Chapter 2 - The Eighth Language
The first thing Dominic did was order everyone away from the doors.
The second was confiscate every phone.
The third was look directly at Maeve.
“Stay beside me.”
That frightened her more than anything else.
Until that morning, Maeve Nolan had been irrelevant to the Valenti family.
Now somebody she had never met knew she understood the recording.
And that person was somewhere close enough to know what had happened minutes earlier.
Dominic’s security chief, Rafael Costa, moved quickly through the mansion.
“No one enters. No one leaves.”
Carlo protested.
Dominic ignored him.
Anton was carried into a secure medical room where a private physician began treating him. His condition was serious but stable.
Maeve stood near Dominic’s study with her hands shaking.
She removed the second yellow glove.
“You should let me go.”
“No.”
“I have nothing to do with your family.”
“You do now.”
“I clean your floors.”
“You heard something twelve experts didn’t.”
“That doesn’t make me part of this.”
Dominic looked at her.
“It makes you a target.”
She had no answer.
He opened the study door.
Inside waited Dominic’s attorney, Evelyn Shaw; Rafael; Carlo; and three senior family advisers.
The encrypted phone sat on the desk.
Dominic pressed play again.
“Translate everything.”
Maeve listened.
Slowly.
The voices used deliberate linguistic camouflage. The grammar came from one dying dialect, commercial expressions from another, and number substitutions that appeared random.
But they were not random.
Maeve asked for paper.
She began writing.
Eight meant tomorrow.
Fourteen meant transfer.
Three meant Dominic.
Other numbers emerged.
Eleven meant hospital.
Nineteen meant signature.
Twenty-two meant daughter.
Maeve stopped.
“Daughter?”
Dominic stared at her.
“What?”
“One speaker says, ‘Twenty-two returns when three is silent.’”
Dominic’s face changed.
Carlo looked down.
Maeve noticed.
“Who is twenty-two?”
Nobody answered.
Dominic finally did.
“My daughter.”
Maeve had never known Dominic had one.
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“Dead?”
“No.”
The single word carried twenty years of pain.
“Her name is Sofia.”
Evelyn explained quietly.
Sofia Valenti had left the family eighteen years earlier after a bitter disagreement with her father. She had changed her surname and refused every attempt at reconciliation.
Nobody in Dominic’s organization was supposed to know where she lived.
Yet the recording mentioned her.
Maeve continued translating.
The plan became clearer.
Dominic was expected to attend a private charity meeting Saturday morning.
At 11:40, something would happen.
The recording never described murder directly.
It did not need to.
Afterward, documents would transfer temporary control of several legitimate Valenti companies and the family foundation.
Then Sofia would “return.”
Dominic stared at Carlo.
“You contacted her?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Maeve looked at the notebook again.
Something bothered her.
The scratched numbers had led them to the hidden impression.
Too conveniently.
Almost as if someone wanted the notebook discovered.
“What if this is planted?” she asked.
Everyone looked at her.
Carlo seized on it.
“Exactly.”
Maeve shook her head.
“I’m not defending you.”
His relief vanished.
She pointed toward the writing.
“If somebody planned Dominic’s death, why leave instructions where they could be recovered?”
Dominic understood.
“Because they wanted us looking at Carlo.”
“Yes.”
Carlo whispered, “I told you.”
Maeve turned toward him.
“But you did say the funeral sentence.”
Silence.
“So either you’re involved,” Maeve continued, “or somebody wanted you to repeat a phrase they knew I might hear.”
Carlo frowned.
“How would anyone know you understood it?”
Maeve had been asking herself the same question.
Her grandmother had died twelve years earlier.
Maeve rarely spoke the dialect anymore.
Almost nobody knew.
Except—
Her stomach dropped.
“My employment application.”
Rafael looked at her.
“What about it?”
“When I applied through the agency, there was a section asking languages.”
“How many did you list?”
“Eight.”
Dominic stood.
“Get the application.”
Rafael made a call.
Five minutes later, the agency emailed a scanned copy.
Maeve recognized her handwriting.
English.
Irish.
Italian.
French.
Romanian.
Croatian.
Albanian.
And beneath them, a nearly extinct regional dialect.
Dominic pointed to the bottom.
“Who accessed this?”
Rafael checked the file metadata.
His expression darkened.
“Someone downloaded it three weeks ago.”
“Who?”
“The request came from this house.”
Maeve felt suddenly cold.
Dominic’s mansion employed thirty-one permanent staff members.
Kitchen workers.
Drivers.
Security.
Housekeepers.
Gardeners.
Assistants.
Someone inside had researched Maeve before Anton ever arrived.
Someone knew exactly what she could understand.
Which meant Maeve overhearing Carlo had not been an accident.
She had been placed there.
Dominic looked at Rafael.
“Who assigned her to the hall?”
Rafael checked the staffing schedule.
His eyes narrowed.
“No name.”
“What?”
“The assignment was entered under administrator credentials.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“I didn’t enter it.”
Maeve stared at the computer.
The conspiracy was larger than Carlo.
Larger than the notebook.
Perhaps larger than the mansion.
Then Maeve remembered the cleaning cart.
She had not brought it into the hall herself.
It had been waiting there.
She rushed toward the corridor.
“Maeve!”
Dominic followed.
The cart remained exactly where she had left it.
Gray plastic frame.
White towels.
Blue bucket.
Cleaning bottles.
Maeve searched it.
Nothing.
Then she lifted the stack of folded towels.
A small digital recorder was taped beneath the shelf.
Rafael swore.
Dominic removed it carefully.
A red light blinked.
Recording.
Someone had been listening to everything.
Rafael reached to switch it off.
“Wait,” Maeve said.
She leaned closer.
There was something written beside the battery compartment.
Not English.
Not Italian.
The eighth language.
Three words.
Maeve translated them silently.
Her hands began trembling.
Dominic saw.
“What does it say?”
Maeve looked toward the staircase.
“Bring the daughter home.”
At that exact moment, the mansion intercom crackled.
A woman’s voice came through.
“Dad?”
Dominic went white.
Nobody moved.
The front doors opened.
A woman stepped inside.
May you like
And Dominic whispered the name he had not spoken to his daughter in eighteen years.
“Sofia.”
