Chapter 5 - Isabella’s VoiceThe federal prosecutor arrived at the DeLuca mansion at 10:17 that morning with two agents, one recorder, and the expression of a woman who did not like walking into houses where every portrait seemed to know where bodies were buried.
Her name was Evelyn Grant.
She had tried to indict Lorenzo twice.
He had respected her both times because she did not bluff.
Now she stood in his library, staring at Matteo Varrone locked to a chair by two silent guards.
“I’m going to ask a question I never expected to ask in this house,” she said. “Are you requesting my help?”
Lorenzo stood beside the window.
“I am offering you evidence.”
“Against whom?”
“Everyone who took my fiancée and daughter.”
Grant’s eyes sharpened.
“And what do you want in exchange?”
Lorenzo looked toward the hallway, where Sophia sat with Emma under the watch of a woman Lorenzo trusted with his life.
“Protection for them.”
Grant followed his gaze.
“The maid and the child?”
“Yes.”
“And for you?”
Lorenzo’s mouth hardened.
“I have lived long enough with what I am.”
For the first time, Grant seemed unsure what to say.
Then Marco entered holding a small evidence bag.
“We pulled Clara Conti’s phone records,” he said. “She made three calls from the brownstone last night before we arrived.”
“To whom?” Lorenzo asked.
Marco handed him the paper.
“One was to a prepaid number. One to Dr. Hale. One to this house.”
The room went still.
Grant looked up.
“This house?”
Marco nodded.
“Landline. Private study line.”
Lorenzo turned slowly.
Only four people knew that number.
Himself.
Marco.
Matteo.
And Isabella.
Matteo smiled from the chair.
“Interesting,” he said.
Lorenzo crossed the room so quickly the guards tensed.
“Who answered?”
Marco’s jaw tightened.
“The call lasted eleven seconds.”
Grant leaned forward.
“Do you have audio?”
Marco placed a small recorder on the table.
“House security archives all incoming calls.”
Lorenzo had forgotten that.
Or maybe grief had made him forget what his own house remembered.
Marco pressed play.
Static filled the library.
Then a woman’s breath.
Not words.
Breath.
A broken inhale, like someone trying not to cry.
Then a voice whispered, “Lorenzo.”
The room vanished.
The walls, the prosecutor, Matteo’s smile, the rain, the grave — everything disappeared except that voice.
Isabella.
Older. Weaker. Terrified.
But Isabella.
Lorenzo gripped the table so hard the wood creaked.
The recording continued.
A second voice entered, female, sharp and hurried.
“Say only what we told you.”
Isabella breathed again.
Then, in a rush, she whispered, “Do not trust—”
The line cut dead.
Silence.
No one moved.
Evelyn Grant looked at Lorenzo and, for once, there was no prosecutor in her face. Only a woman who understood that something monstrous had happened.
Matteo laughed softly.
Lorenzo turned.
It was the wrong sound.
The wrong moment.
The guards stepped forward.
Matteo lifted both hands as much as the restraints allowed.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “You heard her. She did not finish.”
Lorenzo walked toward him.
“Do not trust who?”
Matteo leaned back.
“Maybe she meant me. Maybe she meant your captain. Maybe she meant the maid. Maybe she meant the prosecutor standing in your library pretending she wouldn’t trade your daughter’s safety for a conviction.”
Grant’s eyes flashed.
“I would be careful.”
Matteo smiled at her.
“Everyone in this room should be careful.”
Emma appeared in the doorway then, slipping past the woman assigned to watch her. Her rabbit dragged along the carpet.
Sophia rushed behind her. “Emma, no.”
But Emma was staring at the recorder.
“The crying lady,” she said.
Lorenzo turned.
“What?”
Emma pointed at the machine.
“That’s the crying lady.”
Sophia covered her mouth.
Lorenzo crouched before the child.
“Emma, when you were in the blue room, did the crying lady ever say a name?”
Emma thought hard.
Children remembered strangely. Not dates. Not explanations. But songs. Colors. Repeated sounds.
“She said Fina,” Emma whispered.
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
Serafina.
Emma continued, “And she said sorry.”
“To the baby?”
Emma shook her head.
“To you.”
The library became unbearable.
Grant spoke gently. “Emma, did you see the crying lady’s face?”
Emma nodded.
“Was it the woman in the big painting?”
Emma looked toward the hall, toward Isabella’s portrait.
Then she nodded again.
Sophia began to sob.
Lorenzo stood and turned away.
For eight months, he had punished himself for failing to protect Isabella in death.
Now he had to face something worse.
She had been alive the whole time.
Alive.
Trapped.
Calling his name from rooms he never knew existed.
Matteo watched him closely.
And that was when Lorenzo understood.
Matteo did not want him hopeless.
He wanted him reckless.
He wanted Lorenzo to charge into the dark, alone, blind with rage.
So Lorenzo did the one thing no one expected.
He sat down.
He placed Isabella’s recorded voice on the table in front of Prosecutor Grant.
Then he said, “Let us build a case that corners them before they move her again.”
May you like
Matteo’s smile faded.
Because the most dangerous man in New York had just become patient.
