Chapter 1
“You didn’t care about the vase. You were terrified of what was under it.”
Camilla stopped moving.
The yellowed envelope remained sealed in my hand.
Behind me, Livia cried quietly against Rafe’s chest while one of my guards checked the red mark on her cheek.
I did not look at Camilla first.
I looked at my daughter.
Three years old.
Apologizing because she broke porcelain after an adult told her she was worth less than it.
That sentence would cost Camilla more than the slap I had already given her.
Marco pushed himself upright beneath the collapsed seating chart.
“Domenico.”
I slowly turned.
“Don’t.”
His mouth closed.
Good.
I examined the envelope.
Old paper.
Wax along one edge.
No name on the front.
But the back carried a mark I recognized.
My father’s signet.
He had been dead nine years.
Every sound in the ballroom seemed to disappear.
Camilla whispered:
“That’s nothing.”
I almost smiled.
“You attacked a child over nothing?”
Her face hardened.
“The vase belonged to your father.”
“So?”
“You know how he was about his things.”
“Apparently not as much as you.”
I ran one thumb along the seal.
Marco moved again.
Rafe stepped between us.
I looked at him.
“How long have you known this was there?”
Silence.
Then Livia spoke behind me.
“Daddy…”
I turned immediately.
She pointed at the broken base.
“There shiny.”
A piece of brass protruded from the porcelain dust.
Not part of the vase.
A tiny key.
Camilla’s face drained completely.
Interesting.
The envelope had frightened her.
The key terrified her.
I picked it up.
Stamped along one side were two small letters.
S.V.
My father, Salvatore Valenti.
Then I noticed a third mark scratched beneath them.
II.
Second.
I looked at Marco.
He stopped breathing.
I understood nothing yet.
But I knew one thing.
May you like
My father had hidden an envelope and a key beneath a vase for someone to find only after the object broke.
And two people at my wedding already knew exactly what that meant.
