Chapter 23 The Ghost
I left my room and walked down the hallway toward the playroom because I needed to keep moving.
The house felt different today. It was quieter than usual, and the air felt thinner and sharper like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm.
The servants I passed kept their heads down and scurried away like frightened mice because they knew Marco didn't just leave town.
They knew that people who angered Dante Caravelli disappeared into the dark and never came back.
I found Jasmine in the playroom, sitting on the floor and building a tower of blocks. When she saw me, she knocked the tower over and ran to me with her arms wide open.
"Lily!"
She hugged my legs and buried her face in my dress. I patted her hair, but I felt numb. I felt dirty because I knew her father had washed blood off his hands before he came to unlock my door.
"Did you come back?" she asked, looking up at me with huge grey eyes. "Papa said the bad man went away, and you could come back."
"Yes," I said, forcing a smile onto my face. "The bad man went away."
"Was he a monster?"
"Something like that."
We played for an hour. I tried to focus on her, and I tried to be the person she needed, but my mind kept drifting back to the cellar.
Marco was the runner who carried the messages and planted the photo, but he was just a boy. A twenty-year-old server didn't orchestrate a psychological war against the Caravelli family on his own.
Dante thought the threat was over because he killed the messenger, but I needed to know if he was right.
When Jasmine went down for her nap, I didn't go back to my room. I told the guard standing outside the nursery that I needed water and walked to the kitchen.
The kitchen was tense. Rosa didn't look at me, and the other staff moved around me like water flowing around a stone in a river.
They were terrified of me now. They thought I was the reason Marco was dead, and they were right.
I grabbed a bottle of water and walked toward the pantry.
"I need napkins," I said to the guard who was trailing three steps behind me.
He nodded and waited by the door because the pantry was small and there was only one way out.
I slipped into the pantry, which was cool and dark and smelled of flour and dried herbs. I went to the back, where the ventilation grate sat near the floor.
This was where the tunnel ended. This was where I had found the burner phone hidden in the wall two nights ago.
If Marco was the only one using the tunnels, then the phone should still be there.
Dante didn't know about the phone because Marco wouldn't have told him about it unless he was specifically asked, and Dante had focused entirely on the key and the photo.
I knelt and pretended to look for napkins on the bottom shelf. I reached behind the shelf and pushed my fingers into the gap between the wood and the plaster.
I felt the hollow space where the wood had been carved away.
My fingers brushed against wood and dust and sticky cobwebs.
Nothing else.
The phone was gone.
My heart stopped beating for a second. I felt around frantically and scraped my knuckles against the rough wood until they stung. I checked the corners and the floor, but it was empty.
The burner phone was gone.
Marco was dead. He had been in the cellar since last night, so he couldn't have moved it.
Someone else had taken it.
Someone else had been in the tunnels while Marco was being tortured.
I stood up slowly, and the pantry felt suddenly very small and very cold. The traitor wasn't Marco.
Marco was just a pawn who got sacrificed to save the king. The real traitor was still here, and they were still in the house.
And they knew that I had found the phone.
I had taken a picture of the message and put the phone back, so whoever took it knew that someone had tampered with their stash. They knew I was onto them.
I backed out of the pantry and grabbed a stack of napkins with shaking hands so the guard wouldn't be suspicious.
I walked back to the main hall because I needed to get back to my room to think before my panic gave me away.
As I passed the library, I heard voices drifting out into the hall.
"It is handled," Dante was saying. "The boy is gone. The leak is plugged."
"Is it?"
The second voice was smooth and cultured. It was Antonio.
I slowed down and pressed myself against the wall outside the open door. The guard frowned at me, but I held up a finger to my lips, and he didn't move.
"You killed a runner, Dante," Antonio said. "You cut off a finger, but you didn't kill the hand."
"He confessed," Dante said, and I could hear the exhaustion in his voice.
"He admitted to everything. The photo. The brick. The access."
"He admitted to what he did. But he said he was paid by a woman."
"He was lying to save his skin. Or it was a freelancer."
"Or it was someone inside," Antonio said quietly.
"Someone who knows the layout of this house better than a server. Someone who knew exactly how to hurt the girl."
There was the sound of glass clinking against a table.
"The girl is safe," Dante said, and his voice was final. "That is what matters."
"You are getting too close to her."
"I am protecting an asset."
"You killed a man with your own hands for her,"
Antonio countered. "That is not asset protection. That is personal. You are letting your guilt over Isabella drive your decisions."
"It was necessary."
"Be careful, brother. She is Rosetti blood. She has secrets, and she hates you. And now she has you killing for her. If she is playing a game, then she is winning."
I pulled away from the wall and walked quickly toward the stairs before they could see me.
Antonio was right because I was winning, but it didn't feel like winning. It felt like drowning in deep water.
I reached the third floor, and the guard let me into my room.
I locked the door and checked the closet, which was still locked tight. I was cut off from the tunnel and the truth.
The real traitor was still walking the halls and holding the burner phone and knowing that I knew their secret.
I sat on the bed and pulled my knees to my chest. I was safe from Marco and safe from Dante for now, but I was trapped in a house with a ghost.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I jumped and pulled it out. It wasn't Selena. It was a message from an Unknown Number.
I stared at the screen and my breath caught in my throat.
You think he saved you.
I read the words and felt a chill slide down my spine that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.
He didn't save you. He just cleaned up my mess.
I typed back, and my fingers were trembling so hard I almost dropped the phone.
Who are you?
The reply came instantly.
I am the one who holds the key.
And you are running out of time, Lilith.
I stared at the phone.
The message on the burner phone said something about a plan. Marco was dead, but the plan hadn't changed.
The lock on my door clicked.
I shoved the phone under my pillow just as the door opened.
Dante stood there. He held a small silver object in his hand. "I forgot to give you this," he said.
He walked over and set it on the bedside table. It was the silver locket I had seen him holding in his office. The one with Isabella’s picture inside.
I stared at it. "Why are you giving me this?"
"It isn't a gift," he said, and his voice was devoid of emotion. "It needs cleaning. The chain is tarnished."
He looked at me with eyes that were dark and heavy.
"You are good at polishing silver," he said. "Fix it."
It was a test of some sort. He was giving me the thing he loved most and ordering me to clean the shrine of the woman whose death turned him into a monster.
"I will fix it," I whispered.
He nodded and turned and left without another word.
I picked up the locket, which was warm from his hand. I opened it.
The face of Isabella Caravelli smiled up at me. She was beautiful, and she looked kind, and she looked happy.
I stared at her face and realised the game was much darker than I thought.
Dante wasn't the only player, and I wasn't the only pawn. There was someone else moving the pieces. Someone who could walk through walls and steal phones, and kill boys without getting blood on their hands.
My phone buzzed again.
I pulled it out. It was a picture message.
It was a photo of me.
I was sleeping. My hair was spread out on the pillow. The angle was from above, looking down at the bed.
I looked at the timestamp.
3:00 AM. Today.
I looked up at the ceiling. I looked at the corners of the room. I looked at the locked door.
The text underneath the photo was simple.
Sleep tight.
I let out a scream.