Chapter 20 - The House With a Heart
Six months later, the cellar door was yellow.
Lily chose the exact shade.
Sunflower.
The stone walls were painted cream.
The old wine racks were gone.
One side of the room held bookshelves.
The other had an enormous craft table permanently covered in glitter.
Leo hated glitter.
Lily considered this a personal challenge.
Beatrice stood at the bottom of the stairs wearing navy nursing scrubs.
Her first semester had started three weeks earlier.
She worked at the Rossi estate only two days a week now.
Not as a maid.
Leo had officially hired a new household manager after Beatrice threatened to throw a saucepan at him if he tried to invent another job title for her.
Mostly, Beatrice came because Lily wanted her there.
And because Beatrice wanted to be there too.
The criminal trial had not begun yet.
Sterling remained in custody.
Victoria faced separate charges.
Gianni had entered a cooperation agreement.
The Kensington empire was being dismantled one corporation at a time.
Nothing had become simple.
But the Rossi house had changed.
Leo reduced his involvement in operations that had kept his family trapped in cycles of retaliation for decades.
Mateo complained that legality produced more paperwork than crime.
Leo told him that was probably the point.
The old security staff had been replaced.
Employee protections were rewritten.
Sofia’s education fund now paid tuition for fourteen workers and three children of employees.
Ellen Miller’s name appeared on the scholarship.
Beatrice had argued against that.
Leo ignored her.
She secretly loved him for it.
That word still frightened her.
Love.
Neither of them had said it.
Not yet.
Their relationship had grown through smaller things.
Coffee left waiting before her morning classes.
Leo learning how to braid Lily’s hair badly.
Beatrice correcting him.
Leo asking instead of ordering.
Beatrice refusing to be impressed by expensive restaurants.
Quiet conversations after Lily slept.
One terrible attempt by Leo to make lasagna.
Mateo ordering pizza afterward.
Lily had already decided the matter for everyone.
One afternoon, she drew a family picture for school.
There was Daddy.
There was Mommy in heaven.
There was Lily.
There was Uncle Mateo.
And beside Lily stood a large woman in blue.
The teacher asked who she was.
Lily wrote beneath the picture.
Bee.
Home is where Bee is.
Beatrice cried in the school parking lot for twenty minutes.
That evening, she walked into the yellow cellar carrying cookies.
Lily sat beneath the old hidden compartment reading.
Leo stood beside the wall holding Sofia’s letter.
“What are you doing?”
He turned.
“Reading.”
“You look suspicious when you read.”
“I look suspicious all the time.”
“True.”
Lily reached for a cookie.
Beatrice slapped her hand away.
“Dinner first.”
“Daddy lets me.”
Beatrice looked at Leo.
Leo immediately raised both hands.
“I have never seen that child before.”
“Traitor,” Lily said.
Leo smiled.
Beatrice watched them.
A year earlier, she would have stood near the doorway.
Staff never sat while the family relaxed.
Staff did not interrupt.
Staff did not laugh loudly.
Staff did not take up space.
Now Lily pulled out a chair.
“Bee.”
Beatrice sat.
Leo looked at the old letter.
“There’s one part I never understood.”
Beatrice glanced over.
“Which part?”
“The kitchen has a heart.”
Lily answered before Beatrice could.
“It means Bee.”
Leo looked at his daughter.
Lily rolled her eyes.
“Obviously.”
Beatrice laughed.
Leo did too.
Then his expression softened.
“Maybe.”
He folded the letter.
“No.”
He looked around the room Sofia had once used to hide evidence that could save them.
“The heart was anyone who cared enough to do the right thing when nobody powerful was watching.”
Beatrice thought of her mother.
Of Sofia.
Of Mateo.
Of Gianni standing outside the last door.
Of Lily turning the key herself.
Then she thought of the woman she had been.
The woman who apologized for chairs.
For doorways.
For eating.
For breathing.
