Page 53 of Daddies of the Underworld

“Matteo.” I started to stand, but the weight of his gaze pinned me in place when he stopped outside the door. “I need to tell you something.”

His phone buzzed. He ignored it, and hope lifted so fast it hurt. Maybe this time, I’d finally get through to them.

A heavy knock slammed into the door, then Luca stumbled through, his face pasty and eyes darting to me, then to Matteo. Fury stripped his face bare. “They found a drive in the old staff lockers.”

Finally. I almost cheered. After weeks of turmoil, we might finally have answers. “Which locker?”

“Yours.” Luca said it in a whisper. “It was in your locker, Nina. The one you used two years ago. The same locker you were assigned this year.”

“I never used my locker. I mean, I did last time, but not this year.” I hadn’t needed to. I’d been yanked off staff duty before I’d had need of the small space in the servants’ quarters.

“It has pieces of stolen records on it. Your old credentials, along with what appear to be instructions to Marco on how to use that to get him into the archives.” Luca winced with every accusation, but he did not take them back. “I tried to get to the information and bury it so we could investigate, but it was a maid who found it. She said she was asked to clean out the unused lockers, and she called a guard when she found a handwritten note addressed to Marco.”

Matteo leaned over me, bracing his weight on the chair arms. “You need to stay inside. Things out there are getting tense, and if they see you after this has made the rounds, because there is no way to hide it, they will call for blood.” Matteo’s gaze held mine for one more second before he turned away, motioning for Luca to lead the way. “Show me.”

They doubted me, and even though I understood why, it made me sick in a way the pregnancy no longer explained. That evening, I went looking for Matteo despite his warning. I had spent hours hyping myself up to tell them everything. The words gathered inside me as I crossed the private wing, one hand pressed flat against my stomach until the churning eased.

Voices drifted from the half-open library door. Matteo and Dante.

I stopped before they saw me. Some internal warning lightened my steps and forced me to put my ear to the wall.

“If we do not deal with the problem before it destroys everything, the alliance breaks,” Matteo said.

Dante’s voice was pitched so low I almost couldn’t hear it. “And Nina?”

My heart stopped as a long, terrible pause lingered.

Matteo answered with the kind of quiet that had once made me feel safe. “Nina cannot be the reason we hesitate.”

I backed away before I heard more, before my body forgot how to move and gave me away.

Nina cannot be the reason we hesitate.

They were talking about me.

Of course they were talking about me.

I returned to the bedroom on shaky legs, my breaths coming in short bursts.

I was in danger. I hadn’t wanted to believe it, but hadn’t Matteo told me to my face?

This was how they wrapped up loose ends. Well, I wouldn’t let them. I would not be their scapegoat. Me and my baby were going to get away.

Outside, thunder rolled over the sea, giving me an idea. The storm broke open while I packed.

I took almost nothing. A dress. Underwear. Cash from the emergency envelope in my old suitcase. The tiny knife Matteo had given me. The lemon soap Luca bought in town because the scent made me cry when I held it, and apparently I had chosen cruelty for myself tonight.

My hands shook so hard the letter took three tries, and I hoped they read the shakiness as genuine fear and not guilt. I promised I had not stolen from them, and that I let Marco go because he was the only family I had. I told them not to look for me and I was sorry for the damage I’d caused.

If they thought I was a problem, they could never know about the tiny life that would become one more piece on their board. I folded the letter and left it on Matteo’s pillow because he would be the one to understand the cruelty of placement.

The villa groaned beneath the storm as I slipped into the service corridor.

Rain battered the windows, wind shoving at the old shutters until one of them snapped off and crashed to the ground. Somewhere above me, voices rose, then faded.

They wouldn’t expect me to run during the storm.

They wouldn’t expect me to take the exact same route as Marco. The dry fountain was tucked beyond the garden wall, half swallowed by vines.