Chapter 3
I stopped walking.
The hallway lights blurred around me.
My bedroom.
My bed.
My white curtains.
My mother’s silver frame on the nightstand.
The photo had been taken from inside my room.
Not through a window.
Not from outside the estate gates.
Inside.
My fingers went cold.
Cesare saw my face and took the phone from my hand.
He looked at the message.
Then his expression changed.
Not shock.
Recognition.
That terrified me.
“Grandpa?”
He handed the phone to Matteo.
“Get Liana home with security. Now.”
Matteo read the message and went pale.
“Avice’s room?”
“Yes.”
Julian came up behind us.
“What happened?”
Cesare turned so sharply Julian stopped.
“You are not part of this family anymore.”
Julian looked wounded.
I did not care.
Officer Ramirez had not left yet.
Cesare showed him the message.
Within minutes, the gala became a second crime scene.
My grandfather’s security team moved like the house was already under attack.
Guests were escorted out.
Staff were separated.
Phones were checked.
Names were recorded.
I kept thinking about my bedroom.
About the person standing near my bed while I was downstairs earlier that day, fixing my hair, telling myself I could survive one more public humiliation.
Had they watched me cry?
Had they touched my things?
Had they been waiting for something?
Cesare took my shoulders.
“Avice, look at me.”
I forced my eyes to his.
“You are coming home with me. Not to the guest wing. To the secure floor.”
“The estate is compromised.”
“Yes.”
He did not soften it.
That was one reason I loved him.
He did not wrap danger in velvet.
On the drive home, rain hit the armored windows.
Liana was in another car with Matteo.
I kept calling to make sure she was still safe.
Every time he answered, he said, “She’s here. She’s breathing. Stop punishing yourself.”
I could not.
If Liana had not noticed the fake belly, Vanessa might have kept lying.
If she had not spoken up, Julian would have married a fraud into a family trust.
If she had not exposed them, no one would have looked at Ethan.
And if someone was inside my room, it meant this was not just about embarrassment.
It was about something Vanessa and Ethan still needed.
When we reached the Bellini estate, the main doors were open.
Security lights covered the drive.
My grandfather’s head of security, Rosa, met us at the steps.
“Sir,” she said, “we found no forced entry.”
Cesare’s jaw tightened.
“Then someone had access.”
Rosa nodded.
“Or someone was already inside.”
My stomach dropped.
We went straight to the security room.
Cameras covered every gate, hallway, and exterior door.
Rosa pulled footage from the afternoon.
At 2:14, I entered my room carrying my gown.
At 2:38, I left.
At 2:52, the camera outside my hallway froze.
Not blacked out.
Frozen.
A still image of an empty corridor.
For eleven minutes.
When it resumed, no one appeared.
But my bedroom door was slightly open.
I covered my mouth.
Cesare said, “Internal access.”
Rosa looked furious.
“Only five people have clearance to that camera system.”
“Names.”
She gave them.
Herself.
My grandfather.
Matteo.
Our estate manager, Paul.
And Julian.
My heart stopped.
Julian still had security credentials from before the engagement ended.
I whispered, “He said he didn’t know.”
Cesare’s face darkened.
“He may not have known what they were doing. That does not mean they did not use what he left behind.”
Rosa checked the access logs.
One override had been entered at 2:51.
Julian’s code.
My knees weakened.
“He gave them my house.”
We searched my room with police present.
Nothing looked disturbed at first.
Then Rosa found the drawer beneath my jewelry case unlocked.
Inside, my mother’s pearl bracelet was gone.
I had worn it the day Julian proposed.
I had refused to wear it after he betrayed me.
Under the empty velvet slot was a folded paper.
I picked it up with gloved hands.
One sentence.
Written in black ink.
If you want the truth about your parents’ accident, stop digging into Vanessa.
I could not breathe.
My parents had died in a boating accident when I was seventeen.
A storm.
A broken radio.
A rescue that came too late.
That was what I had been told.
Cesare read the note over my shoulder.
For the first time in my life, I saw my grandfather afraid.
May you like
Not for himself.
For what he had hidden from me.
