Chapter 2
“She asked if I knew where you’d gone. I told her you’d gone to the after-party she invited you to, and she gave me this strange look.”
“What kind of strange look?”
“Like I’d said something she didn’t expect.” Clara lowered her voice. “Mia, Celia told everyone she never invited you anywhere.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
“She said she barely spoke to you yesterday. I thought maybe I misunderstood, but I know what you told me. You texted me, remember?”
I pulled the phone from my ear and opened my messages with trembling fingers.
There it was.
10:42 p.m.
Going to a marina lounge w Celia. Networking thing. Don’t wait up.
I put the phone back to my ear.
“The text is still here,” I said.
“Good. Save it. Screenshot it. Send it to me.”
“I will.”
“Mia, listen to me. Do not trust anyone right now.”
“Not even the man who pulled me out of the water?”
“I especially don’t know about him.”
Her concern wrapped around me like a familiar blanket. Clara had been my emergency contact in every meaningful way, even if paperwork had not caught up with the truth. We had met at nineteen in a shared college dorm hallway when a fire alarm went off at three in the morning and she had emerged wearing a winter coat over pajamas, holding a frying pan because she thought there was an intruder. Since then, she had been the person who saw through every brave face I put on.
“I’ll be careful,” I promised.
“That is what you say when you’re about to do something reckless.”
“I’m not reckless.”
“You once climbed through a theater window because you left your laptop inside.”
“It was a ground-floor window.”
“It was raining.”
“The laptop survived.”
“And apparently so did you, but that doesn’t make it a lifestyle.”
Despite everything, I smiled faintly.
Then Clara’s voice softened.
“Come home when you can.”
“I will.”
After we hung up, I sent her the screenshot and stared at the message for a long time.
Going to a marina lounge w Celia.
Proof.
Small, ordinary proof that I had not invented the invitation.
A knock sounded.
I stiffened.
“Come in.”
Salvatore entered with a tray carried not by staff but in his own hands. Fresh fruit, tea, a small bowl of soup, and another glass of water.
“You have people for that,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Then why are you carrying it?”
“Because people ask fewer questions when I do.”
He set the tray on the table.
My phone was still in my hand. His eyes flicked toward it.
“You called someone.”
“My best friend.”
“Good.”
That surprised me.
“You’re not upset?”
“You should have someone who knows you’re alive.”
“You answered my phone last night.”
“Your aunt called. She was concerned.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That you had experienced an accident, were receiving medical attention, and would contact her when able.”
“Did she believe you?”
“No.”
A weak laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
The corner of his mouth almost moved. Almost.
“My aunt raised me after my parents died,” I said. “She doesn’t believe anything until she has confirmed it through three sources and one neighborhood rumor.”
“Then she is sensible.”
The room quieted.
He stood near the window, his face turned partly toward the light. In daylight, the severity of him was even more pronounced. He looked like a man built by discipline, by loss, by years of learning that softness was a luxury other people could afford.
“Celia lied,” I said.
His gaze returned to me.
“My friend said Celia denied inviting me.”
“Do you have proof?”
“I texted Clara.”
“Send it to me.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“So I can compare timestamps with security footage from the marina.”
“You have access to that?”
“I own the marina.”
Of course he did.
“You own the marina lounge too?”
“Not officially.”
“That sounds like yes.”
“It sounds like enough.”
I should have been frightened by how simply he said it. Instead, I felt a strange, dangerous relief. If the police became involved immediately, the story could spread, evidence could vanish, and whoever pushed me could be warned. But Salvatore moved in a world where doors opened before anyone admitted they were locked.
That didn’t make him trustworthy.
It made him useful.
And maybe, for the moment, necessary.
I sent him the screenshot.
His phone chimed.
He looked at it, then at me.
“Why would Celia Vale want you dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
The word was not harsh, but it pressed against me.
“I plan donor events,” I said. “I manage guest lists, seating arrangements, auction items, foundation correspondence. I am not important.”
“People rarely decide to kill the important person first,” Salvatore said. “They start with the person who saw something.”
A chill moved through me.
“I didn’t see anything.”
“Are you certain?”
No.
That was the problem.
I remembered the fundraiser now in fragments. Crystal chandeliers. A string quartet. White orchids. Celia’s hand on my elbow. A man arguing quietly near a service corridor. A flash of a silver cufflink shaped like a lion. An envelope slipping from one folder into another.
