Chapter 2 - The Secret Hidden in My Mother’s Room
My mother's room smelled like lavender, antiseptic, and the cheap vanilla hand cream she loved.
It should have smelled familiar.
Instead, every breath felt wrong.
The nurses had already moved aside. Leo was standing in front of the security monitor with two men from Matteo's private team, while police officers spoke quietly near the doorway.
I didn't care about any of them.
I cared about the empty wheelchair.
I walked toward my mother's bedside table.
Her glasses were still there.
Her half-finished cup of tea was still there.
The birthday card I had given her two years ago was still tucked beneath the lamp.
Whoever had taken her hadn't come to steal possessions.
They had come for her.
A nurse named Patricia approached me.
“Your mother was sleeping around eleven.”
“Who checked on her?”
“I did.”
“And then?”
“I left for maybe twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes?”
She nodded, crying.
“When I came back, she was gone.”
I stared at her.
“Was the door locked?”
“Yes.”
“How did they get in?”
“We don't know.”
Leo turned.
“We do.”
Everyone looked at him.
He held up a small black device.
“Electronic bypass tool.”
My skin prickled.
“What does that mean?”
“Someone knew the access system.”
Matteo stepped into the room.
He had changed.
The loose confidence was gone.
He looked like the man people whispered about.
Not a nightclub owner.
Not a businessman.
A predator.
“What else?” Matteo asked.
Leo pointed toward the window.
“Window wasn't forced. Fire exit alarm was disabled for ninety seconds.”
I looked between them.
“Who would know all this?”
“Someone with inside help,” Leo said.
I shook my head.
“My mother doesn't have enemies.”
Matteo's eyes settled on me.
“You don't know that.”
“She is seventy-one years old.”
“I know.”
“She worked in a hospital for thirty years.”
Matteo went still.
“What hospital?”
“St. Vincent's.”
“When?”
“Most of her life.”
Leo and Matteo exchanged a glance.
I noticed.
“What?”
Neither answered.
“What?”
Matteo looked at Leo.
“Get Dr. Hale.”
“Already on his way.”
I stepped closer.
“Who is Dr. Hale?”
“Our physician.”
“You have a physician?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you do.”
Matteo ignored the sarcasm.
He looked at my mother's bedside table.
“Did she ever talk about a woman named Elena?”
I frowned.
“No.”
“Thomas?”
“No.”
“Daniel Voss?”
The name triggered something.
Not memory.
Recognition.
I had heard it once.
Years ago.
My mother had been arguing on the phone.
I had been sixteen.
I remembered only one sentence.
You promised me he would never come back.
I had always assumed she was talking about my father.
But now I wasn't so sure.
“What does Daniel Voss have to do with my mother?”
Matteo didn't answer.
I grabbed his arm.
“Tell me.”
“He was a financial broker.”
“And?”
“He disappeared eleven years ago.”
“So?”
“He worked for a man named Antonio Conti.”
Silence.
I looked at him.
“Your father?”
Matteo nodded.
The room suddenly became colder.
“You think my mother knew your father?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“That is what I'm trying to find out.”
I stepped backward.
“No.”
“You know something.”
“I know nothing.”
“You just reacted to his name.”
“I heard a name before. That's all.”
Matteo watched me carefully.
“You're sure your mother never mentioned the Conti family?”
I hesitated.
Then I remembered.
A box.
A small wooden box my mother kept beneath winter clothes in the back of her closet.
When I was younger, I'd asked about it.
She had snapped at me.
Never touch that.
I'd forgotten about it.
Until now.
“I need to go home.”
Matteo nodded.
“We'll go.”
“I can go myself.”
“No.”
I glared at him.
“You're getting addicted to controlling everything.”
“I've had worse addictions.”
“I'm not one of them.”
His mouth twitched.
“Not yet.”
I stared.
He almost smiled.
I hated that my heart noticed.
We reached my apartment forty minutes later.
