Chapter 1 - The Thing Inside His Ear“Who knows you found it?”
Vincent Moretti shoved my phone into my hands so violently that it nearly slipped from my fingers.
His blood stained the porcelain bowl. Beneath the kitchen light, the black object continued twisting, its tiny red indicator blinking at perfectly measured intervals.
I stared at the four words on the screen.
Then I looked at the man I had married eight days earlier.
“I don't understand.”
Vincent snatched the phone back.
“WHO KNOWS?”
His hands moved rapidly, his expression hardening with every second I failed to answer.
“No one,” I typed. “I haven't told anybody.”
He studied my face.
For the first time since I had entered his mansion, I understood what people feared about Vincent Moretti. It wasn't his size, his wealth, or the armed men who followed him everywhere.
It was the way his entire personality could change without warning.
One moment, he was the quiet man who left warm meals outside my bedroom and gave me a key to my own room.
The next, he looked at me as though he were trying to decide whether I was a threat.
Then the red light blinked again.
Vincent froze.
I watched his eyes move from the object to the ceiling, then toward the dark window overlooking the gardens.
He seized the bowl, wrapped it in a kitchen towel, and carried it away from the house's central hallway.
I followed him into his private study.
He opened a drawer, removed a small metal case, and placed the bowl inside. Then he shut the lid and entered a code on the keypad.
“What is that thing?” I typed.
He didn't answer.
“Vincent, was it inside your ear?”
He nodded once.
“Who put it there?”
His fingers hovered over my phone.
For several seconds, he didn't move.
Then he typed something that made my stomach turn.
“I don't know. But whoever did it has been listening to me for twenty-six years.”
My legs weakened.
Twenty-six years.
He had been twelve when it began.
Before I could ask another question, the mansion's security system chimed.
Vincent immediately turned toward the wall monitor.
Four camera feeds showed the driveway, the front gate, the gardens, and the east entrance. Nothing moved outside except rain falling over the black iron fence.
Then a fifth screen appeared.
I hadn't noticed that camera before.
It showed my bedroom.
My bed. My wardrobe. The white dress I'd worn at our wedding hanging beside the door.
And a man standing inside my room.
I recognized the gray suit.
It belonged to Daniel, one of Vincent's personal bodyguards.
Except Daniel was supposed to be stationed outside the east gate.
On the monitor, he looked directly into the camera and lifted his right hand.
He held a telephone.
Vincent's expression changed.
He tapped the keyboard, enlarging the image.
Daniel smiled at the camera.
Then he pointed toward my bed.
My fingers went cold.
The monitor suddenly went black.
Vincent grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. I hurried after him, but he turned sharply and held up his hand.
“Stay here.”
“I am your wife,” I typed. “I'm not staying alone while someone is inside my bedroom.”
He stared at the screen, then at me.
I expected another order.
Instead, he took my hand and led me into the corridor.
Two guards appeared at the far end. Vincent signed something to them, his movements sharp and practiced. They immediately separated, one heading upstairs and the other running toward the security room.
Vincent and I reached my bedroom.
The door was open.
Inside, everything looked untouched.
Except for the wedding photograph on my bedside table.
Someone had turned it facedown.
Vincent entered first, checking the wardrobe, bathroom, and balcony before allowing me inside. Then he pointed toward the photograph.
I picked it up.
A small white envelope had been placed underneath it.
My name was written across the front in black ink.
EMILY MORETTI.
My hands began shaking.
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph of me standing outside my father's apartment three days before the wedding. The image showed me carrying groceries, unaware that someone was taking pictures.
On the back, someone had written a sentence.
YOU WERE NEVER SOLD FOR FIFTY DOLLARS.
I stopped breathing.
Beneath that sentence was another.
ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHY HIS MOTHER CHOSE YOU.
I turned toward Vincent.
He had read the words over my shoulder.
For the first time, the terrifying Mafia boss looked genuinely lost.
Then his phone vibrated.
He read the message.
His jaw tightened.
When he turned the screen toward me, I saw a photograph of the same black object sealed inside the metal case.
Someone had photographed it through the closed lid.
Underneath the image were six words.
SHE REMOVED IT. BEGIN THE SECOND PHASE.
Vincent stared at the message.
Then he looked at me.
“Emily,” he typed slowly, “we have to leave this house.”
Before we could move, every light in the mansion went out.
A gunshot shattered the silence.
And somewhere upstairs, a child began screaming.
I had never heard a child in Vincent Moretti's mansion before.
Not once.
Yet the voice calling from the darkness sounded heartbreakingly familiar.
It sounded exactly like the little girl who had disappeared from my father's neighborhood eleven years earlier.
May you like
My younger sister.
The sister my family had told me was dead.
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