Chapter 5 - THE FALSE BOTTOM
“Stay behind me,” Luca ordered.
He grabbed the unconscious man by the collar of his coat, dragging him effortlessly into the nearest guest bathroom and locking the door.
Then he turned back to us.
He didn't look like a groom hosting a party anymore. He looked like the head of the Moretti syndicate.
“Take Leo to the security bunker under the kitchen,” Luca told me. “Do not stop for anything.”
“Wait,” I said, ignoring the sharp protest in my ribs. “What is in the green trunk?”
“If Vanessa left her own son behind to take it, it means Rossi is holding something over her,” Luca said. “Something worse than death.”
He turned and sprinted toward the stairs.
I didn't argue.
I picked Leo up—gritting my teeth as white-hot pain shot through my left side—and hurried down the back servants' staircase.
The kitchen was chaos.
Mrs. Carter and the catering staff were whispering frantically. Security guards were locking the heavy steel doors.
I carried Leo straight to the pantry, pushed aside the heavy flour bins, and opened the reinforced door to the basement bunker.
I set the boy down on the small cot inside.
“Stay here,” I told him, handing him his bear. “You are perfectly safe.”
“Are you leaving?” Leo asked, his big brown eyes filling with tears.
“I will be right back. I promise.”
I locked the bunker door from the outside, ensuring he was secure.
Then I leaned against the wall, trying to catch my breath.
My mind was spinning.
Vanessa was a monster for treating me the way she did. But as a mother? What kind of leverage could make a woman abandon her child to steal an old wooden chest?
I had to know.
I had been in the cedar room. I knew exactly where Vanessa tripped me.
I hurried back up the stairs, avoiding the main dining room where the guests were now being escorted out by Daniel’s men.
I reached the third floor.
The cedar room was empty.
Luca wasn't there.
But the green trunk beneath the window was completely smashed.
The wood was splintered, the lock broken off entirely.
Vanessa hadn't taken the trunk. She had broken it open.
I stepped carefully over the debris.
Inside the trunk were old letters, a few pressed flowers, and the empty space where the recipe book had been.
But the bottom of the trunk looked wrong.
It was elevated. Uneven.
I knelt down, wincing as my bruised ribs screamed in protest.
I pressed my fingers against the bottom panel of the cedar chest.
It moved.
It was a false bottom.
I dug my nails under the edge and pulled the thin sheet of wood up.
Underneath lay a single object.
It wasn't a ledger. It wasn't diamonds.
It was an old, tarnished silver rosary.
Heavy. Distinctive.
I carefully picked it up. Attached to the rosary was a small, handwritten tag.
I read the words written in Luca’s mother’s elegant handwriting.
The confession of Victor Rossi. August 14th, 2018.
My heart pounded against my ribs.
This was it. This was what Vanessa was actually looking for. Not money. Not a ledger of favors.
She was looking for proof.
Proof of whatever Victor Rossi had confessed to Luca’s mother years ago.
Before I could open the small folded paper attached to the rosary, a cold shadow fell over the room.
“Put that down, Hannah.”
I froze.
Standing in the doorway, drenched in rain, with a tear in her red silk gown and mascara running down her face, was Vanessa.
May you like
She was holding a small, silver revolver.
And it was pointed directly at my chest.