I sat up straighter.
Salvatore noticed.
“What?”
“There was a man at the Harrington Club,” I said. “Near the service corridor. I thought he was a donor. He was arguing with someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I only saw his profile.”
“Describe him.”
“Late forties, maybe. Gray hair. Navy tuxedo. Silver cufflinks.”
Salvatore’s face changed.
This time, there was no mistaking it.
He knew exactly who I meant.
“Who is he?” I asked.
Salvatore placed his phone on the table with deliberate care.
“Dominic Vale.”
“Celia’s father?”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
Dominic Vale was a respected developer, a man whose name appeared on museum wings and hospital boards. He was the kind of person society praised for generosity while quietly ignoring how he had made enough money to be generous.
“What was he arguing about?” Salvatore asked.
“I didn’t hear much. Just a few words.”
“Tell me.”
I searched the memory.
The music had been loud. Someone had laughed nearby. I’d been carrying a stack of corrected place cards because one donor’s name had been misspelled and the event director was close to tears.
Then I heard Dominic Vale’s voice.
This cannot reach Farnese.
I looked at Salvatore.
His expression went still.
“What did you just remember?” he asked.
“He said, ‘This cannot reach Farnese.’”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Outside, the yacht cut through the ocean, graceful and indifferent.
Then Salvatore turned toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To make a call.”
“No.”
He stopped.
The word had come out sharper than I intended.
“You asked me to remember,” I said. “I remembered. Now don’t walk away and leave me with half the truth.”
His eyes darkened, not with anger, but with something far more complicated.
“You were nearly killed because of half the truth.”
“Then give me the whole one.”
“There may not be a whole one yet.”
“You’re lying.”
The silence that followed was immediate and intense.
I had not meant to say it.
But I did not take it back.
Salvatore faced me fully.
“Careful, Mia.”
There was no threat in his voice. Only warning. Not because he would hurt me, I realized, but because I had stepped onto ground neither of us understood.
“You knew something the moment I said ‘Not sorry,’” I said. “You knew something again when I mentioned Dominic Vale. And now you’re deciding what I’m allowed to know about my own attempted murder.”
His jaw tightened.
For one wild second, I thought he would leave anyway.
Instead, he walked to the chair across from the bed and sat down.
The simple act unsettled me more than his standing had.
Powerful men rarely sat down when they intended to listen.
“Eight years ago,” he said, “my younger brother died.”
The shift in subject stole the air from my lungs.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
His gaze moved to the window.
“Luca was twenty-two. Reckless. Charming. Certain the world would forgive him anything because it always had.” A shadow crossed his face. “He drowned.”
My fingers tightened in the sheet.
“Someone pushed him?”
“That was never proven.”
“But you believe it.”
“I know it.”
The words were quiet, final.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“Before he died, Luca left me a voicemail. He was drunk, angry, and frightened. He said he had discovered something involving Vale. Then he said two words.”
My voice barely worked.
“Not sorry.”
Salvatore looked at me.
“He said, ‘I’m not sorry, Sal. Not this time.’”
A shiver ran down my spine.
The words were not exactly the same, but close enough to feel like a door opening in a dark hallway.
“What did he find?”
“I never knew. The voicemail cut off. By morning, he was dead.”
“And Dominic Vale was involved?”
“I believed he was. I could not prove it.”
The ocean flashed outside, bright and cold.
“Why didn’t you go after him?”
A faint, humorless smile touched his mouth.
“You believe everything said about me?”
“I believe enough to ask.”
“I spent years wanting to destroy him.” His voice lowered. “Then I found out Luca had hidden something before he died. A file. A record. Some kind of protection. I’ve been looking for it ever since.”
“And you think I saw something connected to it?”
“I think someone believes you did.”
The room seemed to shrink around me.
I thought of Dominic’s argument. Celia’s invitation. The hand on my back. The words in the dark.
Not sorry.
A phrase that had haunted Salvatore for eight years had followed me into the water.
“Why were you there last night?” I asked.
“At the marina?”
“Yes.”
“I had a meeting on another vessel.”
“That sounds convenient.”
May you like
“It was.”
“You just happened to be nearby when I fell?”
