Page 28 of Blood Debt

He walks over and hands me the tablet with the personnel entry log. I scroll. My finger slows.

Alias: Elia Rosetti

Real Name: Serafina Lucia Romano

I look at the face on the screen. It was seven years, but I recall her clearly. The woman who left my bed before I woke. The woman they’ve just sent into my house.

My pulse settles in my throat. I remember waking alone, the sheets still warm, her scent clinging to my skin like a ghost. I had never chased after women, never lowered myself to search for something fleeting. But I broke my own rule then. I had my men sweep Rome, descriptions whispered through the underworld until her name came back to me. Serafina Romano.

A name I told myself to forget. A name I buried by boarding a flight back to Melbourne, convincing myself she was only one night. My fingers tighten on the folder, a muscle jumping in my jaw.

“This has to be a joke,” I mutter.

****

Bellarosa Estate, South Wing Receiving Room

The door opens quietly, and she steps in with her head bowed.

Elia Rossetti. Serafina.

She walks two paces into the room before stopping, eyes fixed somewhere near the floor. Her hands are clasped in front of her—tightly, like she’s holding onto something that might slip if she lets go.

The posture is perfect. Submissive. Trained.

Matteo stands just behind me, arms folded, half leaning against the bookshelf. I don’t look at him. My focus is on her.

Her hair is darker than I remember—chestnut brown, braided and pinned into a tidy coil at the nape of her neck. No makeup, or almost none. Just bare skin, pale and drawn under the eyes, as if sleep and she have had a falling out. She looks thinner. And yet, somehow, she looks younger.

Seven years and not a day etched into her skin. She finally lifts her chin.

Still not enough to look at me directly.

Her voice is soft, lightly accented. Naples, as scripted.

“My name is Elia Rosetti, sir,” she says. “I want to thank you for taking me on. I come from Naples, originally. I was raised in a house for girls just outside Avellino. I’ve worked in homes before—in private estates. I understand privacy. I clean well. I iron. I don’t gossip. You won’t be disappointed.”

She’s breathing fast. A trained cadence. Her hands tighten slightly in front of her skirt.

“I know I don’t have the pedigree others might have, but I promise I’ll make myself useful. I’m grateful to be here.”

A perfect portrait.

And nothing—nothing—gives her away. Except that I know her.

Except that I remember her eyes in candlelight and her fingers in my hair and the sound of her breath when she whispered into my neck. Except that I know what her mouth tastes like when she laughs mid-kiss. She rambles, clearly rehearsed.

But all I can think of is how she left that night without saying goodbye.

I smile.

“Do you have any lovers?” I ask.

She goes still.

The question slices across the room like a blade, clean and quiet.

Matteo lifts his head behind me. Even he glances sideways, eyes narrowing.