CHAPTER 4 — ELENA’S ROOM
On Sunday morning, Matteo kept his promise.
A black car took Liana to the cemetery.
Tomas, the quieter of the two guards who had met her at the gate, drove without speaking. He remained near the car while Liana walked alone through the rain-softened grass.
Samuel’s grave stood beneath a dying elm tree.
The marker was small and unfinished.
SAMUEL GRAVES.
BELOVED SON.
There had not been enough money for dates.
Liana knelt and removed wet leaves from the stone.
“I found work,” she whispered. “In the strangest place you could imagine.”
Her voice broke.
“There’s another baby. His name is Nico. He cries like you did when you were hungry.”
She pressed her forehead against the cold marker.
“I held him, Sammy. I thought it would destroy me.”
Tears slipped down her face.
“But for one minute, it felt like my arms remembered how to live.”
When she returned to the car, Tomas was staring toward the road.
“You have children?” she asked.
“A daughter.”
“How old?”
“Seven.”
“Does Mr. Varric know?”
“He knows everything.”
The answer sounded automatic.
Liana watched him.
“Does Carlo?”
Tomas’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“Mrs. Graves, some questions are safer when they remain unasked.”
At the mansion, Nico was crying.
Mrs. Bell met Liana at the entrance.
“Mr. Varric has been carrying him for an hour.”
Liana hurried upstairs.
She found Matteo standing in an unfamiliar bedroom at the end of the west hall.
The room had been preserved exactly as its owner had left it.
A silk robe hung near the bed. Perfume bottles lined a mirrored table. A wedding photograph showed Matteo beside a dark-haired woman with bright, intelligent eyes.
Elena.
Nico cried against Matteo’s shoulder.
Matteo looked furious and ashamed.
“He wouldn’t stop.”
“You brought him here?”
“He calmed down when Elena held him near the window.”
Liana approached slowly.
Matteo did not hand her the baby.
Instead, he stared at the wedding photograph.
“She hated this house,” he said.
Liana waited.
“She said every wall had ears. Every gift had blood on it. Every dinner felt like a negotiation.”
“Why did she stay?”
“She believed I could become someone else.”
“Could you?”
Matteo looked at her.
“I tried.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Nico reached toward Liana.
Matteo finally let her take him.
The baby settled almost immediately.
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
“He trusts you.”
“He trusts what I provide.”
“No. He looks for you.”
Liana kissed Nico’s damp hair.
“That doesn’t mean I can replace her.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
But the pain in his voice said otherwise.
Liana carried Nico toward the window.
On the table beneath it lay a framed photograph turned facedown.
She lifted it.
Elena stood beside a younger Matteo in front of Saint Agnes Charity Hospital.
Liana’s breath stopped.
She knew that building.
Samuel had died there.
Behind the couple, partly hidden by a banner, stood Carlo DeLuca.
Liana turned the photograph over.
May you like
Written on the back were six words.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, ASK ABOUT CARLO.
