PART 2 The bottle said one milligram, but the pills inside were three, and my hand started shaking so badly I nearly dropped the dose
PART 2
The doorknob turned another inch.
Marcus moved first.
He crossed the room without a sound and pulled the door open just as Dr. Bennett stepped inside. The physician had removed his jacket, and the sleeves of his pale blue shirt were rolled to his elbows. His leather medical case hung from one hand.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Dr. Bennett looked from Marcus to me, then toward Alexander’s bed.
“I realized I left without checking his response to the second dose,” he said. “Why is the door closed?”
Marcus’s expression remained unreadable. “You told us not to disturb him.”
“I said to keep the house quiet. I didn’t say to shut me out.”
The doctor entered and set his case on the table beside the bed. His movements were brisk, but there was a faint sheen of perspiration along his temple. It could have been the August heat.
It could have been fear.
I slipped the medication bottle into the pocket of my apron.
Dr. Bennett reached for Alexander’s wrist. Alexander’s fingers loosened around mine, though his hand remained against the sheet as if he had run out of strength before he could pull it back.
The doctor counted his pulse, checked his pupils, and placed a thermometer beneath his tongue.
“What did you give him?” he asked.
“Only what you instructed,” I said.
His gaze shifted toward me. “The next tablet should have been administered fifteen minutes ago.”
“I haven’t given it to him.”
The silence that followed seemed to press against the windows.
Dr. Bennett slowly straightened. “Why not?”
I could hear my own heartbeat.
Marcus stood near the door with his arms at his sides. He gave me no sign that he would support me, but he didn’t tell me to obey the doctor either.
I took the bottle from my pocket.
“Because the label says one milligram,” I said, “but the tablets inside are three.”
Dr. Bennett stared at the bottle.
“That’s impossible.”
“I checked the imprint twice.”
He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
I didn’t move.
His jaw tightened. “Nina, this is not the time to play nurse.”
The words struck harder than they should have.
Three years earlier, before hospital bills and my mother’s funeral and the stack of overdue notices that had swallowed every plan I had made, I had worn pale green scrubs and carried textbooks filled with carefully highlighted pages. I had completed nearly two years of nursing school before leaving to take whatever work paid immediately.
Dr. Bennett didn’t know that.
Most people in this house didn’t know anything about me beyond how quietly I cleaned a room.
“I’m not playing,” I said.
His face changed slightly.
Marcus noticed. “Explain the discrepancy, Doctor.”
“There may have been a pharmacy error.”
“Then why did you say it was impossible?”
“Because I checked the prescription myself.”
“So did I,” I said. “The dosage on the written instructions matches the bottle. The tablets don’t.”
Dr. Bennett reached for the bottle again. “Let me see them.”
I stepped back.
His voice softened, becoming almost paternal. “Nina, Mr. Romano is extremely ill. Delaying treatment because you’ve misunderstood a marking could make his condition worse.”
“Then call the pharmacy.”
“At two in the morning?”
“Call another doctor.”
His politeness vanished. “You are a housemaid.”
“And he is burning alive in that bed.”
My voice broke on the last word.
I hated that it did.
Marcus held out his hand, not to me but to Dr. Bennett. “Your phone.”
The doctor stared at him.
Marcus’s voice remained quiet. “You heard her. Call the pharmacy.”
“This is absurd.”
“Then it should be easily resolved.”
Dr. Bennett looked toward Alexander.
For the first time, I saw something in the physician’s expression that frightened me more than anger.
Calculation.
He was deciding what to do next.
Alexander made the decision for him.
“No.”
The word was barely audible, but every person in the room heard it.
I hurried to the bed. Alexander’s eyes were open again, though only a sliver of gray showed beneath his lashes.
“No more,” he whispered.
Dr. Bennett leaned over him. “Alexander, you’re confused. You have a dangerous fever.”
Alexander’s hand moved across the sheet until his fingers found mine.
“I said no.”
Even weakened, his voice carried a trace of the authority that ruled the mansion.
Dr. Bennett withdrew.
Marcus took out his own phone. “I’m calling Dr. Shah.”
The physician’s head snapped toward him. “Mira Shah is an emergency specialist, not a private practitioner.”
“Tonight she’s both.”
“You’ll delay treatment.”
“No,” Marcus said. “You already did that.”
Dr. Bennett went pale.
