Chapter 5 - THE BULLET HOLE IN THE DINING ROOM WALL
The gunfire cracked through the estate grounds like rolling thunder, followed immediately by the piercing shriek of the mansion’s security alarm.
I clutched the heavy tin box against my chest, turned on my heel, and bolted up the root cellar stairs three at a time. My foot slipped on the second-to-last step, sending a sharp pain shooting up my shin, but adrenaline pushed me forward. I burst out of the carriage house doors into the freezing rain just as a dark sedan tore across the gravel driveway with its headlights completely off.
In the distance, the main house was half-darkened; several exterior floodlights had been shot out, plunging the grand terrace into deep, ink-black shadows.
“Emma!”
A hand caught my shoulder from behind. I spun around, swinging the heavy tin box like a club before I recognized the face in the flashing red glow of the security strobes.
Luca Moretti.
His suit jacket was gone, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a heavy Beretta pistol was clutched firmly in his right hand. His eyes were wild, dilated with a raw, dangerous fury I had never seen before.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded, his gaze sweeping over me.
“No,” I gasped, holding out the tin box. “The old man in the cellar… he said—he said the killer is still inside the house.”
Luca stared at the tin box for a fraction of a second, then grabbed my wrist, pulling me toward the side service entrance of the kitchen. “I know. We just intercepted a transmission from the East Gate. One of my own senior security chiefs turned rogue ten minutes ago.”
We slipped through the kitchen doors into chaos.
The caterers were huddled beneath the stainless-steel prep tables, terrified and crying. Broken plates and spilled champagne covered the floor. Down the main corridor toward the dining room, a jagged bullet hole was punched straight through the expensive wainscoting, right beside a portrait of Luca’s grandfather.
We stepped into the dining room.
The thirty-two guests were gone—evacuated through the kitchens by the remaining loyal guards. Only three people remained in the ruined, candlelit room.
Vanessa Bellini stood by the shattered French doors, her red silk gown torn at the hem, staring in horror at a man sitting calmly at the head of the mahogany table.
Standing behind the seated man with a silenced pistol pressed against his temple was Arthur Bellini—Vanessa’s supposedly grieving, wealthy father.
And sitting in the chair, sipping an undisturbed glass of scotch, was Uncle Vincent Moretti.
The man who was supposed to have died in Palermo twenty years ago.
He looked older, his hair completely silver and a long, jagged scar tracking down the left side of his neck, but the cold, calculating smile was unmistakable.
“Well, nephew,” Vincent said smoothly, swirling the amber liquid in his crystal glass. “I must admit, it took you longer to figure this out than I expected. I thought the Army jacket trick would bring you running to the docks hours ago.”
Luca raised his Beretta, locking the barrel squarely between Vincent’s eyes.
“You’re dead,” Luca whispered, every muscle in his body rigid. “We buried you.”
“A closed-casket funeral in Sicily is remarkably easy to arrange when you pay off the right coroner and stuff the pine box with fifty pounds of wet cement,” Vincent chuckled, taking another unhurried sip. He gestured with his glass toward Arthur Bellini. “And Arthur here was kind enough to finance my retirement home in the Cayman Islands once we finished liquidating your father’s assets.”
Vanessa let out a strangled sob, pressing her hands over her mouth. “Dad… you knew? You knew he was alive this whole time?”
Arthur Bellini didn’t look at his daughter. His eyes were locked on Luca’s gun. “It was business, Vanessa. The Moretti empire was split in half. Joining with Vincent was the only way to guarantee our family controlled the entire northern shipping corridor.”
Luca’s finger whitened against the trigger. The silence in the room became so heavy you could hear the rain drumming against the broken glass of the terrace doors.
“You killed my father,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a low, lethal hum. “And you tried to kill me in that car.”
“I did,” Vincent smiled, setting his glass down with a soft clink. “And if you pull that trigger, nephew, you’ll never find out where the second set of offshore accounts are hidden—accounts containing every single dollar your father left to your infant niece.”
Luca froze.
My breath caught.
Niece?
May you like
Before anyone could process the word, a small, muffled sound echoed from the dark butler’s pantry behind the dining room.
A child’s cough.
