Almost.
"I asked you a question, Miss Moretti."
Elena took a slow, deep breath, her hands clasped tightly in front of her apron. "It was in the laundry room."
"That doesn't answer the question."
"It was going to be thrown away."
"It was not."
"It had a torn cuff," she insisted, her chin rising slightly in defiance. "The right seam was frayed past the buttonhole. It was sitting in the textile discard hamper."
"I own several shirts with torn cuffs," Matteo said flatly. "I do not throw them away. I have them repaired."
"Then that sounds like a personal management problem," she countered.
Matteo stared at her.
The silence in the room stretched until it felt taut enough to snap. No one—not his project managers, not his senior attorneys, not his security team—spoke to him with that edge of dry, quiet insolence.
Elena seemed to realize she had crossed an invisible line. The color in her cheeks deepened, but she did not drop her eyes.
"I spilled cleaning solvent on my uniform blouse yesterday afternoon," she explained, her voice dropping an octave. "The chemical smell was giving me a migraine. My spare blouse was still in the industrial drier downstairs. Your shirt was sitting in the discard basket by the service elevator. I intended to wash it, press it, and return it to the linen closet before my shift ended today."
Matteo’s eyes narrowed. "I don't have a discard basket by the service elevator."
Elena frowned. "What?"
Matteo took three deliberate steps into the room, closing the distance between them until he was standing less than six feet away. "The laundry room on the second floor is used exclusively for master-suite linens and guest towels. My personal clothing is handled by a private dry-cleaning contractor who picks up on Tuesdays. Nothing of mine ever sits in a discard basket."
Elena’s brow furrowed. "It was there. In a wicker hamper marked Textile Recycling."
"Who told you it was being discarded?"
Elena opened her mouth, hesitated, and thought back. "I asked where I could find a temporary rag or garment while my shirt dried. Juliana was coming out of the pantry. She told me to check the hamper by the elevator. She said anything in there was scheduled for disposal."
Matteo said nothing.
The name hung in the cool air of the library like a heavy frost.
Juliana Vance. His executive assistant. A woman whose father had worked for Antonio Valente thirty years ago. A woman who possessed master keys to every door in the house, who knew the codes to the outer security gates, who scheduled his meetings, managed his personal accounts, and sat three feet outside his study every day from eight to five.
Elena observed the sudden, stony shift in his expression. "Mr. Valente? What is it?"
Before Matteo could answer, the library doors clicked open again.
Marco Reyes walked into the room. He didn't look at the dark wood, the tall windows, or the antique furniture. His eyes were fixed entirely on Matteo.
In his right hand, Marco was holding a clear plastic evidence bag.
Inside the bag, resting against the cheap plastic, was a worn leather strap attached to a scratched stainless-steel case with a cracked crystal face.
The Seiko 7009.
Matteo’s breath stopped in his throat.
"Where?" Matteo’s voice was barely a whisper.
Marco glanced briefly at Elena, his expression unreadable, before looking back at his boss. "Her bedroom. In the third-floor staff quarters."
"Where in the room, Marco?"
"Inside the bottom drawer of her dresser. Wrapped in a black wool scarf."
The library descended into an absolute, suffocating silence.
Elena stared at the plastic bag in Marco’s hand. Her eyes widened, her chest rising rapidly as if she had suddenly been plunged into icy water.
"No," she breathed.
Matteo looked at her. The cold, impenetrable visor he wore for the world slid back into place over his face. "I didn't put that there, Miss Moretti."
"Neither did I!" Her voice rang out, sharp and clear, bouncing off the tall glass bookcases. "I have never seen that watch in my life!"
"It was in your room, Elena," Marco said quietly, his tone devoid of malice, carrying only the flat weight of a man reporting a physical fact. "The door was locked. You have the only key besides the house manager."
"Then someone else has a key!" She spun toward Matteo, taking an aggressive step toward him, ignoring Marco entirely. "If someone put that watch in my room, then whoever stole it wanted you to find it there! Don't you see that?"
Matteo stared at her. His mind was working with terrifying speed, processing variables, timelines, and security protocols. "You expect me to believe you were set up?"
"No," she snapped, her dark eyes flashing with a sudden, furious fire that burned away every trace of her domestic deference. "I don't expect you to believeanything. I expect you to use those damn cameras you installed!"
Matteo’s jaw tightened. "How do you know about the cameras?"
Elena let out a short, bitter laugh. "Because you're not as subtle as you think you are, Mr. Valente. The brass sconce in the ballroom has a reflected glare that wasn't there two weeks ago. The decorative molding in the East Gallery has a tiny patch of fresh plaster around the acanthus leaves. You turned this house into a panopticon because you don't trust the people who clean your floors."
She took another step closer, standing directly in front of him now, her head tilted up to meet his eyes.
"You installed them because you trust nobody," she whispered, her voice trembling not with fear, but with an overwhelming, righteous anger. "So don't start trusting evidence now just because it gives you an easy answer."
That sentence hung in the air long after she stopped speaking.
Don't start trusting evidence just because it gives you an easy answer.
Matteo looked at Marco. "Take the watch to my study. Lock the door. Nobody enters or leaves the staff quarters until I give the order."
"Matteo—" Marco began.
"Now, Marco."
Marco grunted, cast one last long, suspicious look at Elena, and left the room, his heavy boots echoing down the hallway.
Matteo looked down at Elena. "Come with me."
Twenty minutes later, Matteo and Marco were sitting in the security room behind the study. Elena stood against the far wall, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, watching the bank of high-definition monitors.
Matteo was leaning over the main console, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard as he pulled up the historical footage for Camera Thirty-Two—the unit mounted inside the smoke detector in the third-floor staff corridor.
"This is last night," Matteo said, his voice clipped. "11:00 PM."
On the screen, the dimly lit hallway of the staff wing was quiet. The doors were closed.
"Fast-forward to 11:13," Matteo ordered.