Marcus opened the door. Two security men stood in the hallway, alerted by a message I had not seen him send.
“You’re not under arrest,” Marcus told the doctor. “You’re not being threatened. You’re simply going to wait downstairs until Dr. Shah arrives and confirms what is in that bottle.”
Dr. Bennett gathered his case. “When this is over, you’ll regret treating me like a criminal.”
Marcus’s face did not change.
“When this is over,” he said, “regret will be the least important thing in this house.”
The security men escorted Dr. Bennett away.
Marcus closed the door and turned to me.
“You should have told me the moment you noticed.”
“I didn’t know whether I could trust you.”
His gaze sharpened.
It was a dangerous thing to say, but I was too tired to retreat.
“You asked me to leave him,” I continued. “You came in here, closed the door, and offered to give me rest at the exact moment his medicine was due.”
“I offered because you haven’t slept.”
“I didn’t know that was the reason.”
Marcus studied me for several long seconds.
Then, unexpectedly, he nodded.
“Good.”
I blinked. “Good?”
“If someone has tampered with his medication, you shouldn’t trust anyone simply because they hold a title.” His eyes dropped to Alexander’s hand around mine. “Including me.”
The grandfather clock downstairs chimed the quarter hour.
Marcus walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside. “Dr. Shah will be here in twelve minutes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when Alexander Romano calls, people tend to answer.”
“He didn’t call.”
Marcus looked back at me.
“No,” he said. “You did.”
Dr. Mira Shah arrived in nine minutes.
She was a small woman in her forties with tired eyes, a dark braid, and the calmest voice I had ever heard. She entered the bedroom carrying two medical bags, gave Marcus one brief nod, and asked no unnecessary questions.
Within moments, the room changed.
The silk coverlet was folded away. Lamps were turned on. Cool cloths were placed along Alexander’s neck and beneath his arms. Dr. Shah started an intravenous line, took blood samples, listened to his lungs, and ordered Marcus to have someone bring ice, clean towels, and every medication Alexander had taken in the past seventy-two hours.
When Marcus moved to help, she pointed at a chair.
“You stay there unless I ask for you.”
He sat.
I almost smiled.
Dr. Shah checked the bottle beneath the reading lamp.
“You were right,” she said.
My knees weakened.
“They’re three-milligram tablets?”
“Yes.”
“What would that amount do?”
“That depends on what else is in his system and how many doses he has received.” She looked toward the bed. “At minimum, it could intensify dizziness, lower his blood pressure, and make it harder for him to remain conscious. Combined with dehydration and a high fever, the risk increases.”
“Could it kill him?”
Her eyes met mine.
“It could contribute.”
Marcus rose from the chair despite her instruction. “Contribute to what?”
“To respiratory distress, a dangerous fall in blood pressure, or an inability to respond as his condition worsened.” She held up the bottle. “But these tablets did not cause the fever. Something else is happening.”
“An infection?” I asked.
“Possibly. His symptoms are consistent with one, but the onset is unusually fast. I won’t guess until I see the blood work.”
Alexander turned his head restlessly.
Dr. Shah adjusted the flow of the intravenous fluid and spoke to him in a firm, soothing tone. “You’re safe. Don’t try to sit up.”
His lips moved.
She leaned closer. “What did you say?”
“Nina.”
Dr. Shah glanced at me. “Take his hand.”
I did.
His fingers closed weakly around mine, and his breathing eased.
Marcus watched us from across the room.
I could feel the weight of the words I had whispered earlier. They hung between all three of us, impossible to take back.
I love you.
Perhaps Alexander would not remember them.
The thought brought relief and disappointment in equal measure.
Dr. Shah remained with him for nearly an hour. His temperature dropped by less than a degree, but his pulse steadied and he began responding when she spoke to him. She arranged for equipment from her clinic and insisted that a nurse she trusted be brought to the mansion before sunrise.
“No one administers anything unless I approve it,” she told Marcus. “Not Dr. Bennett, not the staff, not you.”
Marcus accepted the instruction without argument.
She sealed the medication bottle in a clear evidence bag.
“What happens to that?” I asked.
“It goes to an independent laboratory.”
Marcus folded his arms. “How quickly?”
“Not as quickly as you’d like.”
“Then use a faster laboratory.”
Dr. Shah gave him a flat look. “Medicine is not one of your courtrooms, Marcus. You cannot frighten a test into finishing early.”
