CHAPTER 2 – THE FOUR NOTES
CHAPTER 2 – THE FOUR NOTES
The first time I entered the Moretti estate, I expected marble, guards, and silence.
I was right.
What I did not expect was grief.
It hung in every hallway heavier than the crystal chandeliers.
Portraits lined the walls, but one appeared again and again.
A woman with dark hair.
Gentle eyes.
A smile that somehow made the enormous mansion feel smaller.
I stopped in front of the largest painting.
"His mother?" I asked quietly.
The housekeeper nodded.
"Mrs. Elena Moretti."
She lowered her voice.
"She died five years ago."
Before I could ask another question, Leo appeared at the end of the hallway.
He wasn't looking at me.
He was staring at the piano in the music room.
The same piano had belonged to his mother.
Lessons with Leo were nothing like teaching ordinary children.
Some days he spoke.
Some days he communicated only by tapping rhythms against the bench.
I learned not to force conversations.
Music was already a language.
We simply needed to listen.
Instead of scales, we played colors.
Blue was soft.
Green sounded like rain.
Silver meant silence.
When he became overwhelmed, we stopped.
No pressure.
No disappointment.
Only patience.
By the end of the second week, he began waiting for me by the front window every morning.
The staff noticed.
Even Dante noticed.
"You've done more in fourteen days than six specialists managed in three years," he said one evening.
"I didn't fix him."
I looked toward Leo, who was quietly arranging sheet music by color.
"I simply stopped trying to change him."
For the first time, Dante had no reply.
But someone else was watching.
As I left the estate that night, a black SUV rolled slowly beside me.
Its windows stayed dark.
It never stopped.
It simply followed.
When I reached my apartment building, it disappeared.
Waiting outside my door was another black envelope.
Inside...
A single photograph.
My younger sister, Emma.
Walking home from chemotherapy.
Someone had circled her in red ink.
On the back were six handwritten words.
He loves the boy too much.
No signature.
No fingerprints.
Just the unmistakable feeling that someone wanted me afraid.
I called Dante immediately.
"I got another envelope."
His voice hardened instantly.
"Don't touch anything else."
"I already did."
"Stay where you are."
Twenty minutes later, three black vehicles surrounded my apartment building.
Men in tailored suits searched every floor.
Neighbors peeked through their curtains.
No one dared ask questions.
Dante himself examined the envelope without speaking.
Finally he looked at me.
"This isn't random."
"You know who sent it?"
"I know who wants me distracted."
"And Leo?"
His jaw tightened.
"They've realized he is my weakness."
The following morning, security around the mansion doubled.
Metal gates remained locked.
Armed guards stood in every corridor.
Leo noticed immediately.
He hated change.
His breathing quickened.
His hands covered his ears.
I knelt beside him.
"No music today?"
He looked toward the old grand piano.
Then, without warning, he walked straight to it.
He climbed onto the bench.
Placed both hands on the keys.
Closed his eyes.
And played.
Four notes.
Slow.
Gentle.
Perfectly spaced.
Dante, halfway through signing paperwork, froze.
The pen slipped from his fingers.
His face turned white.
The room became completely silent.
Even the guards stopped moving.
Leo repeated the melody.
Again.
And again.
Dante whispered only one word.
"Impossible..."
I looked between father and son.
"What is it?"
He didn't answer.
Instead he crossed the room so quickly his chair crashed onto the floor behind him.
"Leo."
His voice shook.
"Who taught you that?"
Leo kept staring at the piano.
"Mom."
Every person in the room exchanged confused looks.
One guard quietly made the sign of the cross.
I frowned.
"His mother died years ago."
Dante's breathing became uneven.
"No."
He stared at the piano as though it had become a ghost.
"Those aren't just four notes."
"What are they?"
His eyes filled with something I never imagined a man like Dante Moretti could feel.
Fear.
"They're Elena's signal."
He swallowed hard.
"Our code."
"What code?"
"The one she promised..." His voice nearly broke.
"...she would only ever use if she was alive."
The room fell deathly still.
Before anyone could speak again—
An elderly butler appeared in the doorway, pale as paper.
"Sir..."
He was trembling.
"We've just received an anonymous package."
"What package?"
The butler handed Dante a small wooden music box wrapped in black ribbon.
There was no address.
No return label.
Only one sentence carved into the lid.
YOU HEARD HER SONG. NOW FIND HER BEFORE THEY DO.
Dante slowly opened the box.
Inside lay a silver wedding ring.
The exact ring buried with Elena Moretti five years earlier.
May you like
And beneath it...
A fresh train ticket dated yesterday.
