Chapter 5
The hidden passage had six rooms.
We opened all of them.
Storage.
Old wine shelves.
A servants’ stair.
A narrow washroom.
A locked chamber beneath the chapel.
And one room that had been used recently.
Mattress.
Lantern.
Food wrappers.
Medical supplies.
Not three years continuously.
Good.
That mattered.
Evelyn explained later.
“They moved me.”
“Where?”
“Different rooms.”
“Why?”
“So staff wouldn’t hear.”
Someone brought food.
Sometimes Bianca.
Sometimes a man named Thomas Vale.
I knew him.
Former household security.
He left two years ago.
Supposedly retired to Arizona.
I almost laughed.
Everyone in this family seemed to retire when they became inconvenient.
“Did Thomas hurt you?”
Evelyn looked away.
I stopped.
No details required.
Not now.
“Did he help Bianca?”
“Yes.”
“Matteo?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
Long pause.
Then:
“Damian Cole.”
My consigliere.
My oldest friend.
The man who stood beside me on the wedding day while I waited for a bride who never came.
I felt my entire body go still.
“You’re sure?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“I heard his voice through the wall.”
That hurt differently.
Bianca was blood.
Matteo was old ambition.
Damian was chosen family.
“What did he say?”
“He told Bianca you were breaking exactly the way they needed.”
I looked at the floor.
Breaking.
My grief had not been collateral.
It was part of the strategy.
A boss abandoned publicly on his wedding day becomes easier to isolate.
Easier to advise.
Easier to surround.
And Damian had spent the next three years telling me Bianca was the only family I could trust.
Perfect.
May you like
They did not only remove Evelyn.
They replaced the people around me.
