Chapter 2 - The Letter Vincent Wrote Eight Days Ago

Nobody breathed while Matteo held the envelope.

Not Graham.

Not Lydia.

Not me.

Even the guests who had spent the last ten minutes pretending this was still an engagement party had stopped pretending.

Matteo slid one finger beneath the seal.

Lydia flinched.

He noticed.

“So you know what’s inside.”

“No.”

Her answer came too fast.

Matteo opened the letter.

The paper shook once in his hand.

Then stopped.

He read silently.

His face did not change at first.

That was worse.

Matteo was dangerous when he shouted.

But the people who truly knew him were more afraid when he became still.

Graham stood beside the table.

“Read the first paragraph.”

Matteo looked up.

“Why?”

“Because she needs to hear it too.”

Lydia closed her eyes.

Matteo read.

“Son, if Graham reaches you, believe him before you believe anyone named Maren.”

A sound moved through the ballroom.

Not a gasp.

Something lower.

Recognition.

Lydia stared at the floor.

Matteo continued.

“I was not taken because of anything you did. I stayed alive because Charles Maren needed something I had, and because he believed you would destroy it if I died.”

Matteo stopped.

“What did my father have?”

Graham untied another bundle inside the folder.

“Control.”

“Of what?”

“A trust your grandfather created before you were born.”

Lydia whispered, “Matteo—”

He raised a hand.

She stopped.

Graham placed a faded document on the table.

“The Vale Foundation owned thirty-one percent of a private land company with Maren Holdings. Your father discovered Charles was moving properties through shell corporations.”

Matteo looked at the page.

“Then why hide him for twelve years?”

“Because Vincent refused to sign away his voting rights.”

My stomach tightened.

Matteo looked back at the letter.

There was more.

He read the next lines.

“Three years ago, Lydia found me. She was not brought here by accident. Charles sent her because he thought I trusted young faces more than old ones.”

Lydia’s head snapped up.

Matteo stared at her.

“You were sent to him?”

She swallowed.

“Yes.”

The word landed harder than any scream could have.

Matteo took one step back.

“And after that you met me.”

Lydia’s eyes filled.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Eleven months later.”

“You knew who I was before I ever introduced myself?”

“Yes.”

The room blurred around me.

I remembered their first dinner at the estate.

Lydia laughing when Matteo spilled wine on his own cuff.

Matteo telling me afterward that she was the first woman in years who had spoken to him like he was normal.

Now I understood why she had never needed to ask about the Vale family.

She already knew.

Matteo looked down again.

He read the final paragraph.

This time his voice changed.

“Do not assume Lydia is her father.”

Lydia covered her mouth.

Matteo stopped.

Graham looked at him.

“Finish it.”

Matteo did.

“She made one mistake for him. Then she made several against him. If she is standing near you when you read this, ask her why Room 214 still had a window.”

Nobody understood.

Except Lydia.

Her face collapsed.

Matteo folded the letter once.

Slowly.

“What does that mean?”

She shook her head.

“Not here.”

He laughed once.

There was no humor in it.

“You asked me that ten minutes ago.”

“Matteo, please.”

“No.”

He pointed toward the ballroom doors.

“Everyone out.”

The guests hesitated.

Then sixty people remembered exactly who owned the house.

They moved.

Quickly.

Within two minutes, the ballroom was nearly empty.

Only Matteo.

Lydia.

Graham.

And me.

I started toward the service hall.

“Anna.”

Matteo’s voice stopped me.

I turned.

“You stay.”

Lydia looked at him.

“Why?”

He didn’t look away from me.

“Because she opened the door you wanted closed.”

I stayed.

Matteo placed his father’s letter on the table.

“Now explain the window.”

Lydia sat down.

For the first time that night, she looked smaller than the dress she was wearing.

“My father sent me to Wisconsin three years ago.”

“To see Vincent?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To convince him to sign.”

Matteo’s jaw tightened.

“And did you?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

She looked at Graham.

Then at me.

Then finally at Matteo.

“Your father asked me one question.”

“What?”

“He asked whether you still hated thunderstorms.”

Matteo stopped breathing.

Lydia’s voice broke.

“I didn’t know the answer.”

He looked away.

When he was twenty-one, the night Vincent disappeared, a storm had crossed Lake Michigan.

Everyone in the house knew that story.

But only family knew Matteo had hated storms as a child.

Lydia continued.

“I realized he wasn’t some confused man my father was protecting.”

She wiped one tear away.

“He was your father.”

Matteo’s voice was cold.

“So you freed him.”

“No.”

Silence.

The word hung there.

Lydia looked ashamed.

“I tried.”

Matteo stared at her.

“You tried?”

“There was a window in Room 214. It opened six inches.”

Graham suddenly understood.

“You loosened the safety bracket.”

She nodded.

“I brought him a phone the next week. I hid it behind the radiator.”

Matteo looked at the letter.

“My father knew.”

“He knew I came back.”

“What happened?”

“My father found out.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

She pressed both palms against the table.

“The phone disappeared. The window was sealed. Two men were waiting for me in the parking lot.”

Matteo said nothing.

Lydia looked directly at him.

“My father told me if I went back again, he would move Vincent somewhere Graham would never find.”

Graham’s expression hardened.

“And you believed him.”

“Yes.”

Matteo’s voice became quieter.

“You left my father there.”

Lydia cried then.

Not loudly.

That made it worse.

“Yes.”

Matteo looked at her engagement ring.

Then at the letter.

Then at the woman he had planned to marry in three weeks.

“Why did you come into my life?”

Lydia’s answer took several seconds.

“At first?”

“Yes.”

“My father told me to.”

Matteo’s face emptied.

“And after?”

She looked at him.

“After, I couldn’t leave.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s the only honest one I have.”

Matteo stepped away from the table.

Graham reached into his coat.

“There is something else.”

Matteo almost smiled.

“Of course there is.”

Graham placed a folded sheet beside the letter.

“A visitor log.”

Lydia stared at it.

Her face went white.

Matteo looked down.

One name had been circled.

Not Lydia’s.

Charles Maren.

And beside it was yesterday’s date.

Matteo lifted his eyes.

“Your father was with mine yesterday?”

Lydia whispered, “I didn’t know.”

Graham looked toward the dark windows.

“Then we have a problem.”

Matteo turned.

“What problem?”

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The old lawyer’s voice was calm.

“Room 214 may already be empty.”