For the second time that night, I almost smiled.
Marcus noticed.
A faint, reluctant amusement touched his face before disappearing.
At four thirty, Dr. Shah allowed me to wash my face and change my apron. I stepped into the hall feeling as if I had left part of myself behind in the bedroom.
The mansion was never completely silent. Old pipes murmured inside the walls. Air moved through the vents with a soft mechanical sigh. Somewhere below, a door opened and closed.
Tonight, however, every sound felt deliberate.
I walked toward the staff staircase and found Isabella Romano waiting at the landing.
Alexander’s younger sister had arrived from Boston the previous afternoon after Marcus informed her that Alexander was ill. She was thirty, perhaps ten years younger than her brother, with the same dark hair and gray eyes. But where Alexander made every room feel smaller, Isabella seemed to create space around people.
She wore a cream sweater over loose trousers, and her face was pale with worry.
“Is he awake?” she asked.
“Not fully.”
“Is he getting better?”
“Dr. Shah stabilized him.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
I lowered my eyes. “We don’t know yet.”
Isabella pressed her lips together. “Marcus won’t tell me anything.”
“He may not know anything more.”
“Marcus always knows more.”
There was no affection in the statement, but there was no hostility either. It sounded like the weary conclusion of someone who had known him most of her life.
She studied my face. “You found the pills.”
I looked up. “Who told you?”
“No one. Dr. Bennett is downstairs looking insulted, two security officers are standing outside the study, and Marcus asked for the medication ledger. You’re the only person in this house who reads every label before handing my brother so much as a glass of water.”
“I was following instructions.”
“You always follow instructions?”
“Usually.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Then Alexander must be a special case.”
Heat climbed into my face.
I turned toward the staircase, but Isabella spoke again.
“He said your name when I arrived yesterday.”
I stopped.
“He was barely conscious,” she continued. “Marcus asked whether he wanted me called. Alexander said no. Then he asked whether you were in the house.”
“He may not have known what he was saying.”
“My brother knows what he is saying even when he says nothing.”
I gripped the banister. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because everyone around Alexander is afraid of needing him, and he has spent years convincing himself that he needs no one.” Her voice softened. “Whatever happened tonight, don’t lie to him about it. He has enough people who do that.”
Before I could answer, she walked past me toward his room.
I remained on the landing long after she disappeared.
At five fifteen, Marcus found me in the downstairs pantry.
I was standing in front of the open cupboard, staring at a row of tea tins without seeing them.
“You should eat,” he said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
I looked at him over my shoulder. “You sound like Dr. Shah.”
“Dr. Shah has threatened to remove me from the house twice in the last hour. I admire her efficiency.”
He placed a folder on the table.
“What’s that?”
“The medication record.”
I closed the cupboard. “Is something missing?”
“One page.”
A chill moved through me.
“Which page?”
“Yesterday’s.”
I sat slowly.
Every medication delivered to the mansion was logged by date, time, and the name of the person who accepted it. Dr. Bennett’s new prescription had arrived yesterday afternoon. I remembered seeing the small paper bag on the marble console near the service entrance.
“Who keeps the ledger?” I asked.
“Mrs. Valdez.”
Our housekeeper had worked for the Romano family for more than twenty years. She corrected crooked picture frames from across a room and remembered the birthdays of every staff member’s children. I had never heard her raise her voice.
“She wouldn’t remove a page.”
“I didn’t say she did.”
“Then who had access?”
“Anyone who entered the pantry between yesterday afternoon and tonight.”
“That’s nearly everyone.”
“Yes.”
Marcus opened the folder. A clean strip of paper remained where the missing page had been carefully cut near the binding.
“It wasn’t torn out in a hurry,” I said.
“No.”
“Could Dr. Bennett have taken it?”
“He claims he never entered the pantry.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe Dr. Bennett is frightened.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
I studied his face. “You’ve known him for years.”
“Fourteen.”
“And you don’t know whether he would hurt Alexander?”
Marcus looked toward the darkened window. Dawn had not yet reached the gardens.
“I’ve known people for thirty years without understanding what they were capable of losing.”
He closed the folder.
“Dr. Bennett says he personally checked the bottle before it left his clinic. The tablets were correct.”
“He could be lying.”
“He could.”
“But you don’t think he is.”
“I think frightened men lie badly. Bennett is hiding something, but it may not be this.”
