Chapter 5 - The House Without Mirrors
“The pregnant woman cannot leave alive.”
The recording stopped.
Nadine stared at Celeste.
“The guard who helped us?”
Celeste nodded.
“He was working for Vittorio.”
“Then why give me the envelope?”
Adrian answered.
“Because Vittorio wanted her to find it.”
Nadine looked at him.
“A trap.”
“Yes.”
The documents had been bait.
The checkpoint had been waiting.
Only Adrian’s intervention had disrupted the plan.
Nadine sat down.
Her entire escape had been anticipated.
Every choice manipulated.
“Who can I trust?”
Adrian lowered his weapon.
“Right now? Yourself.”
For the next week, Nadine stayed hidden.
The house had few reflective surfaces. Adrian explained that surveillance equipment could be concealed in almost anything.
Nadine began calling it the house without mirrors.
Dante sent messages daily.
She read none.
Then Celeste confessed the rest.
Dante had not initiated the kiss.
She had.
She had needed him distracted while she placed a recorder inside his jacket.
Dante had responded for several seconds before realizing what was happening.
It did not absolve him.
But it changed the shape of the betrayal.
“You could have told me.”
“I was terrified.”
“So was I.”
“I know.”
Nadine looked at her sister.
Forgiveness did not arrive.
But hatred began to loosen.
That evening Adrian received intelligence.
Dante had arrested three men inside his own organization.
Vittorio had disappeared.
The family was splitting.
“Nadine,” Adrian said, “we should move you.”
“No.”
“It isn't safe.”
“I’m tired of men moving me.”
He stopped.
“Then what do you want?”
“I want to know everything.”
So he showed her.
Ledgers.
Shipping records.
Shell companies.
And one photograph that changed everything.
It showed Nadine’s late father standing beside Vittorio.
On the back was a date.
Twenty years earlier.
Nadine stared.
“My father knew him?”
Adrian said nothing.
Celeste came closer.
Then Nadine noticed something behind the two men.
A little girl.
Herself.
Her father had taken her to meet Vittorio Castellano years before she ever met Dante.
The photograph slipped from her fingers.
Her marriage might not have begun by chance.
Then her phone rang.
Dante.
For the first time, she answered.
“Nadine.”
His voice broke around her name.
“What did my father have to do with your uncle?”
Silence.
“How do you know about that?”
“Answer me.”
“Nadine—”
“Answer.”
Dante exhaled.
“Your father arranged our first meeting.”
Her heart stopped.
“Why?”
“I didn’t know until after we were married.”
“Why?”
“Nadine, there’s something your father left for you.”
“Where?”
“In our daughter’s nursery.”
She stood.
“What?”
“Under the floor.”
Then Dante said the words she had never expected.
“Your father knew exactly what Vittorio was planning.”
A noise sounded behind Dante.
He stopped speaking.
“Dante?”
Nothing.
Then another man took his phone.
“Nadine.”
May you like
Vittorio.
And behind his voice, she heard Dante choking…
