Chapter 16 - Lucia Comes Home
Lucia returned to the Mercer estate on a Sunday morning.
No reporters knew.
No employees except a handful of trusted staff had been told.
Still, nearly everyone seemed to understand something important was happening.
The gates opened.
A dark sedan moved slowly along the driveway.
Lucia sat beside Dante.
Her hands shook.
“You can change your mind.”
She looked at him.
“After fifteen years?”
“Yes.”
“You’d turn the car around?”
“Immediately.”
Lucia smiled.
“You’ve changed.”
“People keep telling me that.”
“Do you believe them?”
“No.”
“That hasn’t changed.”
They reached the mansion.
Lucia stared through the window.
The fountain.
The stone steps.
Her mother’s roses had been replaced years ago.
The front doors were different.
But the shape of the place remained.
“I hate this house,” she whispered.
Dante nodded.
“So did I.”
“Then why did you stay?”
“I thought leaving meant Dad won.”
Lucia looked at him.
“And now?”
“Now I know staying angry can be another way of letting someone control you.”
“That sounds suspiciously healthy.”
“Rosa said it.”
Lucia laughed.
Of course.
Rosa waited at the entrance with Ellie.
Ellie held a bouquet of white flowers she had picked badly from the garden.
Several stems were too short.
One flower had no petals.
Lucia accepted them as though they were priceless.
“Welcome home.”
The phrase nearly broke her.
She stepped inside.
Every room carried ghosts.
The staircase where she once slid down the railing.
The library where she fought with Dante.
The music room where their mother played piano.
Lucia stopped there longest.
Dante removed the dust cover from the instrument.
“Can you still play?”
“No.”
“You couldn’t before.”
Lucia shoved him.
For a moment they were children again.
Noah explored quietly.
He had never seen wealth like the Mercer estate.
Ellie became his tour guide.
“This is the room nobody uses.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“This is the hallway I’m not allowed in.”
“Then why are we here?”
“So I can show you.”
Rosa caught them.
“Ellie.”
They retreated laughing.
In the afternoon, Lucia asked to see Sebastian.
He remained under monitored house arrest while investigators built their case.
Dante offered to accompany her.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian was in the garden room.
Lucia entered.
He stood when he saw her.
For once, Sebastian Mercer had no prepared expression.
“Lucia.”
She closed the door.
“You look old.”
He almost smiled.
“So do you.”
“I earned it.”
“Yes.”
She remained standing.
“Why?”
Sebastian looked toward the garden.
“I could give you a complicated answer.”
“I don’t want one.”
“I was ambitious.”
“That’s not enough.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“I believed your father would destroy everything.”
“So you decided to become worse?”
“I decided I could control things better.”
Lucia laughed bitterly.
“You always called cruelty control.”
“Perhaps.”
“Did you want me dead?”
“No.”
“Did you care if Marcus killed me?”
Sebastian did not answer.
Lucia nodded.
“There it is.”
“I told him to frighten you.”
“You knew what he was.”
“Yes.”
“My mother knew what you were too.”
Sebastian looked away.
“She hated me.”
“She saw you.”
That hurt him more.
Lucia stepped closer.
“You stole fifteen years from me.”
“I know.”
“You stole my brother.”
“I know.”
“You let Dante believe he failed me.”
Sebastian’s face changed.
“That was not my intention.”
“It was useful.”
Silence.
Lucia opened the door.
Sebastian called after her.
“I did love you both.”
Lucia stopped.
Without turning, she said, “Love that requires everyone else to be afraid isn’t love.”
Then she left.
Outside, Dante waited anyway.
Lucia looked at him.
“I said I didn’t need you.”
“You didn’t.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because you shouldn’t have to walk back alone.”
Her eyes filled.
She took his arm.
They walked toward the music room.
That evening, Lucia played the piano badly.
Noah complained.
Ellie danced.
Rosa served dinner.
Dante sat near the fireplace.
For the first time since his mother’s death, the mansion sounded alive.
Not busy.
Alive.
Dante realized how different those things were.
After dinner, Ellie climbed onto the sofa beside him.
“Do you still miss your mom?”
“Yes.”
“Do you miss Lucia when she’s in the same room?”
Dante looked toward his sister at the piano.
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because part of me is still remembering when she wasn’t.”
Ellie considered this.
“I miss Dad like that.”
Dante nodded.
“I know.”
“Mom says missing people is love with nowhere to go.”
Dante looked toward Rosa.
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like her.”
Ellie leaned against him.
Dante did not move away.
Across the room, Rosa saw.
Their eyes met.
Something unspoken passed between them.
Not romance yet.
Not exactly.
Trust.
Which for people like them might have been more intimate.
Later that night, Rosa returned to Jacob’s files.
She had been avoiding the final folder.
PERSONAL.
Inside were four recordings.
Three were messages to Rosa and Ellie.
The fourth was labeled:
FOR DANTE AND ROSA—IF I DON’T MAKE IT HOME.
Rosa froze.
She called Dante.
Lucia joined them.
They sat inside the study where everything had begun.
Rosa pressed play.
Jacob’s voice filled the room.
“If you’re hearing this, then there’s a good chance Marcus finally found me.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
“I have enough evidence to stop him. Maybe Sebastian too.”
Jacob took a breath.
“But evidence isn’t the most important thing I’m leaving behind.”
A pause.
“My family is.”
Rosa began crying.
“If Dante Mercer ever hears this…”
Dante looked up.
“I need him to understand that Lucia never stopped loving him.”
Dante’s eyes filled.
“She watched from far away sometimes.”
Lucia covered her mouth.
“She wanted to come home more than anyone knows.”
Another pause.
“And Dante…”
Jacob’s voice softened.
“You probably think you failed your sister.”
“You didn’t.”
“She survived because she remembered that somewhere in the world was a brother who once made her feel safe.”
Dante bowed his head.
Then came the words none of them expected.
“One more thing.”
“Marcus knows someone inside Dante’s organization has been feeding him information.”
Adrian immediately came to mind.
But Jacob continued.
“It is not Adrian Cole.”
Dante looked up.
“The person has been close to Dante for years.”
“A person almost nobody questions.”
The recording ended abruptly.
Rosa stared at the player.
Lucia whispered, “Who?”
Dante already felt the answer moving toward him.
There was one person who knew his schedules.
His private residences.
His authorization codes.
Someone who had never appeared suspicious because everyone treated him like furniture inside the mansion.
Dante stood.
“Where is Charles?”
Rosa frowned.
“Charles?”
Dante’s personal secretary.
The man who had worked for him for twelve years.
The man who had arranged Jacob’s employee background check.
The man who knew Ellie was at the cottage.
Dante called.
No answer.
He ran upstairs.
Charles’s office was empty.
His computer was gone.
The safe stood open.
Inside, Dante found one envelope.
His name on it.
He opened it.
One sentence.
You should have stopped after the first five minutes.
Charles was gone.
And unlike Marcus, he had access to something even more dangerous than financial records.
He knew where every person Dante cared about lived.
May you like
The Mercer story was not finished yet.
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