I remembered the sweat on the doctor’s temple and the way he had looked at Alexander before reaching for the bottle.
“What else could he be hiding?”
“That’s what I intend to learn.”
He turned to leave.
“Marcus.”
He paused.
“Did you hear what I said to Alexander?”
His shoulders became very still.
I wished I had kept silent.
Then he faced me.
“Yes.”
Shame spread through me, sharp and hot. “I shouldn’t have—”
“I have never seen Alexander reach for anyone when he is in pain.”
The words stopped me.
Marcus continued in the same quiet tone. “Not his father. Not his sister. Not me.”
“He had a fever.”
“He had a fever when he said your name too.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Marcus looked down at the folder in his hand. “Be careful, Nina.”
“Is that a warning?”
“It’s advice.”
“About Alexander?”
“About believing that loving someone makes them easier to understand.”
He left me alone in the pantry.
By seven, the sky beyond the eastern windows had turned pale gold.
Dr. Shah’s nurse arrived with additional equipment. The mansion staff began moving through the corridors in whispers, pretending not to notice the security men stationed at the staircases.
Alexander’s temperature continued to fall.
At eight fifteen, Dr. Shah finally sent me to sleep.
I lasted twenty-three minutes.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the bottle in my hand and imagined what would have happened if I had not checked the tablets. I imagined giving Alexander the higher dose. I imagined his breathing slowing while I sat beside him, believing I was helping.
I left my room and returned to his.
Dr. Shah was speaking to Marcus near the window. Isabella slept curled in the armchair with a blanket around her shoulders.
Alexander was awake.
His gaze found me the moment I entered.
“Everyone out,” he said.
His voice was rough but recognizable.
Dr. Shah turned. “Absolutely not.”
“Mira.”
“You nearly lost consciousness for several hours. You are not in charge of this room.”
A trace of Alexander’s usual expression returned. “I’m always in charge of this room.”
“Then I’ll move you to another one.”
Isabella opened her eyes and smiled faintly.
Alexander looked annoyed, which reassured me more than any thermometer could have.
Dr. Shah checked his pulse and adjusted the intravenous line. “Five minutes. The door stays open.”
Marcus hesitated, but Alexander gave him a look that ended the argument.
One by one, they left.
I remained near the doorway.
Alexander looked smaller against the pillows, but not weak. Weakness suggested surrender. Even exhausted, he seemed to be gathering himself, piece by piece.
“Come here,” he said.
I approached the bed.
“Sit.”
I sat in the chair beside him and folded my hands in my lap.
His eyes moved over my face. “You haven’t slept.”
“Neither have you.”
“I was unconscious. It’s almost the same.”
“It isn’t.”
“No,” he admitted. “It isn’t.”
For a while, the only sound was the slow drip from the intravenous line.
Then he said, “I remember your voice.”
My heart began to pound.
“You were very ill.”
“I remember what you said.”
I looked at the floor.
“Nina.”
“I thought you were dying.”
“That doesn’t explain it.”
“It explains why I said something I shouldn’t have.”
“Shouldn’t have because it isn’t true?”
I raised my eyes.
He watched me without softness, but there was no cruelty in his expression. Alexander never looked away from difficult truths. He made other people do it for him.
“It’s true,” I whispered.
The confession felt different in daylight. At two in the morning, it had been fear speaking through exhaustion. Now it belonged entirely to me.
His fingers shifted on the sheet.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Months.”
His gaze sharpened slightly.
“Maybe longer,” I admitted.
“Why?”
A nervous laugh escaped me. “You want me to explain why I fell in love with you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I’ve been told.”
“You’re severe. You frighten people without meaning to.”
“I usually mean to.”
“Exactly.”
The corner of his mouth moved, almost a smile.
I continued before courage left me. “But you remember the name of every person who works here. You paid for Mr. Lawson’s daughter’s surgery and told him the insurance company had corrected its mistake. You sit in the library on Sundays because Isabella calls from Boston then, even when you pretend the calls are inconvenient. You had the roses in the west garden replaced because your mother loved the old variety.”
His expression changed at the mention of his mother.
I lowered my voice.
“And when my mother died, you gave me three weeks away from work with full pay. You never mentioned it. You never asked me to be grateful.”
“I signed a form.”
“You noticed.”
“I notice everything.”
“I know.”
That was part of it too.
