Chapter 2: The Box He Was Never Supposed to Open
That night, Marco didn't sleep.
He sat in his car outside the estate for two hours, staring at nothing.
Then he drove to a storage unit on the edge of the city that Damiano didn't know existed.
Inside was a single box.
He opened it with shaking hands.
Beneath old newspaper clippings and a folded legal document was a photograph.
A young woman on a Brooklyn stoop.
Summer.
She was laughing, holding a small gray rabbit with blue stitching around the paws.
Written on the back in faded ink:
*Elena.
July.
The last good day.*
Marco sat down on the concrete floor.
Elena Vitale had d!sappeared four years ago.
No body.
No crjme scene.
Just gone — and Damiano had spent eighteen months looking before he finally accepted she wasn't coming back.
He never knew about the pregnancy.
Marco had made sure of that.
Because Marco was the one who had told Elena to run.
He pressed his hands against his face.
Serena wasn't just a housekeeper who happened to share Elena's last name.
Lucia wasn't just some child who happened to own a rabbit exactly like the one in this photograph.
And Damiano Conti wasn't just their employer.
Marco's phone buzzed.
A reply to his earlier message.
*How much does she know?*
He stared at the screen.
Then at the photograph.
Then he typed back slowly.
*Enough to destroy everything.
May you like
Or fix it.
I haven't decided which yet.*
