# CHAPTER 13 — THE SEALED WING
They escaped Grand Central through a maintenance exit before the false officers could reach the platform.
By the time Alejandro returned to the estate, every entrance had been reinforced.
The photograph of Kiara lay on the study desk.
The grandfather clock behind her had belonged to Alejandro’s mother.
It stood inside the mansion’s eastern wing.
The wing had been sealed since Kiara’s death.
Alejandro had ordered the doors locked because he could not bear to see her nursery.
Bruno checked the security system.
“No door alarm was triggered.”
“Then someone entered another way,” Lucia said.
Matteo looked toward the fireplace.
“The old servant tunnels.”
Alejandro turned on him.
“You knew?”
“I knew they existed. Your grandfather used them during federal investigations.”
The eastern wing doors were opened.
Dust covered the corridor.
White sheets concealed the furniture.
At the end of the hall stood Kiara’s bedroom.
Alejandro remained outside for several seconds.
Then Emma slipped her hand into his.
“You can be scared,” she said. “I get scared too.”
Alejandro looked down at her.
No one had spoken to him that way since Kiara.
He opened the door.
The room looked exactly as it had three years earlier.
A tiny bed.
Painted clouds.
Shelves filled with books.
A stuffed bear beside the pillow.
But the dust on the floor had been disturbed.
Small footprints led toward the closet.
Bruno opened it.
Behind the dresses was a narrow wooden panel.
The passage beyond smelled of damp stone.
They followed it downward.
The tunnel ended beneath the eastern staircase.
There, they found a hidden apartment.
A child had lived inside recently.
A plate held half-eaten bread.
A blanket was still warm.
Drawings covered the walls.
Houses.
Rabbits.
A dark-haired man holding a little girl’s hand.
On one wall, pencil marks measured a child’s height over three years.
K — AGE 4.
K — AGE 5.
K — AGE 6.
The newest line read:
K — AGE 7.
Alejandro touched it.
Kiara had been growing inside his mansion.
Close enough to hear him walking above her.
Close enough to know he had mourned her.
Mara found another drawing beneath the bed.
It showed Kiara beside a man wearing a driver’s cap.
“Daniel,” Mara whispered.
Emma pointed at a third figure.
The person had no face.
Only a silver wolf drawn on the chest.
Beneath it, Kiara had written:
THE MAN WHO SAYS HE IS MY UNCLE.
Alejandro looked toward Bruno.
Bruno had no children and no blood relation to Kiara.
Matteo was her godfather, but she had always called him Uncle Matteo.
Nico was her actual cousin.
Then Lucia found a photograph hidden behind the drawing.
It showed Daniel Carter standing beside Kiara.
On the other side of the child stood a man everyone in the room recognized.
Teresa Vale’s missing son.
Michael.
The photograph was dated two weeks after Michael supposedly disappeared.
On the back, someone had written:
MICHAEL KNOWS WHERE DANIEL IS BURIED.
A floorboard creaked above them.
Bruno raised his weapon.
Someone was walking through Kiara’s nursery.
Then a woman’s voice called through the tunnel.
May you like
“Alejandro?”
It was Teresa Vale.
