Chapter 2 - Dominic Told Me His Mother Had Been Murdered, but One Detail Made Me Realize He Had Never Known the Whole TruthDominic did not sleep that night.
Neither did I.
At three in the morning, I heard footsteps outside my door.
Slow.
Measured.
They stopped.
I sat upright.
The footsteps continued.
Then silence.
I waited.
Nothing.
I finally got up and opened the door.
The hallway was empty.
But there was an envelope beneath my door.
No name.
No seal.
Inside was a photograph.
Dominic as a boy.
Maybe ten years old.
Standing beside a woman I recognized immediately.
His mother.
She looked elegant.
Dark hair.
Pale dress.
And a small smile that made her look surprisingly gentle.
But there was something strange in the background.
A metal door.
And painted above it—
the same Vesper symbol.
I took the photograph downstairs.
Dominic was standing in the kitchen.
He had a glass of water in his hand.
He looked exhausted.
I held up the photograph.
"Where was this taken?"
He stared.
For a second, he didn't breathe.
"Who gave you that?"
"I found it beneath my door."
He took the photograph.
"That's impossible."
"Why?"
"My mother was never photographed there."
"Where was she?"
"At our family's estate."
"Then why is the Vesper symbol behind her?"
He looked at me.
"Because that's not a room in our estate."
He turned the photograph over.
A date was written on the back.
Twenty-two years ago.
Then another line.
SHE KNEW.
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"Who?"
I shook my head.
"I don't know."
He walked toward the security office.
I followed.
The cameras showed the hallway.
Nothing.
No one had entered.
He rewound.
Again.
Nothing.
Then he saw it.
At 2:58 a.m., the image flickered.
A shadow passed in front of the camera.
Three seconds later, the hallway was empty.
Dominic stared.
"Someone is inside the house."
"Obviously."
"No."
He looked at me.
"Someone is inside the security system."
He called his head of security.
Twenty minutes later, guards searched every room.
Nothing.
But one of the external cameras had been disabled.
Not broken.
Disabled remotely.
Someone had access.
That frightened Dominic.
It frightened me more.
Because the person had chosen my first night in the house to leave me a photograph.
The next morning, Dominic finally explained.
His mother, Elena Russo, had disappeared when he was sixteen.
The family said she had died in an automobile accident.
But Dominic never believed it.
There were no photographs of the crash.
No body shown to him.
No funeral he was allowed to attend.
His father had told him:
"She was weak. She betrayed us."
Dominic had never asked again.
At nineteen, he found the scar on his shoulder.
He had been kidnapped.
Three men had taken him.
They branded him with the Vesper symbol.
They told him:
"Your mother chose this."
Then they released him.
He had spent twenty years trying to discover what Vesper meant.
I thought of the patient from the clinic.
"Did your mother ever work in medicine?"
Dominic stared.
"Why?"
"Because I once saw that symbol on a patient."
"Who?"
"He was old."
"Name?"
"I don't remember."
That wasn't entirely true.
I remembered his surname.
Marchetti.
Dominic went still.
"Marchetti."
"Yes."
"My mother trusted a man named Paolo Marchetti."
"Who was he?"
"My father's accountant."
I stared.
"Your mother was protecting someone."
"Probably."
Then Dominic's phone rang.
He answered.
His security chief spoke.
I watched Dominic's face change.
"What?"
A pause.
"Again."
He listened.
Then said:
"Bring it to me."
He ended the call.
"What happened?"
"Someone searched my mother's old bedroom last night."
"When?"
"At exactly the time someone entered your hallway."
I looked toward him.
"Then the photograph wasn't for me."
He looked at me.
"It was a warning."
"No."
May you like
I touched the Vesper symbol.
"It was an invitation."
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