Chapter 1 - The Locket Beneath the Torn Apron
His fiancée whipped the plus-size maid before two hundred guests—then the mafia boss walked in and recognized the locket around her neck.
The first crack of the leather riding crop silenced the violinist.
The second sent a crystal champagne glass rolling beneath a table while two hundred guests pretended not to see a plus-size maid being humiliated in the middle of a millionaire’s engagement party.
The third never landed.
A man’s hand caught the crop in midair.
And every person in Belladonna House stopped breathing.
Vincent Moretti had come home.
Three hours early.
His black overcoat was still wet from the January sleet outside, and four men in dark suits stood behind him near the ballroom doors.
He did not look at the celebrities.
He did not look at the state senator near the fireplace.
He did not look at the orchestra that had stopped halfway through “Moon River.”
He looked at the woman holding the crop.
His fiancée.
Vivian DeMarco.
Then he looked at me.
I was on one knee beside an overturned tray with red wine soaked through the front of my white service apron.
My left forearm burned where the first strike had landed.
My shoulder burned where the second one had caught the edge of my uniform.
I had not cried.
That seemed to bother Vivian more than anything else.
Vincent’s voice was quiet.
“Why are you holding that?”
Vivian pulled once.
He did not release the crop.
“Vincent.”
“I asked a question.”
Her face changed immediately.
Two seconds earlier, she had been smiling while ordering me to kneel.
Now she looked wounded.
Fragile.
Embarrassed.
A woman transformed by the arrival of a more powerful witness.
“She attacked me.”
Nobody moved.
I almost admired the speed of the lie.
Vincent looked at me.
“Did you?”
“No.”
Vivian turned.
“You shoved the tray at me.”
“The tray caught your dress after you stepped backward.”
“She ruined a twelve-thousand-dollar gown.”
“I apologized for the wine.”
“You laughed.”
“No.”
“You smirked.”
“I breathed.”
A few guests looked down.
Vivian’s cheeks flushed.
Vincent still held the crop.
“Who gave you permission to strike an employee?”
“She is not one of your employees. She’s temporary staff.”
I stood slowly.
My knees hurt.
Not from the floor.
From working nine hours without sitting.
“That distinction should help tremendously in court,” I said.
Vivian stared at me.
“You see?”
Vincent’s eyes moved between us.
“You were told to leave.”
“No,” I said.
Vivian snapped, “I told you to leave.”
“You told me to leave without collecting my coat, phone, purse, or wages.”
“You were being disruptive.”
“I was carrying champagne.”
“You insulted me.”
“I told you the south service pantry had no clean glassware because your event manager locked the supply cabinet.”
“Do you always talk this much?”
“Only when people ask questions.”
The corner of someone’s mouth moved near the orchestra.
Vivian saw it.
Her humiliation became anger again.
She pointed toward me.
“She refused to kneel and clean my shoes.”
There it was.
Not safety.
Not wine.
Not discipline.
Submission.
Vincent looked at the red stain on Vivian’s pale-gold dress.
Then at the marble floor.
Then at me.
“You told her to kneel?”
Vivian’s expression changed.
“To clean the wine.”
“There are towels.”
“She is a maid.”
I watched Vincent’s face.
Nothing dramatic happened.
No shouting.
No threat.
The quiet was worse.
“My mother cleaned houses,” he said.
The ballroom seemed to shrink.
Vivian swallowed.
“That is not the same.”
“How?”
“She wasn’t…” Vivian stopped.
Vincent waited.
Everyone else did too.
“She wasn’t what?”
Vivian looked at me.
I knew the word she was trying not to say.
Heavy.
Common.
Poor.
Someone she considered beneath a gown that cost more than my annual rent.
Vincent released the riding crop.
It hit the marble.
“Party’s over.”
Vivian laughed nervously.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Everyone out.”
“Vincent, the senator—”
“Can find the front door.”
One of Vincent’s men moved toward orchestra.
Another quietly spoke to catering manager.
The room began to shift.
Two hundred wealthy people suddenly remembered coats, drivers and urgent reasons to be somewhere else.
Vivian grabbed Vincent’s sleeve.
“We are celebrating our engagement.”
“You were celebrating yourself.”
Her face hardened.
