Chapter 3 - The Door in the West Wing
I stared at Arthur.
“Who?”
He looked toward the office door as though someone might be listening.
“I don’t know all their names.”
“How many?”
“At least three.”
My stomach tightened.
Arthur had served my family for thirty-two years. I had never seen him frightened like this.
“Start at the beginning.”
He sat slowly.
“Two weeks after you left, Mrs. Rossi dismissed most of the west-wing staff. She said renovations were beginning.”
“I remember.”
“There were no renovations.”
“I know that now.”
“She brought in workers at night. They installed the steel door. The bars. The locks.”
“And you said nothing?”
Shame crossed his face.
“I believed she was strengthening the estate because of the conflict overseas.”
“When did you learn the truth?”
“The night they moved Mrs. Grace.”
My fists tightened.
“She was asleep?”
“No.”
That answer hurt more.
“She was crying,” Arthur said. “She kept asking for you.”
I looked away.
“What did you do?”
“I confronted your mother.”
“And?”
“She showed me photographs of my daughter and grandchildren.”
I turned back.
Arthur’s eyes filled.
“She knew their address. Their school. Their routine.”
I understood.
That didn’t erase what happened, but I understood.
“She threatened them.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you contact me anonymously?”
“I tried.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“Three times.”
“I received nothing.”
“I know.”
He reached into his jacket and handed me a phone.
“Messages never left the estate network.”
I looked at the screen.
Three drafts.
COME HOME. GRACE IS IN DANGER.
DO NOT TRUST YOUR MOTHER.
WEST WING.
None had been delivered.
Someone controlled our communications.
This wasn’t an impulsive crime.
It was an operation.
I called my head of security.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
That told me enough.
I looked at Arthur.
“Who manages the estate network?”
“Mr. Calder.”
Victor Calder.
My father’s former security chief.
A man I had known since I was twelve.
A man I had trusted with my life.
Suddenly six months of bad luck overseas began looking very different.
Negotiations that collapsed hours before completion.
Convoys sent to incorrect locations.
Meetings postponed because of anonymous threats.
Every delay had kept me away from Grace.
Maybe that had been the point.
I took a second phone from my safe—one not connected to the estate network—and called Marco Bell, my oldest friend.
“Dominic?”
“Where are you?”
“Downtown.”
“Come to St. Catherine’s Hospital. Bring people you trust personally. Nobody from estate security.”
“What happened?”
“Grace is alive.”
Silence.
Marco knew Mother had told everyone Grace had left.
“What?”
“She was imprisoned here.”
Another silence.
Then his voice changed.
“I’m coming.”
I drove to the hospital.
The rain had intensified.
Grace was in a private maternity room when I arrived.
She looked tiny beneath the blankets despite her pregnancy.
Her eyes opened when I entered.
“You came.”
Those words destroyed me every time.
I sat beside her.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She looked toward the door.
“Your mother?”
“Gone.”
Fear flashed across her face.
“You have to find her.”
“I will.”
“No, Dominic. You don’t understand.”
“Then tell me.”
Grace stared at our joined hands.
“A month after you left, I overheard Victoria and Calder arguing.”
The name confirmed my suspicion.
“What about?”
“Your father.”
“My father is dead.”
“I know.”
She swallowed.
“They were talking about the night he died.”
My father, Alessandro Rossi, had died after his car went off a mountain road.
Police called it an accident.
The weather had been terrible.
His driver had supposedly lost control.
“Grace…”
“She said your father discovered money was disappearing from family accounts.”
My pulse slowed.
“How much?”
“I don’t know. Millions.”
“Calder?”
“And someone else.”
“Who?”
“I never heard the name.”
Grace shifted as another contraction began.
I watched the monitor.
“Breathe.”
She squeezed my hand.
When it passed, she continued.
“I confronted your mother.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought she was being manipulated.”
That sounded exactly like Grace.
Even when faced with something ugly, she searched for the least terrible explanation.
“I told her she needed to tell you.”
“And that’s when this started?”
Grace nodded.
“At first she was sweet. She said pregnancy was making me anxious. Then Dr. Moretti came.”
Her face tightened.
“He gave me something.”
“Medication?”
“I woke up in the west wing.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Dominic, look at me.”
I did.
“You didn’t do this.”
“I left you here.”
“You went because you thought you were protecting us.”
“I should have known.”
“She made sure you didn’t.”
Grace touched my face.
“I kept waiting for you.”
My throat tightened.
“She showed me messages.”
“What messages?”
“From you.”
I froze.
“They said you were tired of me. That the marriage had been a mistake.”
“I never—”
“I know now.”
“She forged them.”
“She also played me a recording.”
“What recording?”
“Your voice.”
I stared at her.
“It sounded like you. You said I should be kept isolated until after the baby was born.”
My mind raced.
Edited audio.
Old recordings.
Technology.
It didn’t matter how.
The cruelty was the point.
“Why didn’t you believe it?”
Grace gave a broken smile.
“Because you always call our baby ‘little man.’ In the recording, you called him ‘the child.’ You would never say that.”
Even imprisoned and terrified, she had known me.
I kissed her hand.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The door opened.
Marco entered.
He stopped when he saw Grace.
His expression went from relief to horror.
“Grace.”
“Hi, Marco.”
He looked at me.
“Who?”
“My mother. Calder. Moretti. Maybe others.”
Marco’s jaw tightened.
“I’ll handle security.”
“No one touches Mother.”
He stared at me.
“I want her alive.”
Grace watched me.
I understood what she feared.
The Rossi name carried a history of men solving problems violently.
I was determined that this ended differently.
“She goes to the police,” I said. “All of them do.”
Marco nodded.
Grace relaxed slightly.
Then the monitor changed.
The nurse entered quickly.
Another contraction.
Stronger.
Grace gasped.
I stood.
The doctor arrived moments later.
“She’s progressing.”
“Meaning?”
“Your son has apparently decided tonight is the night.”
Grace looked terrified.
“Dominic.”
I took her hand.
“I’m here.”
My phone vibrated.
Marco checked it.
His face changed.
“What?”
He showed me a security image.
Calder had been captured by a traffic camera twenty minutes earlier.
He was driving toward the old Rossi airfield.
Mother sat beside him.
But they weren’t alone.
In the back seat was Dr. Moretti.
And according to the flight system Marco had accessed, my family jet was being prepared for departure.
Destination unknown.
“They’re running,” Marco said.
Grace suddenly grabbed my sleeve.
“Dominic.”
I turned.
“There’s something I didn’t put on the memory card.”
“What?”
Her eyes filled with fear.
“The reason your mother needed my baby.”
I stared at her.
“What do you mean?”
Grace whispered:
May you like
“She wasn’t planning to make both of us disappear.”
“She only needed me gone.”
