Chapter 3 - The Girl in the Cashmere Sweater
The air in the main house was suffocatingly warm.
Four hours after waking up, against Dr. Rossi’s strict orders, I refused to stay in the subterranean medical wing. I pulled on a heavy silk robe, wrapped a wool blanket around my shoulders, and forced my weak legs to carry me up the private elevator into the main estate.
The Moretti estate was a limestone fortress built in the 1920s, hidden behind twelve-foot stone walls and dense pine forests. Normally, it was a place of quiet, brutal efficiency—guards in dark suits patrolling the grounds with Belgian Malinois dogs, quiet meetings in the mahogany library, the faint clatter of armored sedans coming and going along the gravel driveway.
Now, the grand parlor looked like a cross between a police command center and a high-end pediatric nursery.
On a velvet sofa beneath a four-hundred-year-old Italian tapestry sat Emma.
She was no longer wearing the faded, dust-colored sweater or the split shoe. Someone had bathed her, combed the knots out of her dark, silky hair, and dressed her in a oversized cream-colored cashmere sweater and grey leggings. She sat with her small legs tucked beneath her, holding a silver cup of hot chocolate with both hands, staring nervously at a pair of guards standing by the doorway.
When I stepped into the room, leaning heavily on Alessandro’s arm, the child’s eyes went wide.
She set the cup down so fast it spilled onto the antique mahogany coffee table.
“You’re alive,” she said.
Her voice was small, slightly raspy, with the rough edge of a child who spent her nights sleeping in subway alcoves and humid building basements.
I let go of Alessandro’s arm and walked slowly toward the sofa, sinking into the armchair opposite her. My knees were shaking, but I forced a smile onto my face.
“I’m alive,” I said softly. “Thanks to you.”
Emma looked down at her hands, her fingers twisting the long wool sleeves of her oversized sweater. “The man with the big watch said you died.”
I glared over my shoulder at Marco Rossi, who was standing near the fireplace holding a thick leather folder. He didn't look remorseful; he simply adjusted his tie and stared at the floor.
“The man with the big watch was mistaken,” I said, turning back to Emma. “My name is Clara.”
“Emma,” she repeated quietly.
“I know.” I reached across the table and placed my hand near hers—not touching her, giving her room to pull away if she was frightened. “Emma, I need you to tell me about the lady in the red dress.”
Emma looked nervously toward Alessandro, who was standing by the high glass doors overlooking the gardens, his hands tucked into his trousers, watching her with intense focus.
“Don't worry about him,” I said softly. “He looks mean, but he won't hurt you. He’s just angry because someone tried to break his favorite things.”
Alessandro let out a soft, almost imperceptible breath near the window, but didn't correct me.
Emma took a deep breath, her small chest rising beneath the soft cashmere. “I was in the back alley behind the kitchen,” she whispered. “Where they keep the big metal trash bins. Sometimes the pastry cook leaves the bread that isn't pretty outside at nine o'clock.”
“I know that alley,” Marco muttered from the shadows. “It opens onto 54th Street.”
“I was waiting behind the bread crates,” Emma continued, her eyes fixed on the silver hot chocolate cup. “A car stopped. A big black car with shiny windows. A lady got out. She was wearing a dress like yours—bright red, with shiny shoes that made a loud noise on the wet stone.”
“Did you see her face?” I asked gently.
“She had a black umbrella,” Emma said. “And a gold mask on her hair—a clip. It looked like a bird with long tail feathers.”
I froze.
My hand, resting on the coffee table, began to tremble.
Alessandro turned slowly from the window. His eyes locked onto mine with terrifying precision. He knew that clip. Everyone in the Moretti family knew that clip.
It was a piece of custom antique jewelry—an 18th-century French hair slide shaped like a phoenix, set with uncut rubies and diamonds. There was only one in existence.
It belonged to Victoria Moretti.
Alessandro’s widowed sister-in-law.
“She talked to the cook,” Emma whispered, unaware of the bomb she had just dropped into the room. “She gave him an envelope. Thick, like a book. Then she pulled a little blue bottle out of her bag. It was small—like the medicine my grandma used to take for her eyes.”
“What did she tell him?” Alessandro’s voice was like grinding stones.
Emma flinched slightly, pulling her knees closer to her chest. “She said... she said, ‘Make sure it goes to the table by the window. The woman sitting across from Richard’s brother.’”
Richard’s brother.
Richard Moretti had been Alessandro’s older brother—the former head of the Moretti organization who had been murdered four years ago in an ambush in Miami. His death had cleared the way for Alessandro to take control of the family, a transition that Victoria had publicly supported, but secretly loathed. She had always maintained that her son, Julian, should have inherited the family’s shipping empire.
“She said something else,” Emma added, looking up at me with wide, innocent brown eyes. “She told the cook... ‘When she falls, don't call an ambulance. Call the coroner. I want her family to have a funeral by Friday.’”
The room went completely, terrifyingly silent.
The detail in the title of the video file—the detail that had haunted me since I woke up—finally made sense.
The person who had arranged the poison hadn't just planned my murder. They had already hired the funeral home, drafted the obituary, and reserved a plot in the Moretti family mausoleum three days before our anniversary dinner.
Alessandro walked slowly across the room, stopping directly beside my chair. He reached out and touched my shoulder, his fingers digging into the wool blanket.
“Marco,” Alessandro said, his tone devoid of all human emotion.
“Boss?”
“Bring Victoria here.”
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“She’s currently at her penthouse in Soho,” Marco said, opening his leather file. “She has four of her brother’s men guarding the entrance.”
“I don't care if she’s inside the Vatican,” Alessandro said, looking down at me with eyes that promised cold, absolute slaughter. “Bring her to me. Alive. And bring the cook from Il Cielo.”
