Chapter 2 - The Master Bedroom Decree
Moving from the cramped servant quarters above the garage to the east wing of the Rossi manor felt less like a recovery and more like an exile into dangerous luxury.
Three weeks had passed. The autumn rain had turned to early winter frost, crusting the sprawling lawns in silver ice. I sat propped against satin pillows in a sprawling corner suite adorned with hand-carved molding, silk drapes, and an unobstructed view of the private forest. My maid’s uniform had been stripped away and burned, replaced by cashmere robes and tailored wool trousers that fit me with unsettling precision. Gabriel had summoned the city's finest dressmaker to my bedside while I was still semi-conscious.
Every morning at eight, the door would ease open without a sound.
Leo would slip inside like a ghost, carrying his wooden train or an oversized sketchbook. He never said much—his voice was still fractured and quiet, scarred by the trauma of the mother he barely remembered and the violence he had witnessed. But he would climb carefully onto the foot of my bed, curl his knees to his chin, and watch me breathe.
"You're not leaking anymore," he stated on a Tuesday morning, pointing a small finger at my shoulder.
I smiled, letting my book rest in my lap. "No, buddy. The doctor put fancy threads in me. All patched up."
He leaned forward, pressing a small, warm palm against my uninjured collarbone. "Papa said you were made of iron. Like the bridges in the city."
"Your father gives me too much credit," I murmured, gently smoothing a lock of dark, unruly hair away from his forehead. "I'm just human. Iron doesn't hurt this bad when it gets rained on."
"He doesn't lie," Leo said simply, his gray eyes—so painfully identical to his father's—holding mine with absolute child-like certainty. "Papa never lies. He kills people who lie."
A knock shattered the quiet intimacy. Gabriel stepped into the room.
He wore a tailored charcoal three-piece suit, an unlit cigar held loosely between two fingers. He glanced down at his son perched on the edge of my bed. In the past, Gabriel’s entrance would send Leo scurrying to his nanny or stiffening into disciplined silence. Now, the boy simply adjusted his position, staying anchored to my side.
"Leo," Gabriel said softly. "Go to the kitchen. Mrs. Gable made the pastry you like."
Leo hesitated, looking up at me first. I gave him an encouraging nod, and only then did he scramble off the bed, padding past his father without a word.
Gabriel closed the door behind him, turning the brass lock with an audible click.
My breath hitched. The sound of a locked door in this house was never a casual gesture.
"You're walking better," he remarked, stepping slowly toward the center of the room. He didn't sit. He never seemed comfortable sitting unless he was cornering an enemy across a negotiating table.
"Dr. Silva says the muscle tissue is knitting well," I replied carefully, pulling the cashmere robe tighter around my collar. "Sir, I appreciate the room and the care, but the staff... they talk. I shouldn't be here. The other maids won't even look at me when they bring the fresh linens. They think I'm positioning myself."
"Let them think whatever keeps them terrified enough to work quietly," Gabriel dismissed with a flick of his wrist. "You saved my family's future. If I placed a crown on your head and made the capos kiss your boots, they would do it without question."
"I don't want a crown, Mr. Rossi. I just want to know what my role is now. Am I still your employee?"
He stopped at the edge of the mahogany dresser, his gaze landing on a flat, polished rosewood box inlaid with mother-of-pearl that he had brought into the room under his arm. He hadn't placed it on the desk; he held it like an explosive device.
"Three years ago, when Elena died on the turnpike, she left three sealed archives in a private vault in Zurich," Gabriel began, his voice dropping into that chilling, measured rhythm that preceded violence or ruin. "Two contained corporate accounts and trust funds for Leo. The third was held under a specific codicil."
He looked at me, his slate-gray eyes piercing, searching for something in my expression that I didn't yet understand.
"The codicil stated that the final box could only be opened under one of two conditions," he continued, taking a step toward the bed. "Either on Leo's twenty-first birthday... or upon an event where an outsider shed blood to defend his life on these grounds."
A chill raced across my scalp, prickling the fine hairs on my arms. "That's impossible. She died three years ago. I only started working here two years ago. She didn't know me. I was nobody."
"Elena knew everything that moved in this city before it ever took a breath," Gabriel whispered, placing the heavy rosewood box directly onto my lap. "She was a Moretti by blood. Her family built the intelligence networks our families run on. Open it."
My hands shook as I touched the cold brass latch. The lock had already been turned by the courier’s key, but the crimson wax seal over the seam remained intact, stamped with a delicate crest featuring a nightingale entwined around a dagger.
With my thumb, I broke the wax. The brittle pieces fell away like dried blood.
Inside, resting on black velvet, was an ivory envelope yellowed slightly with age, a heavy platinum signet ring, and a leather dossier thick with photographs.
May you like
On the front of the envelope, written in a sharp, elegant hand that had not moved in three years, were five words that made my heart stop entirely:
To Tess Alder. Read alone.
