Chapter 1 – The Hollow Floor
Florence, Present Day
The villa stood at the edge of the Arno River, wrapped in wisteria and secrets.
Sofia Leone arrived on a gray morning, her suitcase bumping against the uneven cobblestones as she stepped out of the taxi. The caretaker, a wiry woman named Signora Bellini, greeted her with a brief nod and a skeleton key large enough to anchor a boat.
"You'll find it... quiet," Bellini said, eyeing the shuttered windows. "But this house has its own rhythm. Listen, and it might speak to you."
Sofia offered a polite smile, unsure what to make of that. She was here for history, not ghosts.
Inside, the villa was a fading treasure: frescoed ceilings cracked with age, chandeliers clinging to time with rusted hooks, and fireplaces where dust had settled like snowfall. Her job, funded by the Ricci Foundation, was to document and begin restoring sections of the villa—particularly the north study, where the Caravello family had kept their private archives.
But it wasn't a ledger or map that caught her attention.
It was a loose floorboard.
By the second afternoon, while surveying the paneling, Sofia noticed a warped plank near the fireplace. She crouched and pressed her fingers against it. It gave slightly beneath her touch. Curious, she grabbed a small crowbar from her kit and pried it open.
Beneath was a shallow cavity—and inside it, a tin box wrapped in faded velvet and sealed with a blob of dark wax, the imprint of a lily crest pressed into it.
Her breath caught.
She knew that crest. It had appeared in a manuscript she studied before coming here: the sigil of the Caravello family, who vanished from Florentine nobility in the mid-16th century, their legacy shrouded in scandal and whispers.
Sofia hesitated only a moment before breaking the wax.
The box creaked open.
Inside were letters. Dozens of them, written on parchment browned with time but miraculously preserved. She gently lifted one from the top, its edges curled like autumn leaves. The ink was faded, but the handwriting—elegant, looping—was still legible.
She read the first line aloud:
"To my dearest Matteo, I write to you from the northern tower, where the moonlight spills like silver across the floor, and I pretend it is your hand brushing mine..."
Sofia swallowed. The words gripped her with strange urgency, pulling her across centuries. The letter was signed simply: Beatrice.
Outside, church bells rang noon, echoing through the villa.
Inside, Sofia's world had just changed.