Three of Matteo's men searched the building first.
I hated every second of it.
“This is my home,” I said.
“And someone just kidnapped your mother.”
“Stop saying it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like this is normal.”
“It isn't normal.”
That was the problem.
Inside, my apartment looked untouched.
I rushed to my mother's bedroom.
The wooden box was gone.
My blood ran cold.
I turned toward Matteo.
“They took it.”
“What?”
“The box.”
“What was inside?”
“I don't know.”
“Your mother knew.”
I opened my closet and searched beneath the clothes.
Nothing.
Then I noticed something.
A thin piece of paper stuck beneath the drawer.
I pulled it free.
It was old.
Yellowed.
There was a single sentence written in my mother's handwriting.
If anything happens to me, trust the man who wears the black ring.
I turned slowly toward Matteo.
He was wearing one.
A black ring.
Simple.
No decoration.
My hands started shaking.
“You have a black ring.”
His eyes dropped to his hand.
Then to the note.
“This belongs to your mother?”
“Yes.”
He took the paper.
For the first time since I met him, Matteo Conti looked genuinely shocked.
“What?”
He didn't answer.
“Matteo.”
He lifted his eyes.
“My father wore this ring.”
“What?”
“He gave it to me when I was nineteen.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
I looked at the ring.
“Take it off.”
“What?”
“Take it off.”
He did.
The ring landed in his palm.
Inside, barely visible, were four engraved initials.
A.C.
Antonio Conti.
My mother knew his father.
My mother knew about the ring.
Someone had kidnapped her.
And someone had tried to kill Matteo in the exact place where I happened to be working.
It was no longer coincidence.
A knock sounded at the apartment door.
Leo entered.
“We found footage.”
Matteo's face hardened.
“Show me.”
Leo held up a tablet.
A man in a gray coat appeared on screen.
His face was hidden.
But his hand wasn't.
On his finger was the same black ring.
Matteo stared.
“That ring is a symbol,” Leo said.
I looked between them.
“What symbol?”
Matteo answered quietly.
“Protection.”
“Protection from whom?”
“From the Conti family.”
I swallowed.
Then I asked the question neither of us wanted to hear.
“Why would my mother need protection from your family?”
Matteo stared at the screen.
“That's the question.”
The image froze.
Then Leo zoomed in.
The man's sleeve shifted.
A tattoo appeared on his wrist.
A serpent wrapped around a broken crown.
Matteo's expression changed completely.
“Impossible.”
“What?”
He looked at Leo.
“Bring me the old files.”
“Boss—”
“Now.”
Leo left.
I stepped closer.
“What is that tattoo?”
Matteo looked at me.
“It belonged to the man my father blamed for your mother's disappearance eleven years ago.”
My heart stopped.
“My mother's disappearance?”
“You said your father died when you were young.”
“Yes.”
“He didn't.”
“What?”
Matteo lowered his voice.
“He was declared dead.”
“That is the same thing.”
“No.”
He looked toward the dark window.
“In my world, declared dead and dead are not the same thing.”
A sound came from my mother's empty room.
A phone ringing.
I froze.
The phone was not there earlier.
It sat on the bed.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man's voice whispered,
“Your mother should have stayed forgotten.”
I stopped breathing.
Matteo stepped toward me.
The voice continued.
“And now the Conti boy knows.”
The call ended.
I slowly lowered the phone.
Matteo's jaw tightened.
“Put the phone on speaker next time.”
“Sorry, I was busy being terrified.”
He looked at me.
“Don't be.”
“That's easy for you to say.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“It's not.”
He reached for me but stopped before touching me.
“You have every reason to be afraid.”
“Then why aren't you?”
His eyes met mine.
“Because whoever did this made one mistake.”
“What?”
“They touched someone under my protection.”
I stared at him.
“I never agreed to your protection.”
“No.”
May you like
He picked up the black ring.
“But your mother did.”
