Chapter 3 - THE EAST WING
Matteo did not speak about Alessandro for two days.
Elena did not ask.
Good.
The house grew colder anyway.
Not temperature.
Attention.
Security officers watched doors.
Police copied servers.
Marco changed lock schedules.
Elena stayed in her lane.
Mostly.
Then smoke came from east wing.
At 2:07 a.m.
The alarm did not sound.
That was the problem.
Elena woke because she smelled burning paper.
She stepped into corridor.
Gray haze.
East.
She ran.
Not toward secret.
Toward fire.
The locked double doors were hot? No. Not yet.
She pulled manual alarm.
Nothing.
Dead.
“Marco!”
No answer.
Elena hit emergency call box.
Also dead.
She ran downstairs to main panel.
Security guard already coming.
“East wing.”
He swore.
Radio.
Within minutes people moved.
The fire was small.
A waste bin.
Paper.
Curtain edge.
Suppression extinguisher handled before spread.
No injuries.
But the alarm circuit serving east wing had been disconnected.
Again.
Inside system.
Detective Park arrived before dawn.
Elena gave statement.
Then Matteo appeared wearing coat over sleep clothes, furious.
At no one specifically.
That was worse.
Park said:
“Someone burned documents.”
“What documents?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Matteo looked toward east doors.
Then at Elena.
“You smelled it.”
“Yes.”
“You entered?”
“Only threshold.”
“Good.”
She almost laughed.
“Afraid I’ll see family ghosts?”
His face hardened.
“Not ghosts.”
There.
After police cleared immediate area, Matteo surprised everyone.
“Elena.”
She turned.
“Come.”
Marco said:
“Matteo.”
“No.”
He looked at Marco.
“She is already in this whether we like it or not.”
Elena disagreed.
“I’m not.”
Both men looked.
“I smelled smoke. That doesn’t make your family secrets my job.”
Good.
Matteo’s mouth tightened.
“You’re right.”
Marco looked almost pleased.
Then Matteo said:
“I am asking if you want context.”
Choice.
Elena thought.
“Yes.”
They entered east wing with Detective Park present.
Good.
No secret tour.
The rooms were not sinister.
That was the first surprise.
Bedroom.
Study.
Library.
Small music room.
Dust.
Covered furniture.
Family photographs.
Finally.
Alessandro Rossi.
Older than Matteo.
Same eyes.
Easier smile.
Photographs with Matteo in their twenties.
With parents.
With a woman Elena assumed was Alessandro’s wife.
No children.
In study, shelves were half-empty.
Evidence markers near burned papers.
Matteo stood at doorway.
“This was his.”
“How did he die?”
“Overdose.”
Elena looked at him.
“Accidental?”
“That was ruling.”
“Do you believe it?”
Matteo took too long.
“No.”
There.
Park looked over.
“You never reported suspicion?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“To whom?”
“State police and private counsel.”
“Outcome?”
“No evidence.”
Elena said:
“What drug?”
Matteo answered:
“Prescription opioid and alcohol.”
“Was he prescribed?”
“Yes.”
“For?”
“Back injury.”
Common.
“Why suspect?”
Matteo walked to desk.
“He hated alcohol with medication. He watched our mother nearly die mixing pills.”
Elena’s chest tightened.
Different family.
Same lesson.
“Anything else?”
“He called me that night.”
“What did he say?”
Matteo looked at covered piano.
“Nothing.”
Elena frowned.
“He called and said nothing?”
“Four seconds. Breathing. Then line ended.”
There.
Phone pocket dial?
Could be.
“What happened before?”
“We fought.”
Of course.
“About?”
Matteo looked at Park, then Elena.
“Our uncle Salvatore.”
There.
“Alessandro said Salvatore was moving money through an estate security contractor called Aster Protective Services.”
“He wanted me to help remove him from family council.”
“You refused?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Salvatore had protected us after our father’s indictment. He was family.”
There.
Old loyalty.
“Then Alessandro died.”
“Yes.”
“Did Salvatore benefit?”
“He gained Alessandro’s council vote temporarily.”
Motive possible.
Not proof.
Park asked:
“Is Salvatore alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Florida.”
“Contact?”
“Monthly.”
Interesting.
“What is Aster?”
Matteo’s eyes changed.
“Security vendor we stopped using five years ago.”
Park held up burned paper fragment from bin.
Partial logo.
ASTER.
There.
Someone had tried to burn old Aster documents.
Elena stepped back.
Now clearly not her job.
Then she noticed something on shelf.
On the desk, among the copied visitor records, one name stopped Elena cold.
DARA ALMEIDA.
Her friend.
The entry was dated two years earlier.
Elena’s skin went cold.
“What?”
Matteo noticed.
She pointed.
“I know her.”
Silence.
“Dara?”
Marco looked at her sharply.
“Dara recommended you?”
“Yes.”
Marco closed eyes.
There.
Matteo looked between them.
“What?”
