Chapter 4 - THE PHOTOGRAPH BENEATH THE DINING ROOM FLOORBOARDS
I couldn’t breathe.
The dining room was pitch black, filled with the smell of gunpowder and the sound of men shouting.
The hand over my mouth was trembling, the cast on her right arm pressing heavily against my shoulder in the dark.
“Caroline?” I whispered in shock as her hand slipped away.
“Follow me. Stay low,” she urged.
How was she inside the house? Marco had just tossed the bloody chess piece on the table, implying she was being held captive somewhere else.
I dropped to my knees, crawling blindly over the expensive Persian rug. Glass crunched beneath my hands. Above us, the chaos escalated—the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor, a second gunshot, and Luca’s terrifyingly calm voice giving orders to someone I couldn't see.
Caroline grabbed my apron string, guiding me toward the hidden servant’s panel in the wainscoting.
She pushed it open, pulling us into the narrow, unlit corridor behind the dining room walls.
The door clicked shut.
The silence in the tight passageway was sudden and heavy.
Caroline slumped against the brick wall, gasping in pain. In the dim light filtering through the air vents, I saw her properly.
Her beautiful face was bruised. Her right arm was wrapped in a crude, bloody cast. But her eyes were fierce, burning with a maternal desperation that made my own chest ache.
“Mrs. Moretti… how did you get in here?” I asked, tearing a piece of my white apron to bind a cut on her forehead.
“I never left,” she gasped, leaning her head back. “When Vanessa’s men grabbed me at the gate, one of Luca’s old guards recognized me. He hid me in the cellar before Marco could drag me to Don Bellini.”
“But the chess piece…”
“A distraction,” she whispered. “Luca gave me that wooden knight on our first anniversary. He knew exactly what it meant. It means ‘The Queen is in the castle.’”
My mind raced. Luca had plunged the room into darkness not to fight Marco, but to give Caroline the cover she needed to move.
“We have to find Benjamin,” Caroline said, struggling to stand. “Vanessa wasn’t just planning to send him to Switzerland, Rachel. I heard her on the phone in the cellar. The boarding school is a front. Don Bellini is going to use Ben as a hostage to keep Luca in line permanently.”
My stomach turned to ice.
“Mrs. Carter took him to the kitchen,” I said quickly. “Come on.”
We hurried down the narrow passageway. The air smelled of dust and old wood.
But when we pushed open the hidden door leading into the massive kitchen, it was empty.
The stainless steel counters gleamed under the emergency lights.
A single small chocolate cake sat on the island.
Next to it was an unlit birthday candle.
But Benjamin and Mrs. Carter were gone.
“No,” Caroline choked, rushing to the counter. “No, no, no.”
She grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself, tears finally spilling over her bruised cheeks.
Then I saw it.
Tucked beneath the small chocolate cake was a folded piece of paper.
I pulled it out and opened it.
It was a photograph.
It looked old, the edges worn and yellowed.
It was a picture of a younger Vanessa Bellini, standing next to a man who looked remarkably like Luca.
But it wasn't Luca.
The man in the photo had his arm wrapped around Vanessa’s waist, and she was holding a newborn baby wrapped in a blue blanket.
I turned the photograph over.
Written in faded ink were three words:
For our son.
My heart stopped.
“Mrs. Moretti,” I whispered, handing her the photo.
Caroline stared at it. The color completely vanished from her face.
“This is why she hates Benjamin,” Caroline breathed, her hand trembling. “This is why her father demanded this marriage.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Who is that man?”
“Matteo,” Caroline whispered. “Luca’s older brother. He was killed nine years ago.”
The pieces slammed together with sickening force.
“Vanessa had a baby with Luca’s brother?” I asked, horrified.
Caroline looked up at me, her eyes wide with a terrifying realization.
“The baby died, Rachel. That’s what everyone was told. But if she’s hiding this picture…”
Before she could finish, the kitchen doors burst open.
Standing in the doorway was Mrs. Carter.
But her warm, grandmotherly face was completely devoid of emotion.
In her right hand, she held Benjamin tightly by his little collar.
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In her left hand, she pointed a suppressed pistol directly at Caroline’s chest.
“I’m sorry, Caroline,” Mrs. Carter said softly. “But Don Bellini pays better than Luca does.”
