Chapter 1 - The Song in the LibraryThe rain had not stopped for three hours when Leo Rossi walked into his private library and heard the song.
At first, he thought it was coming from somewhere outside.
A radio in the servants' wing.
A television left playing.
Perhaps one of the old pipes groaning through the walls.
Then he heard the words.
“Hush now, the winter is long. The sparrow stays. The sparrow dies.”
Leo stopped breathing.
The voice was soft.
Female.
Young.
And completely wrong for the song.
He turned toward the towering shelves.
Clare stood halfway up the rolling ladder, a feather duster in one hand.
She was humming.
She looked ordinary.
That was what made the moment so terrifying.
Clare was twenty-six, thin from working too many hours and eating too little, with dark brown hair usually twisted into a practical knot. Her uniform was plain. Her shoes were worn. Her fingers were cracked from cleaning chemicals.
She looked like someone the Rossi estate could swallow without noticing.
But she knew the song.
Leo stared at her.
“Sing that again.”
Clare nearly dropped the duster.
“Sir?”
“The song.”
Her face went pale.
“I was only humming.”
“I heard that.”
“I didn't mean to disturb you.”
“Who taught you?”
“No one.”
Leo took one step forward.
“Don't lie to me.”
His voice changed the room.
Clare climbed down slowly.
She had heard stories about Leo Rossi.
Every employee had.
He owned nightclubs, shipping companies, restaurants, construction firms and properties across three states.
Men who threatened him disappeared.
Men who betrayed him usually disappeared faster.
But the man standing in front of her now did not look angry.
He looked terrified.
“I don't know who taught me,” Clare whispered. “An old woman.”
Leo's eyes narrowed.
“Where?”
“Boston.”
His jaw tightened.
“What hospital?”
“It wasn't a hospital. St. Jude's Hospice.”
The duster slipped from her hand.
“I worked nights there five years ago.”
Leo stared at the fireplace.
Five years.
His mother had supposedly died fifteen years earlier.
He had been seventeen.
He remembered the funeral.
He remembered the closed casket.
He remembered his father standing beside it, expressionless.
He remembered being told his mother had suffered a stroke while traveling.
He remembered never being allowed to see her body.
But he had been too young to question anything.
Until now.
“Describe the woman.”
Clare hesitated.
“She was old.”
“That's not enough.”
“She was small. Very frail. Maybe in her sixties.”
Leo's heart hammered.
His mother had been fifty-eight when she supposedly died.
“Hair?”
“Gray. Mostly.”
“Accent?”
“Calabrian.”
Leo's fingers curled into fists.
His mother had been born in Calabria.
“Anything else?”
Clare looked at him.
“There was a scar.”
“What scar?”
“On the left side of her neck.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Leo remembered that scar.
His mother had received it when she was thirteen, after falling into a cooking fire.
No photograph showed it clearly.
No stranger should have known.
Leo stepped backward.
“Where was the scar?”
“Here.”
Clare touched the left side of her own neck.
Leo sat down.
For a man who commanded armies of criminals with a glance, the sight was almost humiliating.
His hands were trembling.
Clare stared at him.
“Mr. Rossi?”
He didn't answer.
His mother had been dead for fifteen years.
That was a fact.
A fact repeated at every family gathering.
A fact printed in newspapers.
A fact verified by a death certificate.
Yet a poor housekeeper had just described a woman who matched his mother's language, age, origin and private scar.
Leo raised his eyes.
“What was her name?”
“She never told me.”
“Nothing?”
“She said people called her Rosa.”
Leo went completely still.
His mother's name was Rosalia Rossi.
Rosa.
It had been her childhood nickname.
Clare continued.
“She was scared of people. Especially men in expensive suits.”
Leo slowly stood.
“Did she ever mention a family?”
“Once.”
“What family?”
Clare swallowed.
“She said she had a son.”
Leo's face drained of color.
“What did she say about him?”
Clare closed her eyes, trying to remember.
“She said he would come for her.”
Leo whispered, “Did she say my name?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because of what happened later.”
Leo froze.
“Later?”
Clare nodded.
“The woman disappeared.”
“When?”
“Three days after the song.”
Leo's pulse jumped.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“She was taken away.”
“By whom?”
“I don't know.”
“Clare.”
She flinched.
“I saw two men come for her.”
Leo's expression hardened.
“What men?”
“One had a scar over his eyebrow. The other wore a black coat.”
“Did you see their faces?”
“No.”
“License plate?”
“No.”
“Then what do you know?”
Clare looked toward the library doors.
She lowered her voice.
“I know the woman begged them not to tell her son.”
Leo stared at her.
“Why?”
“She said, ‘He'll come. And they'll kill him too.’”
Silence swallowed the room.
Then Leo heard something.
A faint sound behind the library wall.
A click.
His head snapped toward it.
Clare heard it too.
“What was that?”
Leo crossed the room.
He pressed one hand against the bookshelves.
Nothing.
Then another click.
Mechanical.
Like a camera shutter.
Leo's eyes darkened.
He looked at Clare.
“Get out.”
She didn't move.
“Mr. Rossi…”
“Now.”
“But—”
“Someone has been listening.”
The library door suddenly slammed shut.
Clare screamed.
Leo reached beneath his jacket.
A suppressed pistol appeared in his hand.
Then a red laser dot appeared on the wall beside Clare's head.
Leo lunged.
He threw Clare to the floor as the glass behind them exploded.
A bullet tore through the bookcase.
And hidden between two shelves, a tiny recording device began blinking red.
Someone had been waiting for Leo to hear the song.
May you like
Someone had wanted him to remember his mother.
And someone had just realized Clare knew too much.
