Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6: The Maid Who Was Hidden
Lily could not breathe.
The room seemed too large, too beautiful, too full of ghosts.
For months, she had believed she had entered the Moretti estate as a desperate woman looking for work.
A maid with no family.
No protection.
No history that mattered.
But now the walls around her felt different.
As if they had recognized her before she recognized them.
“You’re saying my mother sent me here?” Lily asked.
Marco shook his head.
“No. Your mother tried to keep you away.”
Lily’s face tightened.
“Then why am I here?”
Marco looked at the photograph in her hand.
“Because after Elena disappeared, Isabella left instructions. If Elena’s daughter was ever found, she was to be brought under Moretti protection.”
Vincent turned sharply.
“And nobody told me?”
Marco’s voice broke.
“You were drowning in grief. Bianca was circling. The council was unstable. If I told you there was a child connected to Isabella’s final warning, she would have become a target before we understood why.”
Lily laughed once, but it came out like pain.
“So instead you hired me as a maid?”
“I arranged the opening,” Marco admitted. “But I did not know if you were truly Elena’s daughter until I saw the scar.”
Lily instinctively touched the faint crescent scar near her wrist.
Her mother had told her she got it falling near a fireplace as a toddler.
Marco nodded sadly.
“You fell in this house.”
Lily’s eyes filled.
“I lived here?”
“For a short time.”
Vincent looked like someone had opened the ground beneath him.
“Isabella knew Lily?”
“She held her,” Marco said. “She loved her.”
Lily sank into the nearest chair.
The photograph slipped into her lap.
All her life, she had remembered flashes she thought were dreams.
A woman singing in Italian.
White curtains moving in summer wind.
A garden fountain.
A boy laughing somewhere nearby.
Now those broken pieces were no longer dreams.
They were memories.
Vincent stepped closer but stopped before touching her.
He had learned that love sometimes meant giving someone room to fall apart.
“Lily,” he said softly.
She looked up at him.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
She searched his face.
He let her.
Finally, she believed him.
Matteo appeared in the doorway, holding one of his toy airplanes.
“Papa?”
Everyone turned.
He looked from Vincent to Lily.
“Is Lily crying because of the bad letter?”
Lily quickly wiped her cheeks.
“No, sweetheart. I’m okay.”
Matteo walked to her anyway and climbed into her lap like he had done since the day she first comforted him after nightmares.
“You don’t have to be okay,” he whispered.
That broke her more than the letter had.
She held him tightly.
Vincent looked at Marco.
“Who sent the envelope?”
Marco’s face darkened.
“There’s only one person who would know enough to use Isabella’s crest.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Bianca.”
“She’s in federal custody,” Lily said.
Marco shook his head.
“Bianca never worked alone.”
The room went still.
Vincent slowly turned toward him.
“Say what you mean.”
Marco hesitated.
Then he said the words Vincent had feared.
“Someone inside this estate helped her.”
Matteo lifted his head.
“A spy?”
No one answered.
Vincent looked toward the hallway.
The estate suddenly felt less like a home and more like a trap that had learned to smile.
Lily held Matteo closer.
“What does this person want?”
Marco picked up the black envelope.
“To stop the wedding.”
Vincent’s expression turned cold.
“Why?”
Marco looked at Lily.
“Because if Vincent marries you, you become legally recognized as Matteo’s stepmother and a protected member of the Moretti family.”
Lily frowned.
“So?”
Marco’s voice lowered.
“So if Isabella named Elena’s daughter in any sealed document, marriage would give you the standing to claim it.”
Vincent understood first.
His face went pale with rage.
“There’s another document.”
Marco nodded.
“Isabella’s final will was never found.”
Lily’s voice trembled.
“What would be in it?”
Marco looked toward the portrait of Isabella hanging above the fireplace.
“The name of the person who betrayed her.”
At that exact moment, every light in the mansion flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the security monitors on Vincent’s desk turned black.
A second later, a voice came through the intercom.
Soft.
Female.
Familiar.
“Hello, Vincent.”
Vincent went rigid.
Matteo whispered, “Papa?”
The voice continued.
“You buried me too quickly.”
Lily looked at the portrait.
May you like
Vincent’s face had turned white.
Because the voice coming through the speakers sounded exactly like Isabella.
