Chapter 2 - The Voice Inside the Violin Case
The phone inside the violin case started ringing in the darkness.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
The entire dining room that had been filled with whispers, laughter, and expensive champagne became completely silent.
I watched Matteo Vescari stare at the glowing screen.
The name displayed there was impossible.
Lucia.
My mother’s name.
His mother’s name.
A name that should have belonged only to the past.
Matteo’s hand froze above the phone.
For the first time since I had entered that mansion, the man everyone feared looked afraid.
Not angry.
Not powerful.
Afraid.
"Who gave you this?" he asked.
His voice was low.
Almost broken.
I looked at the phone.
"I don’t know."
That was the truth.
I had never seen it before.
I had never touched that phone before that moment.
But Matteo didn’t believe me.
Not because he thought I was lying.
Because believing me was much worse.
The lights suddenly returned.
The guests looked around nervously.
Some laughed awkwardly, pretending the moment had not been strange.
But nobody looked away from Matteo.
They had seen something they were never supposed to see.
Their untouchable host had lost control.
One of the older men at the table cleared his throat.
"Matteo, perhaps this can wait until tomorrow."
Matteo didn’t answer.
His eyes remained fixed on the phone.
Then he picked it up.
The call had already ended.
One missed call.
From Lucia.
Twenty-five years after her death.
I expected him to demand answers.
I expected him to accuse me.
Instead, he slowly closed the violin case.
"Everyone leaves."
The room went still.
A few guests exchanged confused looks.
"Matteo—"
"I said everyone leaves."
Nobody argued.
Because Matteo Vescari did not repeat himself.
Within minutes, the dining room emptied.
The wealthy businessmen.
The politicians.
The people who had spent the evening pretending they were untouchable.
They all disappeared.
Leaving only me.
Matteo.
And the violin between us.
I lowered my eyes.
"I should go back to work."
I turned away.
"Rosa."
I stopped.
It was the first time he had said my name without sounding like he was reading it from a list.
"Where did you get that violin?"
I looked at the case.
"The music room."
His expression changed.
"You went into that room?"
I nodded.
"I found the door open."
His jaw tightened.
"That door has been locked for years."
"I know."
"Then how did you open it?"
I hesitated.
Because I had wondered the same thing.
"I didn’t."
Matteo stared at me.
"The door was already unlocked."
The silence returned.
He walked toward the staircase.
"Come with me."
I followed him.
Not because I wanted to.
Because something about his voice told me this was no longer about a job.
The mansion felt different as we walked through it.
Earlier, I had been invisible.
Now every step felt like I was walking through a place that was hiding something.
We reached the second floor.
The old music room waited at the end of the hallway.
Matteo stood in front of the door.
His hand hovered over the handle.
For a moment, he looked like a child standing outside a forbidden room.
Then he opened it.
The smell of old wood and dust filled the air.
Nothing had changed.
The piano.
The photographs.
The shelves filled with forgotten memories.
Matteo walked inside slowly.
I stayed near the doorway.
I had never seen him look like this.
Not like a mafia boss.
Not like a businessman.
Like a son.
He picked up a photograph from the piano.
A young Matteo.
Maybe eight years old.
Standing beside his mother.
Both smiling.
A version of him nobody in New York knew existed.
"My mother played this song every night before I went to sleep."
His voice was quiet.
"Then one day she stopped."
I watched him carefully.
"Why?"
He placed the photograph down.
"She said she needed to finish something first."
He looked at the violin case.
"But she never did."
I remembered the unfinished sheet music.
"The song wasn’t finished."
Matteo looked at me.
"You knew?"
I nodded.
"I saw the pages."
His eyes narrowed.
"How?"
I swallowed.
"Because I cleaned this room."
That answer seemed to surprise him.
"You cleaned it?"
"Someone had to."
Something flickered across his face.
A small trace of guilt.
Because suddenly he realized something.
For eleven months, I had been walking through his home.
Taking care of everything.
While nobody cared enough to ask who I was.
"Your mother taught your mother?"
The question came suddenly.
I looked confused.
"My mother?"
"Lucia Caruso."
I nodded.
"Yes."
Matteo stepped closer.
"Tell me everything."
I looked away.
I had spent years trying to forget.
But now the past had found me.
"My mother worked here."
His expression changed.
"Here?"
"Before you became the owner."
The room felt colder.
"She was your mother’s assistant."
Matteo stared at me.
"My mother never had an assistant named Lucia."
I almost smiled.
Not because it was funny.
Because I expected that answer.
"She wouldn’t."
"Why?"
"Because your family didn’t call her an assistant."
Matteo waited.
"They called her something else."
The silence between us grew heavier.
"What?"
I looked at the old photographs.
"They called her a problem."
For the first time, Matteo looked genuinely confused.
"My mother loved everyone."
I shook my head.
"No."
The word came out softer than I intended.
"Your mother loved people who had nobody."
I stepped closer to the piano.
"She helped my mother when she had nowhere to go."
"Why would she hide that?"
I looked at him.
"Because someone wanted it hidden."
Matteo’s expression hardened.
"Who?"
I didn’t answer.
Because I didn’t know.
Not completely.
But I knew one thing.
My mother had been afraid.
The night before she died, she gave me the violin.
She held my hand.
And she made me promise something.
Never play the song unless Matteo Vescari hears it.
At the time, I didn’t understand.
I thought it was just a strange request from a dying woman.
Now I understood.
She had been waiting for this moment.
Matteo walked toward the desk.
There was an old wooden drawer beneath the piano.
He pulled it open.
Inside were dozens of papers.
Letters.
Photographs.
Documents.
All hidden away.
His eyes moved quickly.
Then stopped.
He picked up one envelope.
The handwriting on the front made him freeze.
Because I recognized it.
I had seen it hundreds of times.
My mother’s handwriting.
Matteo opened it carefully.
Inside was a single page.
He read the first line.
Then his face changed.
"What does it say?" I asked.
He didn’t answer.
His fingers tightened around the paper.
"Rosa..."
The way he said my name made my stomach drop.
"What?"
He looked at me.
"My mother knew you existed."
I felt the room disappear around me.
"What do you mean?"
He handed me the letter.
My hands shook as I read the words.
Rosa,
If Matteo ever hears the unfinished melody, it means the truth has finally returned.
Protect her.
She is the only person who can reveal what happened that night.
I looked up.
"Protect who?"
Matteo didn’t answer.
Because his eyes had moved to the bottom of the letter.
To a signature.
Not Lucia’s.
Someone else’s.
A name written beneath the message.
A name that made Matteo take a step backward.
May you like
Because it belonged to someone who was supposed to have died twenty-five years ago.
Then the old music room door slowly opened behind us.
