Chapter 2 - The Portrait in the Attic
The estate's private medical suite smelled faintly of antiseptic and old wool. Dr. Sterling, a quiet man who had patched up my father's crew for thirty years, finished checking Mia's pulse and pulled down his stethoscope.
"She's completely healthy," Sterling said, closing his leather bag. "A little undernourished, exhausted from walking, and her feet are blistered from what looks like miles of rough terrain. But there's no sign of trauma, abuse, or drugs. She just collapsed from pure exhaustion."
"How long will she sleep?" I asked, standing by the tall window that overlooked the courtyard.
"Couple of hours at least. When a child that small hits a wall like that, her body takes over." Sterling hesitated, his fingers resting on the latch of his bag. "Damian... where did she come from?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out."
He glanced toward the bed where Mia lay tucked beneath a wool blanket, her battered rabbit clutched tightly in her arms. "She looks startlingly familiar, you know. Around the eyes. Though at my age, ghosts tend to look like everyone."
"What did you say?" I turned sharply.
"Nothing. Just an old man's wandering mind. It's the chin, mostly. Reminds me of—never mind." He snapped his bag shut. "Let me know when she wakes. She'll need fluids and something soft to eat."
He left the room, his footsteps fading down the marble corridor. I walked over to the bedside and picked up the stuffed rabbit. The silver pocket watch lay on the bedside table, ticking with a steady, mechanical rhythm that felt like a countdown.
I left the room under Luca's watchful eye and climbed the narrow spiral staircase leading to the third-floor archive—a room that hadn't been unlocked since my father's death. The air was thick with the scent of cedar, old leather, and dust motes dancing in the shafts of afternoon light.
I walked past crates of ledgers and stacks of old shipping manifests until I reached the far wall. There, hanging behind a velvet drape that had faded to a dull purple, was a large oil portrait of my father, painted during his fiftieth birthday.
In the painting, Anthony Romano sat in his study, a glass of amber scotch in one hand and his gold-rimmed reading glasses in the other. Across his vest pocket, glinting in the painted light, was the silver watch.
I reached out and touched the canvas, then pulled the pocket watch from my pocket and held it up beside the painting. The match was exact down to the microscopic scratch near the winding stem—a scar my father had earned during a dockyard fight in Philadelphia back in 1974.
"You found it," a voice said from the doorway.
I didn't turn around. I already knew the heavy, measured cadence of those footsteps.
"Mateo," I said quietly.
My uncle stepped out of the shadows, his silver hair neatly combed, his tailored suit immaculate despite the afternoon hour. He looked at the painting, then down at the watch in my hand, and finally at my face.
"Luca told me a child walked through the gates," Mateo said, his voice dangerously calm. "And I came up here because I knew you'd be staring at a ghost. Where is she, Damian?"
"Sleeping," I replied, turning to face him. "And the more important question is why you didn't tell me my father's watch wasn't buried with him."
Mateo didn't flinch. Instead, a heavy, sorrowful sigh escaped his lips as he walked slowly toward the portrait.
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"Because," Mateo said softly, "your father wasn't wearing it when he died in the boathouse. And the person who took it wasn't an assassin. It was someone your father was trying very hard to protect."
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