For existing too visibly in a world that rewarded women for disappearing.
That woman had survived.
But she no longer ran Beatrice’s life.
“Bee?”
Lily was staring at her.
“What?”
“You’re crying.”
“I am not.”
“You are.”
Leo handed Beatrice a napkin.
She took it.
“Both of you are annoying.”
Lily smiled.
“You love us.”
Beatrice looked at Leo.
He was already looking at her.
The room became very quiet.
Lily’s eyes moved between them.
“Oh.”
Beatrice narrowed her eyes.
“Do not.”
Lily covered her mouth.
Leo failed to hide a smile.
Beatrice stood.
“I’m going upstairs.”
Leo followed.
“Why?”
“Because I suddenly remembered I have homework.”
“You’re running away.”
“I am an adult woman making an independent decision.”
“You’re running.”
She reached the yellow door.
Leo touched her hand.
Beatrice stopped.
Lily, displaying unusual wisdom for a six-year-old, remained downstairs.
Leo stood one step below Beatrice.
It put their eyes almost level.
“I meant what I said six months ago.”
“About what?”
“Staying.”
Beatrice’s heartbeat changed.
“I stayed.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you looking terrified?”
“I am not terrified.”
“You are.”
Leo Rossi smiled faintly.
The man had faced guns without blinking.
Apparently one maid-turned-nursing-student could terrify him.
“I want to take you to dinner.”
“We eat dinner together constantly.”
“Not with Lily.”
Beatrice raised an eyebrow.
“Not with Mateo.”
Another eyebrow.
“Not while discussing security.”
She began to understand.
“Oh.”
“Exactly.”
Beatrice looked downstairs.
Lily immediately ducked behind her book.
She had clearly been listening.
Beatrice looked back at Leo.
“One dinner.”
His face remained controlled.
His eyes did not.
“One.”
“And no private restaurant.”
“Fine.”
“No helicopter.”
He frowned.
“I wasn’t going to use a helicopter.”
“Good.”
“I was considering the boat.”
“Leo.”
“Kidding.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Mostly.”
Beatrice laughed.
Then she kissed his cheek.
It lasted perhaps one second.
Leo froze completely.
Beatrice walked upstairs before her courage disappeared.
Behind her, Lily screamed.
“Yes!”
Beatrice turned.
“Lily Rossi!”
Lily ran across the cellar.
Leo caught her and lifted her into the air.
“You were spying.”
“You were taking forever.”
Beatrice stood at the top of the yellow doorway and looked down at them.
Father.
Daughter.
Home.
Then Mateo appeared from the hallway holding a large brown envelope.
His smile was gone.
Leo noticed.
“What is it?”
Mateo looked toward Lily.
“Not here.”
Beatrice’s stomach tightened.
Six peaceful months had taught her that certain expressions always meant trouble.
Leo lowered Lily.
“Sweetheart, finish your book.”
Lily frowned.
“But—”
“Please.”
She obeyed.
Leo followed Mateo into the hallway.
Beatrice went with them.
Mateo placed the envelope on a table.
“No return address.”
“When did it arrive?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Who delivered it?”
“Courier.”
Leo opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Sofia.
Alive.
Standing outside a hotel in Rome.
Leo’s face went completely white.
Beatrice stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Mateo turned the photograph over.
A date was stamped on the back.
Four months after the bombing.
Below it, someone had written a message.
Kensington was never the beginning.
He was only the banker.
Leo read the final line aloud.
“If you want to know who ordered Sofia Rossi to disappear, come to Rome alone.”
No one spoke.
Downstairs, Lily laughed at something in her book.
The sound floated through the yellow cellar door.
Leo stared at the photograph of the wife he had buried two years earlier.
Beatrice looked at Mateo.
Mateo looked at Leo.
And suddenly they understood.
They had solved the conspiracy that killed Sofia Rossi.
May you like
But perhaps Sofia Rossi had never died at all.
TOBE CONTINUED
