Chapter 1
“I never left this house.”
Evelyn’s fingers tightened around mine.
I slowly turned my head toward Bianca.
She had gone completely still.
Anna stood near the open floor panel with one hand over her mouth. Ethan pressed himself against my leg, staring down at the woman beneath the bridal suite as if the floor itself had begun speaking.
I looked back at Evelyn.
Three years.
The dress was still recognizably the one she had worn that morning, but torn, stained, and cut shorter near the hem. Her hair was tangled. Her face looked thinner.
Alive.
That was all my mind could hold.
“Can you stand?”
She tried.
Failed.
I climbed down far enough to lift her carefully through the opening.
The hidden chamber was shallow, but when I looked beneath the boards, I saw darkness continuing behind her.
Not a chamber.
A passage.
Old.
Stone-lined.
Bianca finally spoke.
“This is impossible.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
“What’s impossible is that you aren’t surprised.”
Her face changed.
Evelyn clutched the veil to her chest.
Then she looked at Bianca.
“She knows the tunnel.”
Silence.
Bianca laughed once.
Too quickly.
“This house is a century old. Everyone knows there are service spaces.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No.”
Her voice barely carried.
“You know because you put me there.”
Ethan looked up at me.
I lifted him into Anna’s arms.
“Take him downstairs.”
Bianca stepped forward.
“Raffaele—”
I raised one hand.
She stopped.
Not because I shouted.
Because she knew the difference between anger and the moment before anger becomes decision.
Anna carried Ethan out.
Then Evelyn whispered:
“She told everyone I ran because that was easier than explaining what I saw.”
I crouched beside her.
“What did you see?”
Her eyes filled.
May you like
She looked at Bianca again.
“My wedding day wasn’t the first thing she stole from you.”