Alexander studied me for so long that I became aware of every breath.
Finally, he said, “You should not love me.”
Pain moved through me, quiet but deep.
“I know.”
“That wasn’t a rejection.”
I looked at him again.
His eyes had softened.
“I’m trying to tell you that I don’t know what to do with it,” he said.
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“That has never been how I live.”
I almost smiled. “Then consider it a problem you can’t solve before breakfast.”
His fingers moved toward mine.
This time, when he took my hand, he was fully awake.
“You were the only voice I could follow last night,” he said. “Whenever I opened my eyes, you were there.”
“I was doing my job.”
“No.”
His thumb brushed once across my knuckles.
“You were doing more than that.”
The open doorway creaked.
Marcus stood outside, looking pointedly at his watch.
“Your five minutes ended three minutes ago.”
Alexander released my hand but did not look embarrassed.
“What do we know?” he asked.
Marcus entered and closed the door halfway behind him.
“The pills were replaced sometime after they left Dr. Bennett’s clinic. Yesterday’s medication record has been removed. Security footage from the service corridor disappeared between six and seven last evening.”
“Technical failure?”
“No.”
“Who accessed the system?”
“Someone using your authorization.”
Alexander’s expression became cold. “From where?”
“Your study.”
I remembered carrying a tray past the study the previous evening. The door had been ajar, though Alexander had been upstairs.
“Who knew his authorization code?” I asked.
Marcus glanced at him.
Alexander answered. “Marcus. My sister. Dr. Bennett.”
“And you,” Marcus added.
Alexander’s eyes narrowed. “I did not erase the footage.”
“No,” Marcus said. “You were already feverish.”
“Mrs. Valdez?” I asked.
“She does not have system access.”
“What about the security staff?”
“They can review footage, not delete it.”
Alexander’s face revealed nothing, but his hand tightened around the edge of the sheet.
“Bring Bennett up,” he said.
Dr. Shah appeared in the doorway. “No interrogations.”
“I want to ask him a question.”
“You may ask him when your temperature is below one hundred and one.”
“It is below one hundred and one.”
She checked the monitor.
Alexander raised an eyebrow.
Dr. Shah looked irritated by the betrayal of her own equipment.
“One question,” she said.
Dr. Bennett entered several minutes later.
He no longer looked offended. He looked old.
He stood at the foot of the bed and avoided my eyes.
Alexander’s voice was quiet. “What are you hiding?”
The doctor swallowed.
“Nothing that concerns your treatment.”
“That is not an answer.”
Dr. Bennett glanced at Marcus, then at Dr. Shah.
Finally, he opened his medical case and removed a thin envelope.
“I received this three days ago.”
Marcus took it and handed it to Alexander.
Inside was a printed photograph of Dr. Bennett leaving a restaurant beside a woman I did not recognize. On the back, someone had written a single sentence.
Change the dosage, or your wife receives everything.
Dr. Bennett sat heavily in the nearest chair.
“The woman was a former patient,” he said. “She contacted me after her husband died. We met twice. Nothing happened, but the photograph makes it appear otherwise.”
“You changed my prescription because someone threatened your marriage?” Alexander asked.
“No.” Dr. Bennett’s voice cracked. “I refused.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was ashamed.”
Marcus examined the photograph. “Who sent it?”
“I don’t know. It arrived by courier. No return address.”
“What dosage were you told to prescribe?”
Dr. Bennett looked at the evidence bag in Dr. Shah’s hand.
“Three milligrams.”
The room went silent.
“You wrote one,” I said.
“Yes. I thought refusing would end it.”
“But you checked the tablets before they left your clinic.”
“I did.”
“Then whoever threatened you knew you refused,” Marcus said. “And replaced them anyway.”
Dr. Bennett covered his face with both hands.
“I should have told you.”
Alexander’s expression remained controlled, but the exhaustion in his eyes deepened.
“Yes,” he said. “You should have.”
Marcus took Dr. Bennett downstairs again, though without the security guards this time.
Dr. Shah ordered Alexander to rest and Isabella returned to sit beside him. I left the room because staying had become too difficult. Every new answer seemed to open another door.
Someone had threatened the doctor.
Someone had entered Alexander’s study.
Someone had replaced the pills, removed the ledger page, and erased the footage.
It required access, patience, and an understanding of how the house worked.
It required someone invisible.
Someone like me.
