Chapter 1
Cassandro Moretti stepped onto the pool terrace and found his three-year-old daughter trapped beneath another woman’s hand.
Vivienne had Audrey pressed against the shallow steps. Every time the little girl tried to climb out, Vivienne shoved her backward and tightened her grip around Audrey’s wrist.
“Tell me what your mother showed you,” Vivienne said. “Then I’ll let you out.”
Cassandro stopped moving.
Audrey saw him a second later.
“Daddy!”
He entered the water without removing his jacket, tore Vivienne’s hand away, and lifted Audrey against his chest. She coughed against his collar while Mrs. Keller hurried forward with a towel.
Then Audrey looked down at the faded blue bracelet around her wrist.
“Daddy… Mommy never left this house.”
Cassandro froze.
Vivienne went pale.
Damian moved immediately. He grabbed Cassandro’s jacket, shoved him away from Audrey, and struck him across the shoulder before pointing toward the bracelet.
“She’s confused. Give Vivienne the bracelet.”
Cassandro looked at him.
Damian swung again.
This time Cassandro slipped the punch and hit him once, sending him backward through the croquet-equipment rack. Mallets, hoops, and padded bags scattered across the grass.
Vivienne lunged for Audrey next.
Cassandro caught her wrist before she touched the child. Vivienne slapped him first, and a moment later she crashed backward through the folding cabana screens after Cassandro struck back.
Then Audrey did something none of them expected.
She slipped from Mrs. Keller’s arms, crossed the wet terrace, and stopped beside an old stone wall near the pool.
Her small hand touched one section.
“There.”
Mrs. Keller’s face changed.
Cassandro saw it.
He walked toward the wall and found a seam so carefully hidden between the stones that he had passed it thousands of times without seeing it.
“So my wife never abandoned me,” he said quietly.
Then he looked at Vivienne.
“Take me to her. Right now.”
Vivienne said nothing.
Mrs. Keller did.
May you like
“She was behind that wall.”
And suddenly Cassandro understood the secret had been inside his own estate all along.
