Chapter 2 - The Silent House
By five o'clock that evening, the estate had transformed from a terrifying palace into a gilded cage. Mrs. Gable had carried out Alessandro’s orders with mechanical efficiency. A spacious room on the ground floor of the west wing—far nicer than the cramped one-bedroom apartment I rented in Rogers Park—had been opened for us. It contained a soft queen-sized bed, a wooden crib painted cream, and three large boxes of vintage wooden toys that had belonged to the Moretti family decades ago.
Emma was in heaven. She sat on the thick Persian rug, lining up wooden trains while eating sliced apples provided by the estate's private chef.
I, however, could not rest.
The double pay—three hundred dollars a day—was enough to pay off my overdue rent notice in less than a week. It was a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman. But as I walked back down the quiet, carpeted hallway toward Alessandro’s study carrying a fresh linen tray, I couldn't shake the memory of Dominic Rosso's eyes.
When Dominic had looked at Emma, he hadn't seen a child. He had seen an inconvenience. An obstacle.
I pushed the heavy oak doors of the study open softly.
The room was dim now, lit only by a single green banker's lamp on the grand desk and the soft orange glow of the fireplace. Alessandro sat in his wheelchair near the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out into the dark, snow-covered gardens of the estate. A half-empty glass of amber whiskey sat on the table beside him, accompanied by a silver tray holding his evening medication: three small white pills and a tiny blue capsule.
He didn't turn around when I entered. "You move quietly, Tessa."
"It's part of the job, sir," I said, setting my cleaning supplies near the door. "I came to clear the tea tray and turn down the lamps."
"Leave the lamps," he said. "The darkness is comfortable."
I began clearing the cups from the coffee table, keeping my head down. I was determined to follow the agency's second rule: Never ask questions. But the silence between us felt heavy, thick with things unsaid.
"Why did you come to work here?" Alessandro asked suddenly, his voice echoing off the dark wood. "A woman with a child. This isn't a safe place for people who have something to lose."
I paused, a porcelain saucer balanced in my hands. "I needed the money, Mr. Moretti. My husband died eighteen months ago in an industrial accident at the rail yards. The company denied the insurance claim. I’ve been working three jobs ever since to keep a roof over Emma's head."
Alessandro turned his wheelchair around slowly. The dim light highlighted the harsh angles of his cheekbones and the deep lines of fatigue around his eyes.
"Loss," he murmured. "It stays in the room with you, doesn't it? It sits in the corner, waiting for you to forget, so it can remind you again."
"Yes," I said quietly, looking directly into his eyes. "It does. But you can't let it win. Not when you have someone depending on you."
Alessandro looked down at his useless legs, his fingers tightening into fists against his knees. "Two years ago, I was driving through Lincoln Park. A delivery truck ran a red light at sixty miles an hour. T-boned my sedan. My driver died instantly. My spine was crushed." He let out a harsh, dry laugh. "The police called it a tragic accident. The city moved on."
"Was it an accident?" I asked before I could stop myself.
Alessandro lifted his head, his gray eyes flashing with a terrifying, lethal sharpness. "In my line of work, Tessa, there are no accidents. Only failed executions and successful ones."
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
"Dominic thinks I should retreat to Sicily," Alessandro continued, leaning back into the dark leather of his chair. "He thinks I am a ghost taking up space at the head of the table. He wants me to sign over the power of attorney for the shipping lines, for the real estate holdings, for everything my father built."
"Why don't you?" I asked softly. "If it's dangerous... if it's killing you?"
"Because if I step down," Alessandro said, his voice dropping into a register so dark it made the hair on my arms stand up, "the men who put me in this chair will take over everything. And the first thing they will do is erase everyone who was ever loyal to me."
He looked toward the silver pill case resting on the table. He reached out his left hand, picked up the tiny blue capsule, and prepared to toss it into his mouth with a swallow of whiskey.
My eyes fell on the silver tray.
Beside the pill case lay an open glass vial that the estate nurse had left earlier that afternoon. I had cleaned medical facilities before—I had spent six months cleaning a private clinic in Evanston—and I knew basic medical labeling.
The label on the vial read: Baclofen - 10mg. It was a standard muscle relaxant used for spinal cord injuries.
But the tiny blue capsule in Alessandro's hand was not Baclofen.
Baclofen capsules were solid white with a blue stripe. The pill in Alessandro’s hand was completely dark blue, slightly larger, with a faint, chalky residue dusting the gelatin casing.
"Wait!" I yelled, dropping the porcelain saucer onto the tray with a loud, shattering clatter.
Alessandro stopped, his hand halting an inch from his lips. He frowned, his eyebrows pulling together in sudden anger. "What are you doing?"
I crossed the room in three rapid steps, ignoring every protocol I had ever been taught. I grabbed his wrist—his powerful, warm wrist—and pulled his hand away from his mouth.
"Do not eat that," I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Alessandro’s eyes narrowed into slits. "Tessa, drop my arm before I have Viktor throw you into the snow."
"Look at the pill!" I shouted, pointing a shaking finger at the blue capsule in his palm. "Look at it, Mr. Moretti! That isn't your muscle relaxant!"
Alessandro looked down at his hand. He stared at the pill, his expression shifting from anger to deep suspicion. "What are you talking about? Nurse Sarah prepares my medication tray every evening at six."
"I cleaned at an orthopedic clinic for half a year," I said, my voice trembling with adrenaline. "I know Baclofen. I know what muscle relaxants look like. That pill is dark blue. It has no serial stamping. And look at your fingers—there’s a powdery residue on the casing. Someone filled that capsule by hand!"
Alessandro froze. The silence in the room became absolute.
Slowly, carefully, he set the blue capsule back down onto the silver tray. He looked at the white powder clinging to the tips of his thumb and index finger. He brought his hand close to his face, sniffing the residue faintly.
His face paled, turning the color of ash.
"Potassium cyanide," Alessandro whispered, the words barely carrying across the desk. "Or digitalis. Mixed with an anticoagulant to look like a massive cardiac arrest."
My knees felt weak. I backed away from the desk, clutching the wooden tray against my chest. Someone in this house was trying to murder him. Not with a gun, not with a bomb, but quietly, in the dark, using his own physical helplessness against him.
Alessandro sat motionless in his wheelchair for a long, terrifying minute. The fire crackled softly in the hearth, throwing long, dancing shadows across his granite face.
Then, slowly, he raised his head and looked at me. The coldness in his eyes was gone, replaced by something far more dangerous: absolute, unadulterated clarity.
"Nurse Sarah doesn't prepare my pills," Alessandro said softly, his voice dropping to a deathly calm. "She leaves the bottles locked in the cabinet. Only one person has the key to that cabinet when she leaves at five PM."
My throat went dry. "Who?"
May you like
Alessandro turned his head toward the heavy double doors of the study.
"Dominic," he said.
