Chapter 1
“I never left this house.”
Evelyn’s hand trembled inside mine.
I slowly turned toward Bianca.
She had gone white.
Not confused.
Not shocked.
Afraid.
That difference changed everything.
Behind me, Ethan pressed himself against Anna’s side while she stared into the opening with both hands covering her mouth.
I looked back at Evelyn.
Her wedding dress was torn at the hem and dulled with age. Her face was thinner than I remembered, but there was no uncertainty.
It was her.
The woman I had mourned.
The woman I had hated for leaving before I was eventually told she had died somewhere beyond the estate.
Alive beneath my feet.
“Can you stand?”
Evelyn tried.
Her knees failed.
I climbed partly into the shallow chamber and lifted her out.
She immediately flinched when Bianca stepped forward.
“Don’t.”
One word.
Weak.
Terrified.
I put myself between them.
Bianca froze.
“Raffaele, you don’t understand what you’re seeing.”
I looked at the open floor.
Then at the veil.
Then at my sister.
“You’re right.”
My voice stayed low.
“I understand less every second you speak.”
Evelyn gripped my sleeve.
“The veil.”
I looked down.
“What about it?”
“I pushed it through.”
Anna stared.
Evelyn continued.
“I heard her say they were moving me tonight.”
Silence.
Bianca’s eyes snapped toward her.
There.
Confirmation.
This discovery had not been an accident.
Evelyn had known someone would clean the suite.
She had worked fabric through a seam beneath the floor and waited.
Anna’s vacuum had not found my former fiancée.
Evelyn had chosen Anna as the first person in three years she was willing to risk trusting.
I looked at Bianca.
“Who is ‘they’?”
She said nothing.
Evelyn answered.
“The people who needed you to believe I was dead.”
May you like
Then she looked toward the hidden chamber.
“And the reason is still somewhere inside this house.”