I found Mrs. Valdez in the laundry room, folding white sheets into perfect squares.
Her silver-streaked hair was pinned at the nape of her neck. Her hands moved steadily, but her eyes were red.
“Mrs. Valdez?”
She placed another sheet on the table. “You should be resting.”
“So should you.”
“I’m too old to sleep when people tell me.”
I leaned against the table. “Did you see who delivered the medicine yesterday?”
Her hands stopped.
“Nina…”
“The ledger page is gone.”
“I know.”
“Did you remove it?”
She looked toward the open door, then crossed the room and shut it.
When she turned back, fear had changed her face.
“I did not remove the page,” she said. “But I saw it before it disappeared.”
“Who signed for the delivery?”
She did not answer.
“Mrs. Valdez.”
Her gaze fell to my apron pocket, where I usually kept my ring of household keys.
“Where were you yesterday at six twelve in the evening?”
“At Saint Matthew’s Cemetery.”
It had been the anniversary of my mother’s death. Mrs. Valdez herself had given me permission to leave early.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled with something I could not understand.
“The ledger says you accepted the package.”
My breath caught.
“That’s impossible.”
“I saw your name.”
“Someone forged it.”
Mrs. Valdez walked to a locked cabinet, removed a small key from beneath her collar, and opened the lowest drawer. From inside, she took a folded piece of paper.
“I made a copy before the page disappeared,” she said. “I don’t know why. Something about it frightened me.”
She handed it to me.
The photocopy was faint but readable. At the bottom of the page, beside the delivery time, was my name.
Nina Reyes.
The signature looked almost exactly like mine.
Almost.
The final stroke of the R curled inward instead of out.
I had seen that curl thousands of times on permission slips, birthday cards, grocery lists, and notes tucked beside my breakfast plate.
My knees nearly gave way.
“No,” I whispered.
Mrs. Valdez caught my arm.
“What is it?”
I touched the signature with one trembling finger.
“My mother wrote her R like this.”
Mrs. Valdez closed her eyes.
Not in surprise.
In recognition.
I pulled away from her. “You knew her.”
She said nothing.
“You knew my mother.”
Her silence answered me.
The laundry room seemed to tilt around us.
“My mother never worked here,” I said. “She was a nurse at Saint Anne’s Hospital.”
“She was a nurse,” Mrs. Valdez replied. “But before Saint Anne’s, she worked in this house.”
I stared at her.
“For whom?”
Mrs. Valdez looked toward the ceiling, as though she could see through two floors to the room where Alexander lay.
“For Alexander’s father.”
A memory returned without warning: my mother standing at the kitchen sink late one night, staring through the window while rain crawled down the glass. I had been ten years old. I had asked why she was crying.
She had told me she was remembering a house where every door locked from the inside.
I had thought she meant the hospital.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long was she here?”
“Nearly four years.”
“Why did she leave?”
Mrs. Valdez’s mouth tightened.
“That is not my story to tell.”
“It became my story when someone used her handwriting to sign for medication meant to harm Alexander.”
Mrs. Valdez reached for me, but I stepped back.
“Is my mother dead?” I asked.
The question escaped before I understood why I had asked it.
I had watched her fade beneath hospital sheets. I had held her hand as the machines grew quiet. I had stood beside her grave every year.
Mrs. Valdez’s face went white.
“Nina—”
The laundry-room door opened.
Marcus stood on the other side.
He held an old leather file in one hand.
Alexander was behind him, leaning against the doorframe in a dark robe, pale and unsteady but unmistakably awake. Dr. Shah hovered several steps back, looking furious that he had left his bed.
Alexander’s gaze was fixed on the photocopied signature in my hand.
“You should sit down,” he said.
My throat tightened. “Why?”
Marcus placed the leather file on the table and opened it.
Inside was a photograph taken almost twenty years earlier.
My mother stood in the mansion’s west garden, younger than I remembered her, dressed in a white nurse’s uniform. Beside her was Alexander’s father.
And in her arms was a dark-haired infant wrapped in a blue blanket.
On the back, in my mother’s unmistakable handwriting, were six words:
Alexander must never know whose child she is.
I looked from the photograph to Alexander.
His face held the same stunned confusion I felt.
Then Marcus drew one final document from the file.
It was my birth certificate.
In the space where my father’s name should have been, someone had written a name I had seen every day since entering the mansion.
Antonio Romano.
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