Chapter 6 - The Wall Behind the Wine
Beatrice returned to the Rossi estate two days later.
Leo had insisted she recover somewhere else.
Beatrice had insisted Lily would recover faster if she saw her.
Lily won the argument without knowing there had been one.
She ran across the sunroom the moment Beatrice entered.
Then she stopped abruptly.
“Your face.”
Beatrice smiled.
“It looks worse than it feels.”
“That’s not true.”
Leo, standing behind his daughter, almost laughed.
Beatrice raised an eyebrow.
“Excuse me?”
“Daddy says people say that when it hurts.”
Leo looked at the ceiling.
“Your father is causing trouble.”
Lily carefully hugged Beatrice around the waist.
Beatrice rested her chin on the child’s hair.
Leo watched them.
Something inside him shifted.
Not suddenly.
Not romantically.
More dangerously than that.
He realized Beatrice belonged in the picture he had been desperately trying to protect.
A few hours later, Lily brought them to the cellar.
She refused to go down at first.
Her breathing quickened the moment she saw the iron door.
Beatrice crouched beside her.
“We don’t have to.”
Lily looked at Leo.
“Mommy’s secret is there.”
Leo knelt.
“Nothing in that cellar matters more than you.”
Lily thought about it.
Then she reached for Beatrice’s hand with one hand and Leo’s with the other.
The three of them walked down together.
Mateo followed.
At the far wall stood rows of wine racks.
Lily pointed toward the floor.
“When I was little, Mommy let me hide here.”
Leo remembered Sofia playing hide-and-seek with her.
He had been on a conference call.
He had barely looked up.
The memory filled him with regret.
Lily touched one wooden panel.
“Bluebird.”
Mateo pulled the rack away.
Behind it was a narrow steel door painted the same color as the stone.
A small lock sat in the center.
Leo held the blue key they had finally found sewn into the rabbit’s belly.
It fit.
The lock clicked.
Inside was a waterproof document case.
Mateo opened it.
A leather ledger lay inside.
Several flash drives.
Photographs.
And a sealed envelope.
LEO.
He opened the envelope with shaking hands.
My love,
If you are reading this, I failed to get away from them.
Leo stopped.
Beatrice quietly led Lily a few steps back.
He continued.
Sterling believes your power makes you untouchable.
It does not.
It makes the people around you targets.
I tried to protect you from the truth because I knew you would answer betrayal with blood.
Please do something harder.
Answer it with evidence.
Protect Lily.
Protect the innocent people who work in our home.
And when you discover who betrayed us, remember that revenge will not raise me from the dead.
Leo lowered the letter.
Mateo stared at him.
There was more.
One name will surprise you.
Trust the woman Lily trusts.
Leo read that line twice.
Then he looked at Beatrice.
She was sitting on the cellar step with Lily pressed against her side.
Sofia had written those words before Beatrice became important to Lily.
Maybe before Lily had spoken her name.
Leo looked back at the letter.
May you like
At the bottom, Sofia had added one final sentence.
The house has ears, but the kitchen has a heart.
