Chapter 2 - THE MEAN PRINCESS
Isabella recovered quickly.
That was one of the reasons I had agreed to marry her.
She had been raised in rooms where weakness became currency. Her father, Vittorio Conti, had trained all three of his children to smile through funerals, betrayals, indictments, and business negotiations.
But I had seen the fear.
Only once.
That was enough.
Maria Russo rushed past her.
“Sophie!”
Sophie stood.
Maria dropped to her knees and pulled the child against her.
“What were you thinking? I have been looking everywhere.”
“I was doing fairy work.”
“You were supposed to stay with Rosa.”
“Rosa had to make tiny cakes.”
Maria closed her eyes.
“I am so sorry, Mr. Moretti.”
Her voice shook.
I disliked that.
Not because she had failed.
Because she was afraid of me.
Ten years of power had made fear a familiar part of every room I entered. I had stopped hearing it.
Sophie made me hear it again.
I put the gun away.
“She is unharmed.”
Maria looked at Caesar pressed beside Sophie.
Her face became even paler.
“Oh, God.”
“He likes her.”
Caesar wagged once.
Maria stared as if witnessing a lion ask for a belly rub.
Isabella stepped into the room.
“What is this place?”
I watched her.
“You tell me.”
Her gaze flickered.
“Why would I know?”
“You recognized the scarf.”
“I recognized Luca’s things.”
“Did you?”
“We were all children together, Alessandro.”
She was right.
The Morettis and Contis attended the same weddings, funerals, summer dinners, and Catholic school fundraisers. Isabella had known Luca.
Not well.
She was three years younger than me.
Luca once called her “the princess of knives” because she smiled whenever other children got in trouble.
She hated him for that nickname.
Sophie tugged Maria’s sleeve.
“Mommy, can we go downstairs?”
Maria nodded quickly.
“Yes.”
I said, “No.”
Maria froze.
Sophie looked interested.
Isabella looked annoyed.
I softened my voice.
“You will both remain in the family wing until I understand how someone used this passage.”
Maria swallowed.
“Sir, I have work.”
“The gala can survive without one cook.”
Isabella laughed under her breath.
“Barely.”
I turned toward her.
“Something amusing?”
“The kitchen is already behind. Your little guest has disrupted enough for one evening.”
Sophie looked down.
Maria’s hand tightened around her daughter.
I felt a sudden, disproportionate anger.
“She is five.”
“I can count.”
“Then count how many seconds it takes you to apologize.”
Isabella stared.
Maria stared.
Even Sophie looked up.
“Alessandro.”
“Three.”
“You are not serious.”
“Two.”
Isabella’s face hardened.
Then she looked at Sophie.
“I apologize.”
Sophie thought about it.
“Okay.”
Children were brutal in their simplicity.
Isabella looked back at me.
“That was unnecessary.”
“So was insulting a child.”
“She wandered into your private study.”
“And found something my security team missed for decades.”
Isabella’s eyes moved to the brass key.
I closed my hand around it.
“Where did that come from?”
“Luca’s scarf.”
Her face did not change this time.
Too controlled.
“What does it open?”
“That is an excellent question.”
Maria spoke carefully.
“Mr. Moretti, may I take Sophie upstairs?”
I nodded.
One of my men, Enzo, appeared in the corridor after finally finding the hidden entrance.
His face said he expected to die.
“Boss.”
“How long have you been searching?”
“Seven minutes.”
“She walked past you through a wall.”
“Yes.”
“Find every entrance and exit to this passage before midnight.”
“Yes, boss.”
“No one enters alone.”
He nodded.
Maria took Sophie’s hand.
They moved toward the corridor.
Sophie stopped beside me.
“You still have two wishes.”
Isabella looked between us.
“What is she talking about?”
Sophie lifted the crooked wand.
“I’m his fairy.”
Isabella laughed.
A cold sound.
“Of course you are.”
Sophie leaned closer to me and whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear, “She really is the mean princess.”
Maria made a strangled sound.
I looked away because I was dangerously close to smiling.
Isabella was not.
After Maria and Sophie left, I returned to the study.
Isabella followed.
I placed Luca’s medal on the desk.
She poured herself wine.
“You are letting a servant’s child rearrange your house.”
“She discovered a security failure.”
“She got lost.”
“She found my brother’s medal.”
“That proves nothing.”
“No.”
I took the brass key from my pocket.
“But your face did.”
Her wineglass stopped halfway to her mouth.
“Excuse me?”
“When you saw the scarf.”
“I was surprised.”
“You were afraid.”
She drank.
“You see threats because you built your life around them.”
“Usually accurately.”
Isabella set down the glass.
“Our engagement party begins in less than an hour. Three hundred guests are downstairs. My father has flown in from Rome. Senators are coming. Shipping partners are coming. Half of Manhattan’s society pages are waiting to photograph us.”
“Halloween gala.”
“Engagement gala.”
“We are not announcing a date.”
Her expression tightened.
“We agreed.”
“We agreed to appear together.”
“For fourteen months.”
“I remember.”
Her frustration was not new.
The marriage had always been strategic.
The Contis controlled Mediterranean port access I wanted. I controlled American routes they needed. Marriage converted an unstable alliance into family.
That was the theory.
