Victoria stopped mid-breath. Mara watched her with focused stillness.
Alessandro’s voice dropped. “You’ve never met my mother. You’ve never heard her name spoken in this house — because I forbade it. So tell me: how do you know where she’s buried?”
Victoria said nothing. That silence answered him more completely than any confession could have.
Mara’s voice was steady now. “My grandmother told me that a woman named Victoria visited the grave. Two years ago. The winter before I applied for this job.”
Alessandro turned to Victoria. “You’re going to take me there.”
Victoria shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because—” She stopped. Not I don’t know. Because — because she couldn’t.
He walked to the tall window. Then Alessandro spoke, without turning around. “Call the driver.”
“Then explain it,” Alessandro Romano said. “Now. Before we get in that car — tell me why the woman I was going to marry has been visiting my mother’s unmarked grave for two years… and why a maid’s daughter had to be the one to tell me.”
Victoria opened her mouth. No sound came out.
And in that silence, Mara finally understood what her mother had meant: the person who destroyed her still lives here.
To be continued…