Chapter 1 - THE CRY IN THE MARBLE HALL
By the time the clock above the Varric mansion’s east corridor struck two in the morning,
nine-month-old Nico Varric had been crying for nearly an hour. His screams traveled through
the marble foyer, climbed the gold-trimmed staircase, and ricocheted beneath a chandelier
large enough to light a theater. Even the armed men stationed near the doors had stopped
pretending the sound did not make them uneasy, because there are some emergencies no amount
of training can solve.
Matteo Varric stood at the center of the foyer with his son pressed against his chest,
looking nothing like the ruthless businessman the newspapers described. His white shirt was
wrinkled, one cuff was undone, and a shadow of beard darkened his jaw. Outside the house,
powerful men measured their words before speaking his name, but inside that vast and silent
mansion he was simply a father who could not make his baby stop hurting.
“Come on, Nico,” Matteo whispered, bouncing him gently. “Please, son. Just breathe.” The
word please sounded almost foreign in his mouth, and the two bodyguards noticed it. One of
them, Rafe, had seen Matteo face a room full of hostile investors without blinking. The
other, Julian, had once watched him stand beside a burning warehouse while police lights
painted the night red and blue. Neither man had ever seen fear in Matteo Varric’s eyes until
he looked down at the child trembling against him.
Across the foyer, Liana Graves entered carrying a stack of folded linens. She had been hired
less than forty-eight hours earlier as a temporary maid, the kind of employee whose name
usually disappeared into the machinery of a large estate. She wore a dark red uniform with a
white collar, plain shoes, and a small brass name tag that caught the chandelier light every
time she moved. She had promised the housekeeper she would work quietly, ask no questions,
and keep her grief to herself.
Then Nico screamed again, and the folded linens slipped from her arms. They landed across
the polished floor in a fan of white cotton. Liana did not bend to pick them up. She stood
frozen, one hand pressed to her stomach, because the cry had gone through her like a blade
and opened a place she had spent twenty-two days trying to close.
Twenty-two days earlier, Liana had stood beneath a gray sky while a small white coffin was
lowered into wet earth. Her son, Daniel, had been seven months old. A sudden illness had
taken him before Liana could understand how a child could be warm in the morning and gone
before another sunrise.
Since the funeral, every ordinary sound had become dangerous. A stroller wheel on the
sidewalk made her turn. A baby laughing in a grocery store made her abandon a cart in the
middle of an aisle. At night, she still woke with her arms curved around empty blankets,
listening for a cry that would never come.
She had taken the job at the Varric estate because grief did not pay rent. Grief did not
care about overdue electricity bills or the notice taped to her apartment door. She had told
herself that scrubbing floors, polishing silver, and carrying laundry through rooms too
expensive to feel real would keep her body moving until her heart remembered how.
Nobody had told her there was a baby in the house. Nico’s cry cracked again. Liana looked
up, and for a brief second she did not see Matteo, the guards, the chandelier, or the
mansion. She saw Daniel in a dark hospital room, arching his small back while she begged a
nurse to do something.
Her feet moved before her mind gave permission. Rafe immediately stepped forward. “Ma’am,
stop.” Liana kept walking. Matteo looked up. His exhausted face changed in an instant,
hardening into the expression that had built his reputation. “Who are you?”
Liana stopped several feet away, breathing quickly. The red uniform suddenly felt childish
under his stare. “Liana Graves. I’m new. House staff.” “You’re not assigned to the nursery.”
“I know.”
“Then step back.” She should have obeyed. Every sensible instinct told her that a woman
employed for two days did not approach a man like Matteo Varric and ask to touch his child.
But Nico’s cries had changed pitch, becoming hoarse and frightened, and something ancient in
Liana rose above common sense.
“Let me hold him.” The room went still in a way that had nothing to do with silence. Even
Nico’s crying seemed to hang suspended for half a heartbeat. Matteo stared at her. “No.”
Liana swallowed. “I know how that sounds.”
“It sounds insane.” “I know.” “Then why are you still standing there?” Her eyes moved to
Nico. “Because he’s not looking at you anymore.” Matteo frowned and followed her gaze. The
baby had turned his face toward Liana.
His cheeks were wet, his lips shaking, his breathing ragged. But he was staring at her with
a strange intensity, as if something in the shape of her face had interrupted his fear. Nico
stopped screaming.
Not entirely. A broken sob still escaped him, then another. But the terrible sound that had
filled the mansion weakened into uncertain whimpers. Liana’s breath caught. Matteo felt it
too. His arms tightened around his son, not possessively but protectively, as if he suddenly
understood that something unusual was happening and did not yet know whether it was a
blessing or a threat.
Nico leaned forward. Both of his tiny arms reached toward Liana. Rafe muttered something
under his breath. Julian looked at Matteo for an order, but none came. Liana stood
motionless, her own arms half-raised. “He wants to come to me.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Matteo said. “No.” Nico reached harder, twisting against his
father’s chest until Matteo had to adjust his hold. Then the baby made a small sound, almost
a word but not quite, and looked straight into Liana’s face.
There was no curiosity in that expression. There was relief. Liana’s skin turned cold. She
had seen babies study strangers. She had seen them smile at a new face or cry when someone
unfamiliar held them. Nico was doing neither.
He looked as if he knew her. Matteo saw the same thing, and the suspicion in his eyes began
to mix with something darker. “Have you met my son before?” “No.” “Have you ever been in
this house?”
“No.” “Did someone send you here?” Liana flinched. “No.” The questions came fast because
that was how Matteo handled danger. Identify the source. Close the door. Remove the threat.
But there was no answer he could interrogate out of a crying maid who looked as frightened
as he felt.
Then Liana glanced past his shoulder. Above a walnut console table hung a large portrait of
Matteo beside a beautiful woman in an ivory dress. She was smiling toward the camera, one
hand resting over Matteo’s chest, her dark hair falling in soft waves.
Liana stopped breathing. The chandelier seemed to dim. She took one slow step toward the
photograph. Matteo’s voice sharpened. “What are you doing?” Liana barely heard him. Her eyes
were fixed on the woman in the frame, on the slight crookedness of her smile and the
deep-set brown eyes that had once stared across a shared bedroom every night for seventeen
years.
“No,” Liana whispered. Nico quieted further. Matteo turned toward the portrait, then back to
Liana. “What?” Liana raised a trembling hand. “Who is that woman?” For the first time,
Matteo’s face lost all expression.
“My wife.” Liana’s knees nearly gave way. “What was her name?” “Elena.” Liana closed her
eyes. When she opened them, tears stood in them. “That wasn’t her name.” The guards shifted.
Matteo lowered his voice. “Explain.”
Liana stared at the portrait as if the dead woman might step out of it and answer for
herself. “Her name was Mara Graves.” The words seemed to change the temperature of the room.
“She was my sister.”
Matteo’s face drained of color. Liana took another step forward, and this time nobody
stopped her. “She disappeared eleven years ago.” Nico reached for her again. And somewhere
May you like
beneath the chandelier, in the first quiet moment the mansion had known all night, Matteo
Varric realized his son was not the only person in the room who had recognized a ghost.
