Chapter 2
One afternoon, while Donna Elena slept, Bianca stood beside me near the wardrobe.
“You are very loyal for someone who is paid to be here.”
I folded a shawl and said nothing.
“Loyalty is beautiful, Sophia, but it does not pay school fees forever.”
My hands paused for half a second.
It was enough.
Bianca smiled. She had found the door she wanted.
“Luca is 8.”
I turned toward her.
“He is small, with curly dark hair and a blue backpack.”
“Do not say my son’s name.”
Her smile widened.
“Then do not make me.”
I did not sleep that night.
I sat beside Luca’s bed and listened to him breathe. His asthma worsened in cold weather, and even after he fell asleep, I kept 1 hand close to his inhaler.
I tried to convince myself that Bianca had only wanted to frighten me. Women like her used threats the way other women used perfume, lightly, because they enjoyed the effect.
The next morning, when I walked Luca to school, a black car was parked across the street.
I did not recognize the driver.
When I looked at him, he did not turn away.
Luca tugged my hand.
“Mama, why are you squeezing so hard?”
I released him and smiled.
“I’m sorry, darling. I was thinking.”
It was another lie told for love.
From that morning onward, my world became smaller.
I traveled from home to Luca’s school, from the school to the mansion, from the mansion back to the school, always watching the street and checking whether the same black car followed.
I could not go to Nico.
That is what people who have never been truly afraid fail to understand.
Truth is easy when the person threatening you has no access to what you love.
Bianca did not need to touch Luca to control me. She only had to make me imagine the afternoon when he would fail to emerge from the school gate.
For 3 days, I lived inside that image.
Donna Elena knew something had changed.
She watched me too closely.
My hand shook while pouring her tea. Whenever Nico entered the room, I avoided his eyes.
Donna Elena tapped once.
No.
I looked toward her.
She tapped again, more slowly.
No.
Then she touched the silver cross at her neck.
Someone is lying.
“Please,” I whispered. “Not now.”
Her eyes filled with anger, not at me, but for me.
She reached for the board and wrote 1 unsteady word.
Luca.
The breath left my body.
“How do you know?”
She only stared at me.
In that look was the truth I had forgotten.
People who live in silence still see everything.
The engagement dinner was 2 days away.
The mansion had become a machine filled with flowers, music, deliveries, polished glass, pressed tablecloths, and whispered instructions.
Bianca moved through it as though she already owned the walls.
She selected the flowers, altered the seating arrangements, and informed the cook that Nico preferred lighter sauces, although he had never said such a thing.
She inspected the dress Donna Elena was expected to wear and rejected the 1st choice.
“Black makes her look too severe.”
Donna Elena looked toward me and tapped once.
No.
I nearly smiled, but Bianca was watching.
“The blue dress,” I said. “Donna Elena prefers the blue one.”
Bianca turned sharply.
“Did she say that?”
“Yes.”
She stepped closer and lowered her voice.
“Be careful, Sophia. You are beginning to sound as though you believe you are family.”
I lowered my eyes.
Sometimes survival resembles surrender from the outside.
Inside me, something was beginning to harden.
On Thursday afternoon, 1 day before the dinner, Nico left the mansion for a meeting near the docks.
Before departing, he visited his mother.
Bianca stood beside him with 1 hand resting lightly on his arm. Donna Elena sat in her chair near the window with the writing board across her lap.
Nico looked tired. Shadows had formed beneath his eyes, and for the 1st time, I wondered whether power was merely another kind of prison.
“Mama,” he said, kneeling in front of her, “tomorrow evening is important.”
Donna Elena stared at him.
Nico swallowed.
“You know what I have asked. I will not marry without your blessing.”
Bianca’s fingers tightened around his sleeve.
Donna Elena looked at Bianca and then turned away.
Nico did not understand the gesture.
I did.
It meant no.
It meant danger.
It meant listen before it is too late.
Bianca spoke before I could.
“She is nervous, darling. It is a significant evening.”
Nico turned to me.
“Sophia?”
My mouth went dry.
Bianca’s gaze touched me like a blade.
I saw the black car outside Luca’s school. I felt my son’s small hand inside mine. I remembered Donna Elena’s trust.
“She is tired,” I said quietly.
Donna Elena’s eyes moved toward me.
The disappointment in them hurt more than anger.
Nico rose slowly.
“Then let her rest.”
He kissed his mother’s forehead.
“I’ll call later.”
He left with Bianca beside him, still performing the role of a gentle future bride.
I remained in the room, unable to breathe properly.
Donna Elena refused to look at me for almost 1 minute.
Then she tapped the board once.
No.
I knelt beside her chair.
“I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”
Her hand shook.
I placed the pen between her fingers.
Slowly and painfully, she wrote 2 words.
