Chapter 4 - The Sound of an Engine

A week after the fever broke, Dr. Leone cleared Elena for light duties. Teresa shortened her hours and kept her away from strenuous work. The other employees watched this change with curiosity, though no one questioned the doctor's orders while Matteo was in the house.

Elena returned to her routine with the care of someone walking across unfamiliar ground. She polished the sunroom shelves, folded linen, and avoided the private wing. She was grateful, but gratitude did not erase her need to be seen as capable.

One afternoon, a delivery truck stalled near the main entrance. Its engine backfired as the driver tried to restart it.

The sound traveled through the hall like a hard crack.

Elena was carrying fresh towels when Matteo appeared at the top of the staircase. He stood utterly still, one hand gripping the banister, his face drained of color. Gabriel moved toward him, but Matteo raised a hand before the guard could speak.

"The truck," Gabriel said. "Nothing else."

"I know what it was."

Matteo turned away. His steps were controlled, yet Elena saw the effort it cost him to keep them that way.

She understood then that his broken sleep was not simply insomnia. Something in the past could still reach him through an ordinary noise.

She said nothing to the others. When Teresa asked why she had stopped in the hall, Elena replied that the delivery was louder than expected. She would not turn a private moment into kitchen gossip.

That evening, she found Matteo in the sunroom. The folders on the table remained closed. His silver watch flashed as he turned it over on his wrist.

"The doctor said I'm well enough to work," Elena told him.

"Good."

"I also wanted to say I won't repeat what happened on the stairs."

His gaze lifted. "What do you think happened?"

"I don't know," she said. "And I don't need to know."

For a long time, he studied her. Most people in his position either demanded explanations or performed indifference while collecting details. Elena was giving him something rarer: a choice.

"Six years ago, there was an attack on a car I was in," Matteo said.

She didn't move.

"My younger brother, Paolo, was with me. He didn't survive."

The room seemed to narrow around the words. Elena glanced at Matteo's hands, now resting flat on the table. They had been so steady when he held her water glass.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"People said that often. Some meant it. After a while, I couldn't tell the difference."

"You don't have to tell me more."

"I know."

He looked beyond her to the winter garden. "Engines still wake me. Footsteps. Sometimes there isn't a sound at all. I open my eyes and expect the road to be there again."

Elena took the chair across from him but kept a respectful distance. There was no easy answer to a grief that had lived for six years inside someone's body.

"That night," she said, choosing her words carefully, "when I fell asleep in your bed... did I make it worse?"

Matteo looked directly at her. "No."

"Then why were you sitting there the next morning?"

He drew a slow breath. "Because I slept until morning."

The confession was so small that she almost missed its weight.

"You hadn't been able to?"

"Not like that. Not for six years."

Elena felt an unexpected ache. She knew what it was to fear losing a job. She did not know what it was to fear the night every time the lights went out.

"I'm glad you rested," she said. "But I was sick. You should have called someone."

A corner of his mouth moved. "That is what the doctor said."

"He was right."

"He usually is."

It was the first time she had heard him make even a faint joke. She smiled despite herself. He returned to the papers but did not open them, and she understood their conversation had reached its natural end.

The next morning, Matteo asked Dr. Leone for the name of a clinician experienced in treating trauma-related sleep problems. He had refused that suggestion before, insisting he could manage with discipline and locked doors. This time he made the appointment.

Gabriel found him leaving the study with the appointment card.

"Is something wrong?" Gabriel asked.

"Something has been wrong for six years."

Gabriel waited, unsure whether to apologize or salute.

"I don't want you to reorganize the house around it," Matteo said. "I want you to keep the house safe while I do something about it."

Elena knew none of that exchange. She learned only that Matteo had chosen to leave the estate for an ordinary appointment and return without a convoy of unnecessary cars.

That night a different question kept her awake. He had trusted her with Paolo's name. Could she accept that trust without becoming the only thing standing between him and his memories?

Before retiring, Matteo went to the kitchen himself. Teresa was reviewing the next day's staffing roster. She rose at his approach, surprised to find him there without an urgent instruction.

"Did I ever ask how many people in this house work while they're ill?" he asked.

Teresa considered him. "You asked whether the work was done. Those aren't quite the same questions."

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He accepted the answer. Together they examined the procedures for reporting sickness, and he made it clear that workers should be able to seek medical attention without first proving they were indispensable. Teresa would handle the details, as she always had. This time Matteo made certain she had the resources to do so.

When he returned upstairs, he passed the once-faulty service door. Its latch closed with a quiet click. The sound did not frighten him. He stood listening to it, struck by the distance between a practical precaution and the walls he had built inside himself.