Chapter 3: Two Women Answered Him

Miles was still in the hospital when Mother asked me to join her for dinner at the Bellini house. She wanted us at one table when he returned. For now, she said, we could talk alone.

I sat with my stitched shoulder toward the wall. Mother reached for a serving plate. The dining-room door opened, and a man I didn't recognize walked in with a knife.

"Down!" I pushed Mother's chair away from him. He grabbed my sleeve. I kicked my chair into his knees and tore free, then hauled the table between us. Silverware hit the floor.

Mother called for help. The man vaulted a chair and came at me. I couldn't run past him without leaving her exposed. My shoulder was too weak to hold him off for long.

"Miles sends his regards," he said.

I snatched up the heavy serving plate and threw it at his wrist. It shattered against the floor. His grip didn't loosen. I backed against the wall and looked for anything else I could throw.

Luca appeared in the doorway.

No message from Vee had summoned him. I heard his thought as he saw the knife: Get between them. Now.

He did. The blade cut into his side instead of mine. He grunted, caught the man's wrist, and slammed it against the table. The man grabbed for Luca's gun. Luca got to it first and forced him against the wall until the knife dropped.

Mother was shaking beside her overturned chair. "Who are you?"

"The man your son paid to kill your daughter." Luca took a packet of bills from his pocket and threw it on the table. "Miles offered me this advance to finish her. I refused. He found someone else."

"He's in the hospital," Mother said.

"He has a phone. Ask who he called." Luca kept his gun on the attacker. Blood spread under the hand he pressed to his side.

I had paid Luca to find Miles, but I hadn't asked him to come to dinner. He didn't know I was Vee. He'd stepped in front of that knife without either reason to obey me.

"Nobody buys my gun to hurt Nora again," he said to Mother. "Not Miles. Not anyone."

Mother called the guards from downstairs. Luca held the attacker until they arrived and took him away. I handed Luca a clean napkin. He pressed it to the cut without asking for anything from me.

"You didn't have to do that," I said.

"I know." His face was white. "I saw him enter."

I asked Mother to get someone to treat his wound before she started questioning him. While we waited, I looked at the bills on the table. That was money he could have kept by accepting Miles's offer. He had put it down in front of the person who might take revenge on him for refusing.

I wanted to believe the man who'd protected me. My shoulder still hurt where that same man had shot me. I could be grateful without pretending the bullet had never happened.

Later that night I went to Tessa's room. Luca's unanswered message sat in our chat, but newer messages followed it. There was a voice exchange from this morning. Tessa hadn't ended anything.

She opened her door holding a phone signed into Vee's account. Luca had written: Are you there, Mistress? Her thumb hovered above the microphone.

"You told me you broke up with him."

"I tried. He was hurt."

"You weren't hired to become his girlfriend." I held out my hand. "Give me the phone."

Tessa backed away. "He likes me when I sound like you."

"He thinks you are me."

I caught her wrist with my good hand and took the phone. She reached for it, but I held the lit screen between us. Three years of messages addressed to Vee were open for anyone walking past to read. I was about to make her log out.

Footsteps stopped at the door. Luca stood there, a bandage visible beneath his shirt. His eyes went to the chat screen in my hand. Then he looked at me.

"Vee?" he said.

I lifted my head. Behind me, Tessa answered in my voice: "I'm here."

Luca stared at both of us.