Chapter 1 - The Six Keys in Her Hair
“Emma, what the hell is that doing in here?”
Vanessa Bellini stood so fast her chair hit the wood paneling.
Thirty-four guests froze mid-toast.
I braced both hands against the heavy grand piano.
Two housemen pushed beside me across the marble foyer.
Dust clung to the carved legs.
The pedals were tarnished black.
And six white keys in the center had been stripped to raw spruce.
Vanessa wore crimson satin.
Diamonds dripped from her throat.
Tucked into her blonde chignon was a comb.
Crafted from six polished slabs of antique ivory.
Luca Moretti lowered his champagne flute.
His slate-gray eyes drifted to the scarred keyboard.
Then to the ivory comb in his fiancée’s hair.
Nobody breathed.
He walked toward the instrument.
His fingers brushed the lacquered wood.
“My mother’s piano.”
Vanessa forced a tight, brittle laugh.
“Darling, the movers were supposed to take it hours ago.”
Luca lifted the fallboard.
His jaw hardened into granite.
“Who did this?”
Vanessa glared at me.
“You stupid, clumsy maid. Get this trash out of here.”
I didn't move an inch.
Luca did.
He stepped within three inches of Vanessa.
He pointed at the comb.
“Take it off.”
Her smile vanished.
“Luca, please—”
“Take. It. Off.”
My name is Emma Sullivan.
I was twenty-eight.
I had cleaned Luca Moretti’s estate for eleven months.
I knew nothing about his syndicate empire.
But I knew this house.
And I knew nobody touched Elena Moretti’s piano.
Photographs upstairs showed her playing it when Luca was small.
One picture showed eight-year-old Luca beside her.
A blue fountain pen leaked in his pocket.
And on the bare key beneath middle C, a faint blue ink stain still lingered.
The exact same blue stain embedded in Vanessa’s comb.
Vanessa had paid a craftsman to carve his mother’s heirloom into bridal jewelry.
Then ordered it thrown out to hide the theft.
When I refused to lie, she fired me.
So I rolled the truth right into the middle of her engagement dinner.
Vanessa pulled the comb from her hair with trembling fingers.
Luca took it.
His thumb traced the blue stain.
“My fountain pen,” he whispered.
His face tightened into terrifying stillness.
“You carved up my mother’s piano for vanity.”
He looked at the keyboard.
“There are seven keys missing. Not six.”
A mover stepped forward from the threshold, holding a child-sized wooden bench.
Across the underside, carved by hand:
FOR ISABELLA — LOVE, MOM.
The bottom panel had been pried open.
Inside was empty.
Under Vanessa’s dropped napkin, I spotted the gold chain.
A tiny locket with an engraved blue flower.
Luca snatched the locket.
He opened the clasp.
Inside was a folded scrap of paper.
He read the first line.
His color drained completely.
He looked at the staircase.
“Where is my sister?”
Vanessa backed away into the curtains, trembling.
May you like
Luca’s voice tore through the grand dining hall:
“WHAT DID YOU DO WITH ISABELLA?”
