Chapter 1 - THE GIRL BEHIND THE CYPRESS
“Stay quiet and follow me.”
Sophia Renzi’s fingers closed around Vittorio Morelli’s sleeve before he reached the black sedan waiting on the white gravel drive.
Vittorio looked down at the seven-year-old girl in the beige cardigan. Her father had maintained the gardens at his Manalapan estate for nine years, yet Vittorio could not remember ever hearing Sophia speak directly to him.
“I have a flight,” he said. “Where’s your father?”
“Please.”
Something in her face made him stop.
She pulled him behind the cypress trees lining the eastern wall. Vittorio crouched beside her, his black suit brushing damp soil, and watched the sedan through the branches.
The man beside the open rear door looked like Enzo, his regular driver. Same gray hair. Same narrow shoulders.
Sophia pointed toward the license plate.
“The last number is wrong.”
Vittorio stared.
“It was a one yesterday,” she whispered. “Now it’s a seven.”
The driver shifted his weight and opened the door with his left hand.
Sophia raised her own right hand. “Enzo always opens it this way. My dad says people can change their faces, but they forget their habits.”
Vittorio’s phone buzzed.
Isabella.
His wife’s voice arrived warm and impatient. “Why aren’t you in the car? Marco says you’ll miss the Sicily meeting.”
“I’m coming.”
He ended the call and started to rise.
Sophia blocked him with both arms.
“If you get in, you won’t come back.”
She pulled a cracked phone from her dress pocket and pressed play.
Isabella’s voice came through first.
“He’ll be dead before the plane leaves.”
Marco answered, “Get him into the car before seven-fifteen. Palermo will take the blame.”
Through the branches, Isabella walked down the villa steps in an ivory dress. Marco met her beside the sedan.
She smoothed his lapel.
Then she kissed him.
Vittorio had spent fifteen years making men afraid to lie to him. His wife had done it every morning across the breakfast table.
Marco opened the rear door. Beneath the seat Vittorio always used, a red light blinked.
Sophia pointed toward the side garden. “My father’s gate is chained from outside.”
Marco pressed a remote. The wrought-iron entrance began to close.
Vittorio called his oldest captain. “Bring everyone home.”
Before the man could answer, three dark SUVs accelerated through the narrowing gates.
The first person out was Vittorio’s younger brother, Alessio, whom he had not spoken to in eleven months.
Alessio saw Vittorio behind the trees and stopped.
His eyes moved to Sophia, then to the sedan.
“You weren’t supposed to be in the garden,” he said.
May you like
Vittorio rose slowly.
Neither Isabella nor Marco looked surprised to see Alessio.
