Chapter 3 - The Shadow of the Past
The room they gave Hannah in the east wing was larger than her entire apartment in Queens. It featured a king-sized bed wrapped in ivory Egyptian cotton sheets, a private marble bathroom with a deep soaking tub, and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the misty gardens at the rear of the estate.
On the bed lay four garment bags containing fresh, expensive cashmere sweaters, tailored trousers, silk blouses, and leather flats—all in her exact size, delivered by a high-end Fifth Avenue boutique within two hours of her arrival.
Hannah spent twenty minutes standing under a hot shower, letting the scald of the water wash away the smell of spilled Chianti, stale coffee, and subway dust. As she dried her hair with a plush white towel, she stared at her reflection in the gilded bathroom mirror.
Her pale skin was scrubbed raw, her blue eyes wide with fatigue, dark circles smudged beneath her lower lashes. She looked like a ghost hiding inside a castle built by a murderer.
Why did they call me Mama? she asked her reflection for the hundredth time.
There was no rational answer. She had never been pregnant. She had never adopted. She had spent her twenties buried under stack after stack of term papers, medical bills, and double shifts. Her romantic life was practically non-existent.
A soft knock at her bedroom door interrupted her thoughts.
Hannah wrapped a thick grey cashmere cardigan over a white silk shirt, adjusted her dark trousers, and walked across the plush rug to open the door.
Standing in the hallway was a woman in her late fifties, wearing an immaculate black suit with a silver brooch pinned to her lapel. Her grey hair was styled into a sharp, elegant bob, and her posture was rigid, professional, and entirely unwelcoming.
"Miss Mercer," the woman said, her voice dry and precise. "I am Victoria Vance. Mr. Vale's personal secretary and administrator of the Vale estate."
"Hello," Hannah said cautiously.
Victoria did not offer a smile. Her sharp blue eyes swept over Hannah, evaluating her clothing, her hair, and her posture with calculating efficiency. "Mr. Vale has instructed me to ensure you have everything you require for your stay. Your father's debt to New York-Presbyterian was settled forty minutes ago via wire transfer. A formal receipt has been emailed to your personal address."
Hannah swallowed hard, feeling a strange mixture of immense relief and sickening panic. The debt that had haunted her sleep for fourteen months, the debt that had driven her to work three brutal jobs, was gone with a single keystroke from a mobster's computer.
"Thank you," Hannah murmured.
"Do not thank me," Victoria replied coolly. "Thank Mr. Vale's obsession with his children's welfare. Now, if you will follow me, dinner is served at seven o'clock sharp in the small dining room. Mr. Vale expects punctuality."
Hannah followed Victoria down a grand spiral staircase, her leather flats making almost no sound against the thick hallway runners. As they passed through a quiet gallery lined with dark oak paneling, Hannah noticed a lone oil painting hanging in a dark alcove at the end of the hall.
Unlike the stormy sea landscapes throughout the rest of the house, this painting was a portrait.
It depicted a young woman sitting in a garden chair, wearing a simple yellow sundress. Her light brown hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders, and her pale blue eyes looked out from the canvas with a strange, melancholic stillness.
Hannah stopped dead in her tracks.
"Who is that?" Hannah asked, pointing toward the portrait.
Victoria stopped three steps ahead, turning her head slowly to look at the canvas. A flicker of cold disdain crossed her sharp features.
"That," Victoria said coldly, "was Julianna. Mr. Vale's late wife."
Hannah stepped closer to the painting, her heart giving a violent thud against her ribs.
The woman in the painting was not her twin. Her jaw was rounder, her nose slightly broader, her lips fuller. But there was something in the eyes—the distinct, pale icy blue iris surrounded by a dark outer ring, the slight tilt of the left eyebrow, the thin silver scar barely visible near her hairline—that was hauntingly, impossibly familiar.
It was her own eye color. The exact, rare shade of icy blue that her father used to say was passed down through five generations of Mercer women.
"She looks..." Hannah breathed, unable to finish the sentence.
"She looks like a ghost," Victoria cut in sharply, her tone dropping into a dangerous warning. "Julianna Vale was the daughter of Lorenzo Moretti—a man Mr. Vale eliminated five years ago during the waterfront war. Her marriage to Dominic was a political union meant to secure a cease-fire between two families."
Hannah turned to look at Victoria. "She died having the triplets?"
"She died thirty minutes after a emergency C-section," Victoria confirmed, her eyes narrowing as she stepped closer to Hannah. "And if you are wise, Miss Mercer, you will not ask Mr. Vale about her. He burned every photograph of her in this house the night she was buried. That portrait only remains because the estate's trustees required an official record for the girls' inheritance."
"I didn't mean to pry—"
"You are here for one purpose," Victoria interrupted, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "You are here to act as a therapeutic catalyst for three children who have refused to speak. You are not his wife. You are not their mother. And the moment those girls are speaking in full sentences, Mr. Vale will write you another check and send you back to Queens."
Before Hannah could respond, a heavy mahogany door at the end of the gallery swung open, and Dominic stepped out into the hallway.
He had removed his charcoal suit jacket, wearing only a black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing thick, muscular forearms covered in intricate black tattoos. His hair was slightly damp, as if he had just washed his face, and his dark eyes swept over the two women with sharp suspicion.
"Is there a problem, Victoria?" Dominic asked, his voice low and dangerous.
"None at all, Mr. Vale," Victoria replied smoothly, her cold posture instantly melting into a submissive bow of her head. "I was simply guiding Miss Mercer to the dining room."
"Leave us," Dominic commanded.
Victoria didn't hesitate. She bowed again and walked briskly down the corridor, her high heels clicking rhythmically against the marble floor until she disappeared around the corner.
Dominic walked toward Hannah, stopping three feet away. His eyes lingered on her face for a second longer than necessary, noticing the cashmere sweater and the way her damp hair curled around her collar.
"Did she bother you?" Dominic asked softly.
"No," Hannah lied, turning her head to glance back at the portrait in the alcove. "She was just telling me the rules."
Dominic’s eyes tracked her gaze to the painting of his late wife. His expression darkened instantly, a cold, suffocating pressure filling the space between them.
"You shouldn't be in this wing," Dominic said, his tone flat, stripped of all warmth.
"Why do you keep it?" Hannah asked, surprising herself with her own bravery. "If seeing her face hurts you so much that you burned every other picture, why keep this one?"
Dominic stepped closer, his broad shoulder blocking out the light from the wall sconce behind him.
"I keep it," Dominic whispered, leaning down until his lips were inches from her ear, "to remind myself of what happens when I let weakness into my house."
Hannah felt a cold shiver run down her spine. "I'm not your wife, Mr. Vale."
"No," Dominic agreed, pulling back to look into her pale blue eyes with a dark, intense focus. "You are not. My wife was a liar, a spy sent by her father to put a bullet in my back while I slept."
Hannah gasped, her hand instinctively flying to her throat. "What?"
"She failed," Dominic continued coldly, his dark eyes fixed on Hannah’s face. "And nine months later, she gave birth to three daughters who carry my blood. So if you think those children called you 'Mama' because of some sweet, maternal miracle, Miss Mercer, you are mistaken."
May you like
He turned his back on her, walking toward the double doors of the dining room.
"They called you 'Mama'," Dominic called over his shoulder, "because they recognized something in you that belongs to this house. Now come inside. My daughters are waiting for their dinner."
