Chapter 2 - The Call Vanessa Never Expected

For several seconds after I finished speaking, Luca Moretti did not move. The photograph of him and his former wife lay between us, its folded edge catching the light from his desk lamp. On the monitor beside it, the hallway camera remained paused on the moment I had struck the doorframe. I could hear the hum of the equipment and, somewhere downstairs, the last of the dinner staff clearing glasses.

"She said that exactly?" Luca asked.

I nodded. "She said your former wife still has something that belongs to you. And that she needed the photographs delivered before the wedding."

"Did she say what the thing was?"

"No, sir. I didn't hear that part."

I hated how disappointed I sounded, as though a bruise and a photograph were not enough. Luca looked at me for a long moment before turning his attention to the phone. He asked Daniel to preserve the original camera files, the access logs for the guest-room corridor, and the recording from the service staircase. He also wanted a list of everyone who had entered the mansion that afternoon and the name under which William Mercer had been admitted.

"Nothing gets deleted," he said. "And no one discusses this with Vanessa."

When he hung up, he pushed the photograph toward me but did not ask me to touch it again. "I need to know what happened inside that room, Olivia. Only what you remember. If you need to stop, we'll stop."

I sat on the edge of the chair opposite his desk. At 3:47, I had carried fresh towels upstairs because Mrs. Carter had asked me to prepare the guest room. Vanessa and the stranger had entered two minutes later. I had been about to leave when I heard Vanessa discussing a set of photographs and instructions for someone to contact Luca's former wife. The stranger had a leather folder. Vanessa called him Mercer once. When I reached the doorway, Vanessa caught my shoulder. I pulled away, the man stepped into my path, and I stumbled against the frame.

"He didn't punch me," I said. "But he blocked the way out. She wouldn't let go."

Luca's expression tightened. He asked whether either of them had threatened me afterward. Vanessa had told me that nobody would believe a housekeeper who accused the woman about to marry Luca Moretti. She had reminded me that I depended on the wages I earned there. I hadn't known which part frightened me more: losing my job or having her story repeated until it sounded true.

"Dr. Harris wrote down what you told him?" Luca asked.

"Yes. He said the swelling should be watched and told me to rest."

"Then you're going to rest. You'll be paid for tonight and for any time you need to recover. Mrs. Carter will arrange it."

I looked down at my hands. The seventy-four dollars remaining in my account had shaped every decision I'd made since the afternoon. I had been prepared to work through the pain because my rent would not wait. Hearing Luca promise payment was a relief, but it did not erase what had happened in a house where I'd previously felt safe.

"What if she tells everyone I lied?" I asked.

"Then we'll have the footage, your account, and the doctor's notes. You won't have to face that alone."

He did not promise that people would be kind. I appreciated that more than reassurance he couldn't guarantee.

Daniel knocked a little after eleven. He brought a drive containing preserved copies of the hallway and staircase recordings. Mercer had entered through the side entrance on a visitor authorization arranged by Vanessa's personal office. His name had been entered as a consultant, not as a private investigator. The guest-room key had been requested in advance, although I had never been told anyone would meet there.

"She planned the meeting," Luca said.

"Yes," Daniel answered. "But that doesn't tell us what she planned to do when Olivia walked in."

I was grateful he made the distinction. I knew what Vanessa had done after discovering I could hear them. I didn't know whether she had intended to hurt me before I arrived. Luca asked Daniel to obtain the full visitor record and preserve any correspondence concerning Mercer's appointment. Then he called Mrs. Carter to take me to the staff sitting room, where I could rest without crossing Vanessa's path.

Before I left, I looked back at the photograph. "She was very specific about the date," I said. "She told Mercer the pictures had to reach your former wife before the wedding, even if she refused to answer his calls."

Luca turned it over again. Last Tuesday. His meeting with his former wife had been a practical conversation about selling a vacation property they still owned together. I could see he was already reviewing that afternoon for details that might have seemed unimportant at the time.

"Did she ask you for anything?" I asked quietly.

"No. We discussed the sale. Nothing else."

I believed him. Whatever Vanessa hoped to accomplish, the photograph itself proved only that two people who once had been married had stood outside a restaurant together. It was the story she wanted Mercer to attach to the picture that made it dangerous.

Mrs. Carter was waiting outside the study. She took one look at my face and put a hand against my shoulder, careful not to touch the place Vanessa had grabbed. She did not ask for an explanation in the corridor. In the sitting room, she brought water, an ice pack wrapped in a clean towel, and the medication instructions from Dr. Harris. She also told me she had already marked my hours as paid.

"You should have come to me," she said.

"I was afraid you'd have to tell her."

Mrs. Carter sat beside me. "You don't have to decide what to do next tonight."

That simple permission almost made me cry. I had spent the evening making decisions with no safe option: hide the bruise or be questioned, speak the truth or lose my job, stay quiet or let Vanessa hurt someone else. For the first time since the guest room, I could sit still.

Upstairs, Luca waited until Daniel returned with another piece of information. A routine request had reached the mansion's property office the previous week. It asked for an inventory of items stored at the vacation home Luca still jointly owned with his former wife. The request had come through an administrative account used by Vanessa's staff. Nothing had been removed, according to the response, but someone had been looking for a particular archive box among the property's records.

"Why would Vanessa need an inventory for a house she doesn't own?" Luca asked.

Daniel could not answer. Nor could he say who had told Vanessa about the box. But he showed Luca the inventory request, then placed a separate copy alongside the visitor authorization and the preserved footage. The same wedding office had handled both arrangements.

Luca stared at the records before dialing a number he had rarely used in four years. His former wife did not answer. He left a brief message asking her to call him directly and saying that someone might be trying to interfere with the sale of their vacation home.

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

I learned about that call only the next morning. At the time, I was still in the sitting room, holding the ice pack against my cheek, when Mrs. Carter came back to tell me Luca had asked that I not return to my usual duties until I felt ready. From the hallway, I heard the subdued movement of security personnel changing shifts.

Vanessa was asleep upstairs, apparently certain her explanation about the pantry door had ended the matter. She did not know that Luca had recovered the footage. She did not know Mercer had been identified. And she did not know that, before midnight, Luca had begun looking for the one person she was determined to turn against him.