Fear.
Not for himself.
For someone else.
“Your mother.”
I froze.
“My mother?”
“She worked here.”
I stared at him.
“My mother never told me that.”
“She couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Rafe threatened her.”
My hands started shaking.
“What does my mother have to do with your daughter?”
Emilio opened another file.
Inside was a birth certificate.
The mother’s name was Eleanor Grace Corsaro.
The father’s name was Emilio Corsaro.
But the address listed beneath it was not Corsaro House.
It was my childhood home.
I couldn’t breathe.
“That can’t be right.”
Emilio whispered.
“Etta, your mother didn’t work here because she was a maid.”
He paused.
“She worked here because she was protecting my daughter.”
I stared at the papers.
The room seemed to tilt.
Then someone knocked on the hidden door.
Once.
Twice.
A woman’s voice came through.
“Etta?”
I knew that voice.
My mother.
But my mother had been dead for seven years.
PART 4 — THE SECRET EMILIO BURIED
I couldn’t move.
“Mom?”
The voice came again.
“Etta, don’t trust him.”
Emilio’s face changed.
He looked toward the hidden door.
Then at me.
“She’s alive.”
“No.”
“I thought she was dead too.”
My hands were trembling.
“Open it.”
Emilio shook his head.