Then she noticed I was still standing there.
“This is because of her?”
“No,” Vincent said.
“It’s because of you.”
I should have felt satisfaction.
I didn’t.
I wanted my coat.
My phone.
My paycheck.
And a bus home before midnight.
I bent to collect broken glass.
Vincent said:
“Leave it.”
“I’m paid to clean.”
“You’re injured.”
“I’ve worked injured before.”
That sentence made him look at me differently.
I ignored it.
As I straightened, the torn collar of my uniform shifted.
Something slipped free from underneath.
A small silver locket.
Oval.
Old.
Blackened around the edges.
It had belonged to my mother.
Or the woman I believed was my mother.
Vincent stopped breathing.
His gaze locked onto it.
Not my face.
Not the bruising on my arm.
The locket.
He crossed the room slowly.
I took one step backward.
“That necklace.”
His voice sounded nothing like the man who had just emptied a ballroom.
“What about it?”
“Where did you get it?”
“My mother.”
“What was her name?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Vincent stared at the engraving along the side.
Tiny vines.
A small five-pointed star beneath the hinge.
Then he said something that turned my exhaustion into fear.
“Open it.”
“No.”
“Please.”
The word surprised everyone, including him.
I looked at Vivian.
She was watching from ten feet away.
For the first time that evening, she looked afraid.
Not angry.
Afraid.
I touched the locket.
“It doesn’t open.”
“What?”
“It’s been stuck since I was a kid.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“My mother had one exactly like that.”
“So did half the women in Brooklyn forty years ago, probably.”
“No.”
His eyes remained fixed on the star.
“There were only two.”
I felt cold.
“How do you know?”
“My grandfather had them made.”
He swallowed.
“One for my mother.”
“And the other?”
Vincent looked directly at me.
“For her baby sister.”
The ballroom was nearly empty now.
But Vivian had gone completely still.
I saw it.
Vincent saw it too.
He turned toward her.
“Why do you look like you recognize it?”
“I don’t.”
Too fast.
My stomach tightened.
Vincent asked:
“Vivian.”
She picked up her clutch.
“This evening has become ridiculous.”
“Stay.”
“I will not be interrogated in front of staff.”
She walked toward doors.
Vincent’s men shifted.
He raised hand.
“Let her go.”
Vivian stopped only long enough to look at me.
Not with hatred anymore.
With something worse.
Recognition.
Then she left.
I stood clutching the locket.
Vincent looked at me.
“What is your name?”
“You already heard it from staffing.”
“I want you to tell me.”
“Rosa Bennett.”
His face changed at the surname.
“Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother?”
“Marianne Bennett.”
“Alive?”
“No.”
“When did she die?”
“Six years ago.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
He shut his eyes briefly.
Then opened them.
“Were you born in New York?”
“I was told Brooklyn.”
“Told?”
My irritation sharpened.
“I was adopted.”
Silence.
Vincent’s entire body went still.
I immediately regretted saying it.
“How old?”
“What?”
“When were you adopted?”
“I don’t know exactly. A few months old.”
“From where?”
“St. Agnes Children’s Home.”
Vincent reached for chair.
Not dramatically.
As if his legs needed it.
St. Agnes.
He knew that name.
I saw it.
“What?”
He looked up.
“My aunt disappeared thirty-one years ago.”
I stared.
“She was nineteen.”
“So?”
“She was pregnant.”
Something inside me dropped.
“No.”
Vincent continued as if he had to force each word.
“My family was told she ran away.”
“No.”
“Six months later, my mother received a package.”
I couldn't breathe.
“What package?”
“An infant locket.”
His eyes went to mine.
“The twin of the one around your neck.”
No.
Absolutely not.
I stepped backward.
“You’re mistaken.”
“I hope I am.”
“Why?”
His answer came quietly.
“Because if I’m not, then somebody in my family has been lying about what happened to that baby for almost thirty years.”
I tightened my hand around the silver oval.
“And what does Vivian have to do with it?”
Vincent looked toward the ballroom doors his fiancée had just passed through.
“That,” he said, “is exactly what I intend to find out.”
And for the first time that night, I understood that the riding crop had not been the most dangerous thing in Belladonna House.
May you like
The locket was.
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