CHAPTER 2: THE LOCKED ROOM
night.
Every medicine cabinet.
Every nanny file.
Every security recording.
By midnight, his men found it.
A locked drawer in Mrs. Bell’s private staff room.
Inside were small amber bottles with Leo’s name printed on fake pharmacy labels.
Sedatives.
Not enough to kill him.
Just enough to blur his memory.
Just enough to make him violent, confused, and terrified.
Matteo stood over the drawer, deathly still.
Cameron was beside him, holding Leo’s wooden train.
The same train he had thrown at her.
The same train with a tiny chip on the side.
She turned it over.
There was something hidden inside the cracked wooden base.
A small folded photograph.
Cameron pulled it out carefully.
The picture showed Leo as a baby in the arms of a beautiful young woman.
His mother.
But behind them stood Mrs. Bell.
Younger.
Smiling.
Holding a bottle.
Matteo took the photo from Cameron’s hand.
His breath stopped.
“That was taken the week before Isabella died,” he said.
Cameron’s voice lowered.
“Your wife didn’t die naturally, did she?”
Matteo did not answer.
He didn’t have to.
Behind them, Leo began to cry.
Not loudly.
Not wildly.
Just one broken little sound.
“Mommy said hide the train.”
Matteo slowly crouched in front of his son.
“What else did Mommy say?”
Leo looked at Cameron first.
Only when she nodded did he whisper:
“Bell hurt Mommy.”
The room turned cold.
Matteo closed his eyes.
For three years, he had believed grief had destroyed his son.
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Now he knew the truth.
Someone in his own house had.
