Chapter 4: Room 417
I should have walked away from the wedding.
Any reasonable person would have.
Instead, forty minutes later, I was sitting in the back of Dante Moretti’s black sedan wearing his coat over my ruined wedding dress.
The cathedral disappeared behind us.
So did Nathan.
At least temporarily.
He had tried to follow me.
“Emma, please.””
I stopped beside Dante’s car.
Nathan stood on the cathedral steps while guests poured out behind him.
“You don’t get to say please now.””
“I made a mistake.””
“A mistake?””
“I froze.””
I stared at him.
“When Veronica cut my dress?””
“Yes.””
“When people laughed?””
His face tightened.
“Yes.””
“When your mother called me an embarrassment?””
He looked down.
I nodded.
“That’s a lot of freezing.””
“Emma, I love you.””
The words would have meant everything that morning.
Now they sounded almost insulting.
“Then why was I standing alone?””
Nathan had no answer.
Dante opened the car door.
I got inside.
Now Manhattan moved beyond the tinted windows while the brass key rested in my palm.
417.
Dante sat opposite me.
Marco drove.
“Who died in that room?”” I asked.
Dante looked out the window.
“A man named Samuel Reed.””
I frowned.
“I don’t know that name.””
“You might know the last name he used later.””
Dante looked at me.
“Walker.””
My breath stopped.
“My father?””
“No. His brother.””
I stared at him.
“My father never told me he had a brother.””
“There were many things your parents were forced not to tell you.””
“Stop saying forced.””
Dante’s eyebrows lifted.
“My mother chose to hide you. My father chose to stay quiet. Charles chose to protect his family. Everybody keeps telling me they had reasons.””
I leaned forward.
“But I’m the one sitting in a wedding dress someone cut open because none of you told the truth.””
Dante accepted that without argument.
“You’re right.””
The simplicity of his answer surprised me.
“What happened to Samuel?””
“We believed he was helping Isabella leave New York.””
“And?””
“He was found dead in Room 417.””
“How?””
Dante paused.
“One gunshot.””
I looked down at the key.
“Was my mother there?””
“We never knew.””
Twenty minutes later, the skyline gave way to quieter streets north of the city.
Iron gates appeared between stone walls.
Beyond them stood a vast gray mansion.
The Moretti house.
It looked less like a home than something built to survive a war.
Marco parked beneath a covered entrance.
When I stepped out, my heels touched wet stone.
Dante looked at my wedding shoes.
“You can change before we go upstairs.””
“No.””
“Emma—”
“I started today dressed like this.””
I tightened his coat around myself.
“I’m finishing it dressed like this.””
For the first time, something almost like approval crossed his face.
Inside, the house smelled of cedar, old books, and fireplace smoke.
Portraits covered the walls.
Generations of faces watched me pass.
Then I saw her.
My mother.
I stopped.
A painting hung above the staircase.
She couldn’t have been older than eighteen.
She wore a dark green dress and the ivory lace around her shoulders.
“Why is that still here?””
Dante stood beside me.
“Because I never stopped waiting for her to come home.””
My anger faltered.
Only for a second.
Then Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression immediately changed.
“What?””
Dante turned.
Marco listened, then ended the call.
“We have a problem.””
“What?””
“The cathedral security archive was accessed remotely ten minutes ago.””
Dante’s face hardened.
“By whom?””
“Whitmore security credentials.””
I knew immediately.
“Margaret.””
Marco nodded.
“Several camera files were deleted.””
“The dress cutting?””
“Those too.””
Dante pulled out his phone.
“Preserve everything still available.””
Marco nodded.
I looked between them.
“She’s destroying evidence.””
“Yes,” Dante said.
“Then why are we standing here?””
We went upstairs.
The fourth floor was colder.
At the end of a long corridor stood a dark wooden door.
A tarnished brass plate read 417.
My heart hammered.
Dante stopped several feet away.
“I haven’t entered this room since I was twenty-six.””
“You had the key?””
“No.””
“Then who sealed it?””
“My father.””
I lifted the brass key.
“And he gave this to my mother?””
“Apparently.””
I inserted it into the lock.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then I turned it.
Click.
Dante inhaled.
I opened the door.
Dust moved through a narrow beam of afternoon light.
The room was almost untouched.
A bed.
A writing desk.
An old wardrobe.
A broken lamp still lying beside the wall.
My eyes moved to the floor.
There was no blood.
No body.
Nothing dramatic.
Just a room trapped in time.
Marco entered behind us.
“Where do we start?””
I remembered my mother’s letter.
The truth was never where they thought to look.
I walked toward the desk.
Empty drawers.
Dante checked the wardrobe.
Old coats.
Nothing.
Then I noticed scratches beneath the windowsill.
Three short lines.
One long.
Three short.
“Dante.””
He came over.
I pressed the wood.
Nothing.
Then I saw a tiny belladonna carved beside the scratches.
I pushed the flower.
A panel beneath the window clicked open.
Inside was a metal box.
Dante whispered something in Italian.
I pulled it out.
The brass key opened that too.
Inside were photographs.
Letters.
A cassette tape.
And a small leather ledger.
Marco picked up the photographs.
His face changed.
“Dante.””
He handed one over.
Dante stared at it.
“What is it?””
He passed it to me.
My mother stood outside Whitmore Tower.
Beside her was Samuel Walker.
And beside Samuel stood a much younger Charles Whitmore.
All three were smiling.
On the back, my mother had written:
Three witnesses. One truth.
“There were three of them,” I whispered.
Dante opened the ledger.
Pages of transfers filled it.
Whitmore accounts.
Moretti trust numbers.
Dates.
Amounts.
Millions.
Then hundreds of millions.
Marco exhaled.
“This could destroy the Whitmores.””
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
We all turned.
Nobody was there.
Marco moved toward the door.
Then his phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
“Someone just entered the property through the east gate.””
Dante’s expression hardened.
“Who?””
Marco showed him the security image.
I couldn’t see the screen.
But I saw Dante’s reaction.
Shock.
Real shock.
“Impossible.””
“What?”” I demanded.
He looked at me.
Before he could answer, footsteps approached the room.
Slow.
Uneven.
Then an elderly man appeared in the doorway.
He stared at me in my ruined wedding dress.
His face collapsed.
“Oh, God.””
I had never seen him before.
But Dante had.
“Samuel?””
The man’s eyes filled with tears.
Dante took one stunned step backward.
“You died in this room.””
Samuel Walker looked directly at me.
“No.””
May you like
His voice trembled.
“Emma’s father did.””
