Chapter 2 – THE PHOTOGRAPH

Elena stared at the name printed on the Geneva boarding pass.

Rosa Valenti.

“Matteo,” Elena said, her voice shaking as she held up the ticket. “Why do you have a flight booked for your grandmother? She hasn’t traveled since her surgery.”

Matteo stared at the piece of paper as if it were a venomous snake.

“I didn’t book that,” he said.

Rosa stepped into the hallway, leaning heavily on her cane. “Let me see that.”

Elena handed it to her. The older woman adjusted her reading glasses, her expression hardening into granite.

“Sofia put this in your coat,” Rosa said, looking at Matteo. “She was in the hallway alone for five minutes before she entered the dining room.”

“But why?” Elena asked, trying to piece the nightmare together. “Why book a flight in Nonna’s name?”

“Because,” Rosa said softly, “if I am murdered tomorrow outside the church, the police will find this ticket. They will think I was fleeing the country. They will think I stole family funds. It is a frame-up.”

Matteo slammed his fist against the wall, rattling the antique mirror. “I’ll kill her. I’ll tear her apart—”

“You will do nothing!” Rosa snapped. “If you touch her, the boy dies. That is her leverage. She wants me dead so she can control you, and she is using Leo to keep your hands tied.”

Elena felt a sick twist in her stomach. Sofia had played them all. She had made Elena believe she was just a heartbroken, discarded wife, keeping Elena distracted while she plotted to assassinate the matriarch of the family.

“We have to find Leo tonight,” Elena said.

“I’ve tried,” Matteo said, his voice raw. “My men have turned the city upside down. Sofia has him hidden perfectly. I don’t even know who she’s working with.”

Elena looked at the floor where Sofia had been standing when she grabbed her purse to leave.

Something caught her eye.

A small, folded square of paper had slipped under the hallway rug. Sofia must have dropped it when she stormed out.

Elena knelt and picked it up.

It wasn’t just paper. It was a thick, glossy photograph.

She unfolded it.

It was a picture of a little boy with dark curls—Leo. He was sitting on a porch, eating a melting ice cream cone. He looked healthy. He looked safe.

But that wasn’t what made Elena’s breath catch in her throat.

It was the background.

Behind the boy, hanging on the porch railing, was a distinctive, hand-woven red blanket with a yellow sun pattern.

“Matteo,” Elena whispered, her eyes wide.

“What? Is it Leo?” He rushed over, grabbing the photo. “He’s okay. He’s alive.”

“Look at the blanket behind him,” Elena said, her heart hammering against her ribs.

Matteo frowned. “I don’t recognize it.”

“I do,” Elena said.

She looked up at her husband, the betrayal slicing deeper than Sofia’s red dress ever could.

“It’s the blanket my sister knitted,” Elena said. “That porch is my mother’s house.”

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