Chapter 3
Not truly. Not flesh.
Memory.
Isabella standing at the foot of the stairs in that ivory dress, one earring missing, voice shaking with hurt.
Just drive me home.
No.
His hand curled into a fist.
He climbed the stairs to their bedroom.
Her side of the bed was untouched. The pillow still held the faint curve of her head. Her perfume lingered near the vanity, soft and warm, like something alive that had been left behind by mistake.
On the dresser sat her wedding ring.
Luca stopped.
It had not been there before.
He crossed the room and picked it up.
His breath caught.
The ring was hers. The one he had placed on her finger three years ago in a church filled with white flowers and armed men. The one she had once touched whenever she was nervous. The one she had kept on through every argument, every apology, every silence.
Now it lay alone on polished wood.
Beneath it was another note.
This time, only one sentence.
You noticed the ring faster than you noticed her pain.
Luca’s vision went black at the edges.
Someone had been inside his house.
Inside his bedroom.
Past the gates. Past the cameras. Past the guards.
Not just before.
Now.
Enzo rushed in behind him. “Boss, we have a breach. East corridor camera looped for eleven minutes. No alarm triggered.”
Luca’s fingers closed around the note until it crumpled.
“Whoever did this knows our system,” Enzo said carefully.
Luca turned.
The room had gone deathly quiet.
“Our system?” Luca repeated.
Enzo did not flinch. “Yes.”
Luca looked past him toward the hallway.
The mansion no longer felt like a fortress.
It felt like a mouth.
And someone had been whispering through its teeth for a long time.
“Bring me Marco,” Luca said.
Enzo hesitated.
That hesitation was small.
It was also fatal.
Luca noticed.
“Why did you hesitate?”
Enzo’s eyes lowered for half a second. “Marco has not answered since seven.”
Marco Bellini was Luca’s head of security. He had designed every camera route, hired every driver, placed every guard, and personally approved the panic room Isabella had hated because she said it made love feel like prison.
Luca’s pulse slowed.
“Find him.”
“We’re trying.”
“No,” Luca said, stepping closer. “Find him before I do.”
At two in the morning, they found Marco.
Not dead.
Worse.
He was sitting in a chapel on the south side of the city, hands folded, suit soaked from rain, staring at the altar like a man waiting for judgment he had already accepted.
Luca arrived with six cars and no patience.
The chapel was old and nearly empty. Candles flickered near a statue of the Virgin Mary. The air smelled of wax, wet stone, and secrets.
Marco did not turn when Luca entered.
“I wondered how long it would take,” Marco said.
May you like
Luca walked down the aisle slowly.
Every guard stopped at the doors.
