Chapter 1 - The Song Beneath the Chandeliers.
.The Grand Bellmont ballroom glowed beneath three crystal chandeliers, and every table shimmered with silver, white roses, and glasses of champagne.
Anna Mercer moved through the crowd with the smooth balance of a woman who had carried too many trays to fear a crowded room.
Her auburn hair was tied in a low ponytail, her white shirt was crisp despite the heat, and a black apron lay flat against her trousers.
She had been working at the hotel for eleven months, long enough to recognize wealthy men who expected servants to become invisible.
Tonight was different because the guests were unusually quiet whenever the bald man in the dark suit looked in their direction.
Anna did not know his full history, but she knew his name.
Luca Moretti.
Even the hotel manager had lowered his voice when he explained that the private banquet was for the Moretti Foundation and that no mistakes would be tolerated.
Anna smiled anyway because smiling kept people calm, and calm people spilled less champagne.
As she passed the center tables, a melody rose unconsciously from her throat.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine," she sang under her breath.
The words were ordinary, but Anna changed the last notes in the strange way she always had, adding a soft three-note hum she could never explain.
At a table near the stage, seven-year-old Sofia Moretti froze.
The little girl wore a light blue princess dress, and a sparkly clip held half of her brown hair away from her face.
Her small hands tightened around the armrests of a pink wheelchair.
Luca was speaking with an attorney when he felt his daughter's body go rigid beside him.
"Sofia?"
She did not look at him.
Her eyes followed Anna through the crowd.
"Mama," Sofia breathed.
Luca stopped speaking.
"What did you say?"
Sofia pushed hard against the chair.
Luca reached for her shoulder because she had not taken an unsupported step in nearly four years.
"No, sweetheart. Don't."
Sofia rose anyway.
Her knees shook violently.
A nearby woman gasped.
Luca shot to his feet.
"Sofia!"
The girl took one step, then another, then broke into a desperate uneven run.
The entire ballroom seemed to turn toward her at once.
Anna heard the commotion and looked over her shoulder.
The silver tray slipped from her hand.
Four champagne flutes struck the marble and exploded around her shoes.
For one impossible second, she could not breathe.
The child running toward her had a face Anna had seen in dreams she could never remember after waking.
Sofia crashed into her with both arms extended.
Anna dropped to her knees among the broken glass and caught her.
"Mama, I found you!"
Anna's hands began to tremble.
She pulled the little girl closer, and a smell of strawberry shampoo struck her with the force of a door opening inside her head.
A dark nursery.
A blue blanket.
A tiny hand curled around her finger.
A man's laugh in the hallway.
Then rain.
Then headlights.
Then nothing.
Luca stood ten feet away, staring at Anna as if the floor beneath him had vanished.
"That song," he whispered.
Anna looked up through tears she did not understand.
Luca's face hardened, not with anger but with terror.
"Only one person knew that ending."
Behind him, Victor Sanz, Luca's most trusted lieutenant, went perfectly still.
May you like
Then Victor slipped one hand into his jacket, pulled out his phone, and sent a message containing only four words.
She is alive. Fix it.