Marco said:
“Dara Almeida was the previous household assistant.”
The floor seemed to shift.
Elena stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“She told me she took a similar job.”
“It was this one.”
There.
“Two years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Why was she in east wing if it’s been closed seven years?”
Marco answered:
“She entered without permission.”
Of course.
“What did she find?”
Silence.
Elena’s voice hardened.
“What did she find?”
Matteo answered.
“Alessandro’s missing notebook.”
There.
“And then?”
“She gave it to me.”
“Then she left?”
“Yes.”
“With enough money to move to Porto.”
Matteo’s face changed.
“That was severance and confidentiality settlement.”
Elena laughed once.
“Bought silence.”
“Yes.”
Good.
“Did you threaten her?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
Matteo looked at Marco.
Marco answered:
“Not by our instruction.”
Wrong wording.
Elena caught.
“Someone threatened her.”
Silence.
Marco said:
“She reported a car following her. Two calls. One envelope containing a photograph of her sister.”
Elena went cold.
“Who?”
“Never identified.”
“And you let her leave country.”
“She wanted to.”
“After you paid.”
“Yes.”
Elena stared at Matteo.
“You knew she was afraid.”
“Yes.”
“And when Mrs. Ferrara called me—”
Matteo’s face shifted.
“Mrs. Ferrara did not tell me Dara had recommended you.”
There.
Interesting.
“Who is Mrs. Ferrara?”
“My aunt. She oversees household staffing.”
“Does she know Dara?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
“Why did Dara send me here?”
No one knew.
Or they said.
Elena left east wing.
She demanded her phone.
Marco gave it.
No argument.
She called Dara in Porto.
Three rings.
“Elena?”
Her friend sounded normal.
That made Elena angrier.
“You worked here.”
Silence.
“Dara.”
“Yes.”
“You lied.”
“I omitted.”
“Do not lawyer me.”
Another silence.
Then:
“I’m sorry.”
“Why did you recommend me?”
Dara breathed.
“Because Matteo was hurt.”
“That is not an answer.”
“And because if Aster people were back inside that house, I knew you would notice what other people normalize.”
Elena went still.
“You used me.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I thought Mrs. Ferrara was hiring someone anyway.”
“So you sent me.”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“Because you don’t scare easily.”
“That is not consent.”
Dara’s voice broke.
“I know.”
Good.
“What was in Alessandro’s notebook?”
Dara paused.
“Names.”
“Whose?”
“Salvatore Rossi.”
“And?”
“Marco.”
Elena closed eyes.
Of course.
“And Mrs. Ferrara.”
The woman who hired her.
Three people inside Matteo’s circle.
Then Dara said:
“But the notebook did not say they killed Alessandro.”
“What did it say?”
“That they were all part of something called the Grey Ledger.”
Elena looked through east-wing doors at Matteo.
He was watching her.
Not approaching.
Good.
“What is the Grey Ledger?”
Dara whispered:
“I never found out.”
Then line died.
Not disconnected.
Dara hung up.
Elena lowered phone.
Three names.
Marco.
Mrs. Ferrara.
Salvatore.
And one dead brother.
The forbidden wing had not hidden a ghost.
It had hidden a list of people still walking through Matteo Rossi’s life.
Before sleeping, Elena sent Dara one message.
DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN UNTIL I ASK.
Dara answered:
Understood.
No defense.
Good.
Elena blocked the number anyway.
The next morning she unblocked it.
Not forgiveness.
Agency.
She wanted the ability to choose whether a message arrived, not the illusion that silence could be forced by a button.
That distinction felt small.
It was not.
Detective Park also made one thing clear before Elena left east wing.
“You are not required to remain employed here for our investigation.”
Elena appreciated that.
“Do you need me as witness?”
“Yes.”
“Do I need to sleep under this roof?”
“No.”
Good.
The difference between useful and trapped had just been stated aloud.
In the Rossi estate, that felt almost revolutionary.
The next morning, the east-wing alarm was replaced by an independent temporary system. No Rossi technician touched it. Elena noticed. Good.
Before police finished documenting the east wing, Elena watched an evidence technician label every recovered page.
No Rossi staff touched them.
No Marco.
No Matteo.
For once, family history belonged to a chain of custody instead of whoever held the keys.
Before she left the east wing, Elena noticed one more thing.
Several drawers had been catalogued by police, but one shelf still held ordinary objects Alessandro had left behind.
A cracked watch.
A paperback mystery.
A receipt from a diner.
A pair of reading glasses.
That grounded the room more than the evidence markers did.
Dead people become symbols too easily when a family needs them to explain itself.
Alessandro had not been only a victim, whistleblower, or older brother.
He had apparently lost receipts and broken watches too.
Elena liked knowing that.
It made whatever happened to him feel less like a Rossi legend and more like a human crime.
May you like
When Elena finally stepped back into the main corridor, she understood the east wing had frightened everyone for different reasons. Secrets rarely belong to only one person.
And now Elena knew that too.
