Chapter 2 - The Locked FloorThe doctor confirmed what I already knew.
No fracture.
A severe sprain, swelling, and bruising around my ankle.
But it was the bruises on my arms that changed everything.
Dr. Harris discovered them when he asked me to remove my cardigan.
Three along my upper arm.
One near my shoulder.
Another fading yellow mark beneath my ribs.
Matteo stood across the private medical room in his townhouse, saying nothing.
He didn’t need to.
His silence felt heavier than shouting.
“These aren’t all from last night,” Dr. Harris said carefully.
I stared at the floor.
“No.”
“How long has this been happening?”
“About two weeks.”
Matteo turned his head sharply.
“Two weeks?”
I looked at him.
“You never asked.”
“I didn’t know I needed to.”
“That’s the point.”
Matteo opened his mouth and then closed it.
For once, the man who always had an answer had none.
Dr. Harris finished wrapping my ankle and gave instructions about ice, elevation, and pain medication.
When he left, Matteo dismissed everyone except Daniel.
Then he poured me a glass of water.
I almost laughed.
Matteo DeLuca owned hotels, commercial real estate, and a logistics corporation valued in the hundreds of millions, yet he looked uncertain about how to hand someone water.
“Thank you,” I said.
He sat opposite me.
“Start from the beginning.”
“I don’t know the beginning.”
“The first time you realized someone was following you.”
I thought back.
“Twelve days ago.”
“Where?”
“Outside the pharmacy.”
“Description?”
“Man, maybe forty. Gray coat. Baseball cap.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“Two days later, somebody followed me from here to Lexington Avenue.”
Daniel was taking notes.
“Same person?”
“I don’t know.”
Matteo leaned forward.
“When did they first approach you?”
“Friday.”
Three days earlier.
I had finished work at eight.
Usually one of Matteo’s drivers offered staff members rides during bad weather, but it had been a clear evening and I preferred walking.
A man approached me outside a deli.
He knew my name.
He told me I had dropped something.
When I turned, he whispered, “Tell Mr. DeLuca we need what his father left behind.”
Then he disappeared into pedestrian traffic.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Matteo asked.
“Because I assumed someone was trying to scare me.”
“They succeeded.”
I lifted my chin.
“They surprised me.”
His mouth almost moved into a smile.
Almost.
“What happened last night?”
This part was harder.
I described leaving the grocery store.
The alley.
Two men.
One blocking the street.
One grabbing my arm.
They demanded information about Matteo’s schedules and family.
I told them I was a housekeeper.
They laughed.
“They said you trusted me,” I whispered.
Matteo’s eyes sharpened.
“I do.”
That caught me off guard.
“We barely speak.”
“Trust doesn’t require conversation.”
Daniel looked up.
Matteo continued.
“You’ve had access to every private room in this house for almost a year. Nothing has disappeared. Nothing has leaked. You’ve never asked questions about meetings you overheard. You once found twenty thousand dollars in cash inside a jacket pocket and handed it directly to my accountant.”
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything that concerns my home.”
Something about the way he said home made the room feel smaller.
Daniel interrupted.
“Sir, we need to relocate Miss Marlowe.”
“No,” I said.
Matteo looked at me.
“I have an apartment.”
“Which they already know.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“This isn’t bravery versus cowardice.”
“I never said it was.”
“Then stop arguing like it is.”
My temper snapped.
“Easy for you to say. You have guards around you constantly.”
“Yes.”
“You travel in armored cars.”
“Yes.”
“You have cameras on every entrance.”
“Yes.”
“I have a deadbolt and a neighbor named Mrs. Kaplan who watches everybody from behind her curtains.”
Daniel coughed, hiding amusement.
Matteo didn’t smile.
Instead he said, “Then Mrs. Kaplan deserves a vacation.”
I stared at him.
“You cannot relocate my neighbor.”
“I can send her somewhere nice.”
“Matteo.”
It was the first time I had used his first name.
His eyes changed.
Not much.
Enough.
“Stay here,” he said.
I laughed once.
“No.”
“There are twelve security personnel on this property.”
“That doesn’t make me comfortable.”
“Why?”
I hesitated.
Because powerful men had never made me feel safe.
Because when I was nineteen, my stepfather had taught me that locked doors could keep danger inside just as easily as outside.
Because accepting protection often came with expectations.
I gave him the simplest truth.
“I don’t like owing people.”
Matteo leaned back.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“People always say that before they hand you the bill.”
For several seconds, he studied me.
Then he took a key from his pocket and placed it on the table.
“This opens the third-floor guest suite. There is an interior lock. No one enters without your permission, including staff, security, or me.”
I looked at the key.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Until Daniel determines who’s following you.”
“That could take weeks.”
“It won’t.”
Daniel looked offended by the implication.
I picked up the key.
“One night.”
Matteo nodded.
“One night.”
He was lying.
We both knew it.
That evening, I discovered exactly how complicated his definition of one night could become.
At 11:43 p.m., someone triggered the rear gate alarm.
Security flooded the courtyard.
I woke to men running downstairs.
Then came three sharp knocks on my bedroom door.
“Elena.”
Matteo.
I opened it.
He was wearing black pants and a dark sweater.
There was blood across his knuckles.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
I looked at his hand.
He gave me a look.
“Apparently we both use that word incorrectly.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Then his expression darkened.
“We caught someone near the service entrance.”
My stomach tightened.
“One of the men?”
“Possibly.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much.”
“Matteo.”
“He had photographs.”
A cold sensation crawled over my skin.
“Of what?”
He reached into his pocket.
Then stopped.
“I don’t think you should see them.”
“Give them to me.”
“Elena.”
“Give them to me.”
He handed me three photographs.
The first showed me leaving my apartment.
The second showed me shopping.
The third made my hands shake.
It was taken months earlier.
Before anyone had followed me.
Before the man outside the pharmacy.
Before the alley.
I was standing beside my mother’s grave in New Jersey.
On the back, written in black marker, were six words.
ASK ELENA WHAT HER MOTHER STOLE.
I read the sentence twice.
Then a third time.
Matteo stared at me.
“Your mother knew my family.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“She couldn’t have.”
“What was her name?”
I wanted to refuse.
But something in my memory had already shifted.
A photograph from childhood.
My mother standing beside a black limousine.
A silver pin she kept hidden inside a jewelry box.
A name she once whispered while arguing with someone on the telephone.
DeLuca.
I had been eight.
I had forgotten.
Until now.
I looked at Matteo.
“Her name was Anna Marlowe.”
Daniel, standing ten feet away, dropped his phone.
Matteo turned.
Daniel’s face had gone white.
“What?” I demanded.
Daniel looked toward Matteo.
Then back at me.
“I knew your mother.”
My blood turned cold.
“How?”
May you like
Daniel swallowed.
“She worked for Matteo’s father.”
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