Boy safe.
I covered my mouth.
“I don’t know.”
Donna Elena closed her eyes.
A tear moved down her cheek.
That was the moment I nearly broke.
It was not only because Bianca had threatened me or because I was frightened.
It was because Donna Elena, a woman who had already lost so much, was still thinking about my child before thinking of herself.
Later that afternoon, Bianca returned alone to Donna Elena’s room.
I was folding linen near the wardrobe. Donna Elena sat facing the garden.
Bianca held a telephone.
Nico was calling.
I could hear his voice faintly through the speaker.
“How is she?”
Bianca changed immediately.
Her mouth softened. Her shoulders relaxed. Even her eyes learned to pretend.
“She is resting, my love. Sophia is with her. Everything is calm.”
Nico said something I could not hear.
Bianca laughed gently.
“No, don’t worry. Tomorrow evening will be perfect. Your mother will bless us. I can feel it.”
Donna Elena’s fingers curled against the blanket.
Bianca listened for another moment.
“I love you too.”
She lowered the phone and touched the screen with her thumb. Then she placed it on a small table beside the roses.
She believed the call had ended.
It had not.
Nico remained on the line.
Neither Bianca nor I knew.
She turned toward me.
Her smile disappeared as abruptly as a candle being extinguished.
“Close the door.”
I did not move.
“Close it, Sophia.”
I obeyed, but I remained beside Donna Elena.
Bianca approached the old woman first. She bent close enough for her diamonds to catch the afternoon light.
“You are becoming a problem,” she whispered, although Donna Elena could not hear her voice. “A useless, silent problem.”
Donna Elena stared without blinking.
Bianca straightened and faced me.
“Tomorrow evening, when Nico asks for her blessing, you will make her say yes.”
My throat tightened.
“I cannot make her say anything.”
“Do not be stupid. You are her voice. If you tell Nico that she accepts me, he will believe you.”
“Donna Elena will refuse.”
“Then you will translate differently.”
My eyes moved toward the telephone on the table, not because I knew Nico was listening, but because I needed somewhere else to look.
“That would be a lie.”
Bianca gave a small, cold laugh.
“You believe this house operates on truth?”
She leaned closer until I could smell her perfume.
“Listen carefully. Tomorrow evening, in front of everyone, you will tell Nico that his mother blesses the marriage. You will guide her hand if necessary. You will smile and do exactly as I tell you.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Bianca’s eyes hardened.
“Then your son will never come home from school.”
The room became silent.
Even the clock seemed to stop.
Donna Elena’s hand jerked against the blanket.
The floor shifted beneath me.
Bianca smiled because she knew she had struck the correct place.
“Blue backpack,” she continued softly. “Dark curls. He always waits near the left gate because he likes the guard dog across the street. Children are easy to find when their mothers are predictable.”
I could not speak.
My body remained in Donna Elena’s room, but my mind stood outside Luca’s school, hearing the bell and watching the children run out while searching for the only face that mattered.
“If you try to expose me,” Bianca continued, “I will tell Nico that you twisted his mother’s signs because you hate me. I will say you filled her mind with fear. I will tell him the poor old woman was confused and that you used her silence to control this house.”
“He will not believe you.”
Bianca tilted her head.
“Are you certain? You are a servant. I am his fiancée.”
She looked toward Donna Elena.
“And she cannot speak.”
Donna Elena reached for the board.
Bianca snatched it from the table and held it against her chest.
“No more little messages. No more warnings. No more pretending you still have power.”
I stepped toward her.
“Give it back.”
Bianca appeared almost amused.
“Or what?”
My hands closed into fists.
I thought about Luca, the black car, and every woman who had swallowed the truth because someone stronger knew where her child slept.
I lowered my hands.
Bianca saw surrender and smiled.
She placed the writing board on a high shelf, where Donna Elena could see it but could not reach it.
Cruel people understand details.
That is what makes them dangerous.
They do not merely remove what someone needs. They place it where the person must continue looking at it.
“Tomorrow evening,” Bianca said, “you will save your son by giving me what I want.”
She turned to the mirror, corrected a strand of hair, picked up the phone, and finally noticed the screen.
For 1 second, she froze.
The call was still connected.
“Nico,” she whispered.
There was no answer through the speaker.
Her face lost all color.
She lifted the telephone with shaking fingers.
The call ended.
Bianca stared at the black screen and slowly looked toward me.
I knew Nico had heard.
Bianca knew it too.
Fear did not enter her face.
Calculation did.
“If he heard anything, you will say I was emotional. You will say you misunderstood. You will say whatever I tell you to say.”
Donna Elena’s eyes burned with silent fury.
I said nothing.
Bianca stepped close enough that only I could hear.
May you like
“Remember your son.”
Then she left.
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