Chapter 6 - THE VAULT
The deafening sound of the shotgun racking echoed in the glass confines of the greenhouse like a thunderclap.
Bianca spun around, her face draining of all color. The suppressed 9mm handgun in her hand suddenly looked like a child’s toy compared to the massive black shotgun Lorenzo had leveled at her chest.
“Lorenzo!” Bianca gasped, stumbling backward. “How did you—I saw you pass out at the table!”
“I’ve been faking my own death since before you were born, Bianca,” Lorenzo said, his voice cold and devoid of any emotion. He stepped fully out of the hidden tunnel, brushing the dirt from his tailored trousers. “Or should I call you Bianca Moretti?”
Bianca’s eyes widened in sheer panic.
Answer One. Lorenzo hadn’t just survived the poisoning attempt; he had used the secret tunnels built by his father decades ago to bypass Bianca and reach the greenhouse vault first.
“Drop the gun,” Lorenzo commanded, the barrel of the shotgun aimed squarely at her heart.
Bianca’s hand trembled violently, but she didn’t drop the weapon. Instead, she swung the barrel toward me.
“Don’t take another step, Lorenzo!” Bianca screamed, her voice cracking. “I’ll kill her! I swear to God, I’ll blow a hole right through this maid!”
I froze, the heavy iron meat tenderizer slipping slightly in my sweaty palm. The black, hollow eye of the suppressor was aimed directly at my face.
Lorenzo didn’t flinch. He didn’t lower his weapon. His dark eyes locked onto Bianca with the terrifying, absolute certainty of a predator.
“If you pull that trigger,” Lorenzo said softly, “the spread from this shotgun will cut you in half before her body even hits the floor. Is Dante Marino’s approval really worth dying in a dirty greenhouse?”
Reversal.
Bianca sobbed, her arm shaking uncontrollably. “He raised me! He saved me when your monster of a father slaughtered my family! I owe him everything!”
“He lied to you,” Lorenzo said.
Bianca blinked, the tears momentarily clearing from her eyes. “What?”
Lorenzo reached into his suit jacket with his free hand. He pulled out a small, faded photograph. It was the same photograph I had seen tucked beneath the bloody watch in the rusted lockbox earlier that evening.
He tossed it onto the dirt floor between them.
“Look at it,” Lorenzo demanded.
Bianca kept her gun aimed at me, but she glanced down at the photograph. The moonlight illuminated the image clearly.
It was a picture of a beautiful woman holding a newborn baby. But it wasn’t Bianca’s biological mother.
It was Lorenzo’s mother, holding baby Bianca.
“My father didn’t kill your parents, Bianca,” Lorenzo said, his voice heavy with the sins of the past. “Your father was a Moretti enforcer. He tried to sell you to Dante Marino to pay off a gambling debt. My mother—the woman you just accused of letting a garden die—found out. She took you. She hid you.”
Bianca stared at the photograph, her mouth opening and closing in silent shock. “No. No, Dante told me—”
“Dante Marino tracked my mother down twenty years ago to get you back,” Lorenzo interrupted, his voice rising in anger. “That’s why he attacked her in the garden! She didn’t fight him over offshore deeds. She fought him to protect you! She struck him with the shears, and he pushed her into the fountain.”
Answer One. The grand mystery of the garden was finally revealed. Lorenzo’s mother hadn’t died protecting money. She had died protecting Bianca.
Open Two. If Dante Marino killed Lorenzo’s mother to kidnap Bianca, why did he raise her? And what was actually inside the vault beneath the greenhouse if it wasn’t offshore deeds?
“You’re lying!” Bianca screamed, dropping to her knees to grab the photograph, her gun still dangerously waving in the air. “This is a trick! Dante told me you would lie!”
Before Bianca could raise her weapon again, I lunged forward.
I didn’t use the meat tenderizer to hit her. I swung it hard against her wrist.
Bianca shrieked in pain as the heavy iron connected with bone. The 9mm handgun flew from her grip, clattering into the darkness beneath a dead vine.
Lorenzo closed the distance in two massive strides, kicking the gun further away. He stood over his weeping fiancée, the shotgun lowered but ready.
“You burned down an eighty-year-old woman’s house for a lie,” Lorenzo said with disgust.
I stood panting, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. I looked at Lorenzo.
“Mr. Bellini,” I breathed. “If the deeds aren’t in the vault… what did your mother hide down there?”
Lorenzo looked at the open stone tunnel.
“My mother didn’t hide deeds,” Lorenzo said quietly. “She hid Dante Marino’s insurance policy.”
Suddenly, the glass walls of the greenhouse shattered inward.
A hail of bullets ripped through the humid air, tearing the ancient vines to shreds and exploding the clay pots into dust.
“Get down!” Lorenzo roared, tackling me to the dirt floor as a second volley of automatic gunfire rained down on us.
I covered my head, screaming as shards of glass rained down on my back. Bianca curled into a ball, sobbing hysterically.
Outside the ruined greenhouse, the sound of heavy boots crunching on gravel echoed loudly. Flashlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the smoke from the burning cottage.
“Lorenzo Bellini!” a rough, scarred voice echoed through a megaphone.
It was Dante Marino. He had breached the gates.
“You have five seconds to send the girl out with the ledger from the vault!” Dante’s voice boomed. “Or my men will burn this entire estate to the ground, starting with the master suite on the second floor!”
My blood ran cold.
The master suite.
Where I had locked Leo, Martha, and Aunt Eleanor.
Lorenzo’s eyes widened in sheer, apocalyptic terror. He grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Claire, listen to me,” Lorenzo whispered rapidly over the sound of the gunfire. “Inside the vault is a red leather ledger. It contains the names of every judge, police chief, and politician Dante Marino has bribed for thirty years. It’s the only thing keeping him out of federal prison.”
He pressed a heavy iron key into my hand.
“Take the tunnel. It leads directly to the basement of the main house. Get the ledger, get my son, and get out through the servant’s exit.”
“What about you?” I cried.
May you like
Lorenzo racked his shotgun again, standing up in the shadows of the ruined greenhouse.
“I’m going to make sure Dante Marino never wears a watch again.”
