THE PRICE OF SILENCE IN THE ROMANO HOUSE

“Give me the locket, Hannah,” he said smoothly.

I pushed Lily behind me. My mind raced. How had he bypassed the nurses so quickly?

“If you touch her in a medical facility, there will be cameras and police,” I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Nico wouldn’t want a scandal.”

Marcus laughed softly. “Nico thinks Lily is having a manic episode. He thinks she ran away to a hotel. I’m not here on Nico’s orders.”

Bianca.

The deposit slip in my hand suddenly felt like holding a live grenade. Bianca was paying Marcus. Bianca was the one trying to drag Lily out of a secure psychiatric ward.

But why?

“We’re leaving,” I said, gripping the locket tightly.

“You aren’t going anywhere. Neither is she.” Marcus took a step forward.

“If I don’t text my sister in five minutes, she forwards a file to the police,” I lied smoothly. I didn’t have a sister. But Marcus didn’t know that. “She already has pictures of the receipt Bianca tried to frame me with tonight.”

Marcus hesitated. That split second of doubt was all I needed.

I grabbed the heavy ceramic lamp from the bedside table and hurled it directly at the window.

The glass shattered with a deafening crash. Alarms instantly began blaring through the quiet facility. Red lights strobed in the hallway.

Nurses were shouting. Footsteps thundered toward the door.

Marcus cursed violently. He couldn’t be caught assaulting a patient. He shot me a venomous glare, pulled the hood of his jacket up, and slipped out the door just as a team of orderlies came rushing down the corridor.

I turned back to Lily. She was shaking violently.

“They’ll move you to a secure floor now,” I told her quickly, slipping the locket into my bra. “Marcus can’t get to you. You’re safe for tonight.”

“He won’t stop,” Lily cried. “Bianca needs me silenced before my trust fund unlocks on my twentieth birthday next month. If I’m declared mentally unfit, she gets everything.”

I froze.

The narrative Bianca had spun for years—that Lily was deeply unstable and a danger to herself—suddenly made horrifying sense.

“I need you to be brave,” I told her, holding her face. “I am going to fix this. But I need to know where the rest of the proof is.”

Lily swallowed hard. “In the old pool house. Beneath the loose floorboard under the heater. There’s a red leather book.”

I left the facility an hour later, only after watching the head doctor personally transfer Lily to a locked, restricted-access wing.

When I drove back onto the Romano estate, it was 2:00 AM. The massive house was dark.

I crept through the back gardens toward the abandoned pool house. The air smelled of damp earth and chlorine. I pushed the rusted door open and clicked on a small flashlight.

I found the heater. I pried up the rotting floorboard.

My fingers brushed against worn leather. I pulled the red book out.

It wasn't a diary. It was a shadow ledger.

I opened the first page, shining my light on the neat, handwritten columns.

But the handwriting wasn't Bianca’s.

It was Nico’s.