In practice, Isabella wanted a husband.
I wanted silence.
Neither of us had received what we expected.
She came closer.
“Do you love me at all?”
The question irritated me because it arrived on a night full of more urgent problems.
“No.”
Her face did not move.
We had never lied about it.
“Could you?”
“I do not know.”
“You knew before you put a ring on my hand.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we doing this?”
“Because your father suggested it would prevent bloodshed.”
“And because you have not cared enough about anything since Luca died to object.”
That struck.
Isabella saw it.
For a moment, something like regret crossed her face.
Then she said, “Do not let a five-year-old child turn grief into investigation. Luca died in a bombing. We know who did it.”
The Bellandi crew.
Rivals eliminated within forty-eight hours.
I personally ordered the response.
Twelve men arrested or dead within a month.
A war concluded before Luca was buried.
I had spent ten years believing vengeance was certainty.
Now a medal sat on my desk that should have been at the bottom of Lake Como.
“Do we?”
Isabella went still.
I held up the key.
“Do we know?”
A knock came at the door.
My consigliere, Marco DeLuca, entered.
He had served my father before me and had the tired eyes of a man who had watched three generations of Morettis turn suspicion into policy.
“Guests are arriving.”
“Delay me.”
“Already did.”
His gaze fell to the medal.
He stopped.
“That was Luca’s.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Hidden passage.”
Marco swore.
Isabella watched him.
I handed him the key.
“Seventeen.”
He examined it.
“Old bank box key.”
“You recognize the style?”
“Yes.”
“Which bank?”
“Could be any private vault from that era.”
Isabella said, “This is absurd.”
Marco ignored her.
“Luca used Banca Fiorentina for personal accounts when we were in Como.”
My pulse sharpened.
“Do we still have records?”
“I can check.”
“Do it.”
Isabella stood.
“You are going downstairs.”
It was not a question.
I looked at her.
“In twenty minutes.”
“Alessandro.”
“Go greet your father.”
Her eyes flashed.
She left.
Marco waited until the door closed.
“You saw something.”
“Yes.”
“In her?”
“Yes.”
He exhaled.
“That is dangerous.”
“For her?”
“For everyone.”
I looked at Luca’s medal.
“Find out what box seventeen was.”
Marco nodded.
Then he stopped.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“The intercom failure.”
I looked up.
“Not a failure.”
“No.”
He handed me a small device.
A jammer.
Found inside the corridor wall.
Recently installed.
My expression hardened.
“Tonight?”
“Within the last twenty-four hours.”
Someone had known the passage existed.
Someone had wanted my study isolated.
Sophie had not simply stumbled into an old family secret.
She had interrupted an active operation.
Downstairs, applause rose as Isabella entered the ballroom.
Music began.
The gala was starting.
Marco looked toward the ceiling.
“Cancel it?”
“No.”
“Boss.”
“Three hundred guests inside my walls. Whoever planted the jammer expects us to behave normally.”
“And?”
“We do.”
Marco knew me well enough to understand the rest.
We watch.
We wait.
We find the person who thinks my grief made me blind.
As he turned to leave, Caesar rose from the rug.
The dog walked to the door.
He looked back at me.
Then toward the hallway leading to the family wing.
“Sophie,” I said.
Caesar wagged once.
I almost told him no.
Instead, I followed.
I found the child in the upstairs sitting room with Maria.
Sophie had removed one wing because the strap broke.
Maria was repairing it with a needle.
Sophie looked up.
“Second wish?”
I leaned against the doorway.
“No.”
“You came to see me.”
“I came to see my dog.”
Caesar had already put his head in her lap.
“Same thing.”
Maria hid a smile.
I looked at Sophie.
“Tell me exactly where you found Luca’s scarf.”
She pointed toward the floor as if the cellar were directly beneath her.
“In the fairy box.”
“Was the box already open?”
She thought.
“No.”
“How did you open it?”
“The key was in it.”
I frowned.
“The key was inside the locked box?”
“No. The little key was in the scarf. The big key was in the lock.”
My pulse changed.
Someone had opened the trunk before her.
“Did you see anyone downstairs?”
Sophie nodded.
Maria stopped sewing.
“Who?”
“The princess.”
The room went silent.
“Isabella?” I asked.
Sophie shook her head.
“The other one.”
“What other princess?”
“The one wearing diamonds.”
Tonight, half the women downstairs were wearing diamonds.
Sophie continued.
“She told a man to find it before Mr. Moretti remembers.”
Maria’s face drained.
I crouched so I was at Sophie’s height.
“What did she look like?”
Sophie squinted.
“Old.”
Maria said, “Sophie.”
“What?”
“How old?”
The child considered.
“Like forty.”
Maria closed her eyes.
I almost smiled despite the situation.
“Hair?”
“Black. Shiny.”
“Dress?”
“Green.”
Maria looked at me.
I knew one woman expected downstairs in a dark green gown.
Vittorio Conti’s younger sister.
Bianca Conti.
Isabella’s aunt.
A woman who had been at Lake Como the week Luca died.
Sophie raised her wand.
“Did I grant another wish?”
I stood slowly.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
I looked toward the distant music.
May you like
“To know who I should watch.”
And for the second time that night, the little fairy had given me an answer I was not prepared to receive.
