Lucia shakes her head. “Not now, Isabella. Please.”
Her eyes flick toward the study, then back to me. I see the plea in her face.Don’t make trouble, not today.
The phone call ends with a sharp bang as Vittorio sets the receiver down. Silence settles over the hall. Lucia’s fingerstighten around mine, drawing me away before I can ask a single question. My chest aches with frustration, a pulse of helpless anger that burns under my skin.
I let Lucia lead me back toward the parlor, the taste of coffee sour on my tongue. No matter how hard I try, I’m always kept at arm’s length: shielded, caged, protected until I’m useless. Still, I file away what I heard: Sharov, Enzo, war.
Even locked out, I don’t forget a word.
***
The lock on Enzo’s study is easy enough to pick. I kneel, hair falling in my eyes, tension singing through my hands as I slide a pin into the old brass mechanism. It clicks open with a sound I feel all the way in my teeth. Nobody sees me slip inside. The hall is empty. I close the door behind me, careful not to let it catch.
Inside, dust settles on every surface. The room smells the way it always did—ink, old paper, the faint memory of tobacco, even though Enzo never smoked in here if he thought I’d notice.
I flick on the desk lamp, watching motes of dust swirl in the yellow light. For a minute, I stand there, just breathing. His jacket still hangs on the back of the chair, sleeves limp, pockets empty. There’s an indentation in the seat cushion where he used to sit, nights hunched over spreadsheets, scrawling figures in his sharp, slanting hand.
I cross to the desk. The drawers resist at first, but I know the trick: a gentle nudge, a twist, a push at the seam. I go through the usual mess: old bank statements, a spare watch, a half-used notebook with lists of dates and numbers. I flip through the pages, half hoping for a message he left behind, some hidden code only I could crack. Nothing. The silence presses in.
My fingers catch on something at the very back of the bottom drawer. It’s wedged between the wood and the lining. Flat, sharp-edged. I hook it free. An envelope, old and plain, the flap creased from being opened too many times. Inside, photos—a dozen or so, black and white, curling at the edges.
I slide the top one free. Enzo sits at a long table, posture too stiff, face set in a look I don’t recognize. Next to him, a man: tall, broad-shouldered, sharp jaw. His eyes are fixed on something out of frame, dark and piercing, the kind of eyes that don’t let you go.
On his right hand, a silver ring catches the light, engraved with a symbol I’ve never seen before. Not family. Not any crest I know. The emblem is clean-lined, almost brutal. I stare at it until my vision blurs.
A floorboard creaks behind me. I nearly drop the envelope. Aunt Lucia stands in the doorway, her face pale in the lamplight, her eyes rimmed with tiredness.
That’s twice I’ve been caught in as many days.
She doesn’t scold, just sighs softly, and crosses the room to me.
“You’re up late again,” she says, voice gentle, as if I’m still a child and not someone carrying ghosts. Her hand settles lightly on my shoulder, thumb stroking through the thin fabric of my shirt.
I turn the photograph in my hand, showing her Enzo and the stranger. “Do you know who he is?” My voice is rough. I clear my throat, but the ache stays lodged there.
Lucia leans in, squinting at the image. “I’ve seen him. Once, maybe twice. At the estate, years ago, before things got… tense. He’s Russian, I think. One of the Sharovs’ men.”Her words have a practiced smoothness. She tries to sound indifferent, but I hear the tension anyway.
My fingers clench around the photo. “Enzo was meeting with them, wasn’t he? With the Russians. With…” I bite the words off. The ring glints again, taunting.
Lucia pulls me into a side embrace. She smells like her favorite perfume, citrus and powder, but there’s salt underneath, the kind that comes from nights spent crying.
“You have to let it go, Isabella. Your uncle… all of us. We lost him too. If there were answers, we would have found them by now.”
I shake my head. “What if it wasn’t an accident? What if someone did this to him?”
Her mouth tightens. For a moment she doesn’t answer, only smoothing my hair away from my cheek with a trembling hand. “Those days were difficult,” she admits. “Your uncle tried to shield you from it, but there was trouble. The Sharovs pushed too far. There were threats, meetings, arguments. But these things happen. In our world, sometimes there is no neat answer. Sometimes you only get silence.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I want to believe you. I do. But I hear things at night. I hear Uncle, Matteo, even the staff. Everyone acts like Enzo was a saint who died for nothing, but he was… well, he was more than that. He didn’t die for nothing. He wouldn’t have just gone off the road.”
