Chapter 1
“Your fiancée is a thief.”
Three-year-old Sophia Vasquez said it while holding a one-eared stuffed cat against her chest.
Dante Moretti did not move for three full seconds.
His pen stayed suspended above a four-hundred-thousand-dollar contract. Ink spread slowly across the signature line.
Sophia stood in the doorway of his private study as if she had just announced the weather.
Behind her, rain tapped the tall windows of the Moretti estate.
“Sophia!”
Elena Vasquez appeared in the hall, flour on her forearms and panic in her face. She had worked in Dante’s home for four years and had never once entered his study without permission.
“Mr. Moretti, I am so sorry. Daycare closed early. I turned my back for one minute.”
“Elena.”
“She doesn’t understand what she’s saying.”
“Elena.”
His voice stayed quiet.
That was enough.
Elena crossed the room, lifted Sophia, and covered the child’s mouth with one hand.
“Say goodbye.”
Sophia twisted in her mother’s arms and looked at Dante over Elena’s shoulder.
“She took the bird thing.”
Dante’s heartbeat changed.
Only six people alive knew about the bronze Moretti seal hidden beneath his desk.
His father had called it the family’s second signature. It had stamped private agreements for nearly a century.
Dante waited until Elena carried Sophia downstairs.
Then he locked the door.
He knelt beside his desk, pressed the brass stud under the right pedestal, and opened the hidden drawer.
The green felt was empty.
The seal was gone.
He stood very slowly.
Vanessa Bellini, the woman he planned to marry in six weeks, had been inside this study exactly twice.
Both times with him.
Both times she had admired the old desk.
Dante picked up his phone.
“Rocco.”
His head of security answered immediately.
“Yes, boss?”
“Lock the gates.”
A pause.
“Problem?”
Dante stared at the empty felt.
“No one leaves this property.”
May you like
Then the study door handle moved.
Someone outside was trying to come in.
