Chapter 3 ALESSIA MORETTI'S POV

The thing about silence is it lies to you. It tells you you're safe, alone, untouched.

Until it breaks.

And by then, it's too late.

I stared at the empty hallway Lucien left behind. The echo of his voice still clung to the walls like cigarette smoke.

"Someone should be dead," he said.

Someone who left a note in my drawer. With Enzo's name on it. With a warning that burned hotter than the whiskey I wanted but didn't have.

I pressed the envelope to my chest and whispered to no one, "What are you trying to tell me, Enzo?"

I didn't sleep. Instead, I sat by the window, watching the grounds for movement. At some point, I changed out of the robe and into black jeans and a sweater. It felt more like armor than silk ever could.

When the knock came at my door just after six, I didn't flinch.

I opened it.

Giada stood there in jeans and a hoodie, her dark curls tied back, eyes too alert for someone who should be waking up.

"You're early," I said.

"You texted me at four in the morning with 'come alone.' I figured something was on fire."

I stepped aside and shut the door behind her.

She looked around. "So? Where's the body?"

"Nobody. Just a ghost."

I handed her the envelope.

She opened it, read the letter, then looked up slowly. "What the hell is this?"

"I don't know. It was in my drawer. Someone planted it. Lucien saw it too."

Her eyes went sharp. "He let you keep it?"

"He didn't have a choice."

"Alessia..."

I sat on the edge of the bed, gripping the sheet of paper like it might burn a hole through me.

"Someone's playing with us," I said. "Someone who knows how to get past Valenti security. Someone who knows about Enzo."

Giada sat across from me. "You think it's legit?"

"I don't know. But Lucien recognized the handwriting. He said it belonged to someone who's supposed to be dead."

Giada blinked. "Wait. He actually told you that?"

"Yes."

"Holy shit. You're getting under his skin already."

I frowned. "That's not the win you think it is."

She leaned forward. "What's your gut say?"

"My gut says Enzo was right. Something was rotten in our house long before he died."

Giada swallowed hard. "Your father?"

I didn't answer.

Because deep down, I was already starting to believe it.

Later that morning, I sat at the breakfast table in a sunlit dining room I didn't recognize, eating eggs I didn't taste, while a housekeeper named Inez silently refilled my coffee.

Lucien walked in like he hadn't spent the night unraveling our world.

He looked at me. "You sleep?"

"No."

He sat across from me, poured himself coffee, and finally said, "I have something to show you."

"Is it another wedding gift? Because the last one was... haunting."

He didn't react. He pulled a tablet from his jacket, slid it across the table.

"Security footage," he said.

I watched the screen. A hallway. My hallway. A shadowed figure moved past the camera, paused at the guard's post. Leaned in. The guard nodded and walked off.

Then the figure entered my room.

I held my breath.

"How long?" I asked.

"Twenty seconds."

I watched as the person walked back out. Lucien paused the video and zoomed in.

The hood lifted slightly. Just enough to catch the edge of a face.

I stared. My blood stopped moving.

"Tell me I'm imagining this," I whispered.

"You're not."

"It can't be him."

Lucien's voice dropped. "It is."

"No. He's dead. I went to the funeral. We buried him."

He didn't respond.

"You said the same thing. Someone who should be dead. You meant him."

Lucien nodded once.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"His name is Rafael Moretti."

My body locked up. "Rafael?"

"He worked for your father. Special ops. Enforcer. He disappeared five years ago. Everyone assumed he was dead."

"No. Not just assumed. My father confirmed it. There was a body. I saw him cry at the funeral."

Lucien's mouth twisted. "Did you?"

I stared at him.

He went on. "What if the body wasn't his? What if the whole thing was staged?"

"Why would my father fake someone's death?"

"To hide him. Or what he knew."

I pressed my fingers to my temples. "Why would Rafael come back now? Why leave that message for me?"

"Maybe he's trying to finish what your brother started."

I froze. "You think Enzo was working with him?"

Lucien leaned in. "I think Enzo got too close to something. And Rafael went underground to survive."

"And now he wants me to follow the money."

Lucien nodded. "You going to?"

I looked at him. "Yes. Are you going to help me?"

His silence lasted just long enough to make me doubt.

Then, "Yes."

I didn't trust him.

But I needed him.

We met in Lucien's office an hour later. It was colder than the rest of the house. Not in temperature, but in energy. Black leather, gunmetal hardware, a desk that could double as a fortress.

Lucien pulled up files on his laptop and turned the screen toward me.

"These are the Moretti family's shell companies. Most are legal fronts. Construction. Real estate. Import-export."

I studied the numbers. "These look clean."

He reached for another folder. "That's because they are. On the surface. But this one..."

He slid it across.

"A biotech firm?" I asked.

"Registered in Zurich. Funded with untraceable capital. No board of directors. Only one name is tied to it on paper."

I looked.

My father's.

I stared at it. Then I shook my head.

"No. He wouldn't be involved in-"

"In what?" Lucien interrupted. "Because this firm doesn't manufacture medicine. It manufactures silence. High-end poisons. Neurotoxins. Something called Project Veil."

I looked at him. "You're saying my father funds assassinations?"

"I'm saying your father has built a business on eliminating people who get in his way. Efficiently. Without mess."

"And Enzo found out."

Lucien nodded. "Maybe Rafael too."

I stood up and paced.

"If this is true..."

Lucien cut in. "It is."

"Then my father-"

"-killed your brother," Lucien finished quietly.

I spun toward him. "Why are you helping me?"

He stood. I walked around the desk. "Because my father tried to do the same to me ten years ago."

I blinked. "What?"

Lucien's jaw was tight. "He set me up. Framed me for a murder I didn't commit. Had me locked away while he tried to reshape the family without me."

"What stopped him?"

Lucien looked me dead in the eye. "I escaped. And I burned everything he built."

For the first time, I saw it. Not the power. Not the arrogance. The damage.

Lucien Valenti had scars I couldn't see.

Maybe we weren't so different.

Then his phone buzzed. He checked it. His expression changed instantly.

"What is it?" I asked.

He looked up. "There's been a breach at the front gate."

My stomach dropped. "Who?"

"They don't know. But the guard says he saw a mark."

"What kind of mark?"

Lucien met my eyes.

"A black rose."

My blood ran cold.

"That was Enzo's tattoo," I whispered.

Lucien grabbed a gun from the drawer and handed me a smaller one.

"Stay behind me," he said.

I took it.

We moved fast through the halls, down the stairs, past a flurry of security scrambling for positions. Outside, the guards were surrounding something. Someone.

I pushed past Lucien.

And froze.

The man standing there wore a black hood and a mask that covered half his face.

But I recognized the tattoo on his neck.

A black rose.

He looked straight at me.

And then he said two words that knocked the air from my lungs.

"Hello, Alessia."