Chapter 5 - GHOSTS FROM THE ASHES
“Where did you find this?” Luca demanded, picking up the scorched money clip. His voice was terrifyingly calm.
“Right inside the door frame,” Marco replied. “Someone dropped it after pouring the accelerant.”
Luca’s grip on the clip tightened until his knuckles turned white. Carlo was his older brother. The previous head of the family. The man everyone believed died on a slick highway, leaving Luca to take over the empire.
“Vanessa didn't light that fire,” Luca murmured. “She doesn't get her hands dirty. She hired someone.”
“You think Carlo is alive?” Marco asked.
“No.” Luca’s eyes hardened. “I think the Rossi family took this from his body five years ago. And Vanessa gave it to whoever burned Nora’s apartment, as a message to me.”
I stood there, trying to process that I was now caught in the middle of a mafia blood feud. My hands were shaking. I had lost everything. My clothes, my father’s photographs, the last few memories of my old life.
Sensing my distress, little Leo stood up from his rug and walked over. He silently slipped his small hand into mine. I squeezed it gently, forcing myself to take a deep breath.
“Marco, double the perimeter guards. No one enters or leaves without my authorization,” Luca ordered.
After Marco left, Luca turned to me. “You’ll sleep in the room next to Leo’s. It’s the safest place in the house.”
That afternoon, I tried to keep busy. I organized Leo’s playroom, grateful for the distraction. The boy rarely spoke, but he followed me like a shadow.
As I was sorting a pile of his picture books, a folded piece of paper slipped out from between the pages of The Velveteen Rabbit.
I picked it up. It wasn't a child’s drawing.
It was a printed shipping manifest. The date at the top was today’s date. It detailed the exact route, time, and cargo of Luca’s shipment tonight—the one Ray was supposed to drive.
At the bottom, scrawled in red ink in Vanessa’s handwriting, was a note: Strike at the tunnel. No survivors.
She had hidden her betrayal inside a child’s book.
I turned around to run and find Luca, but the playroom door clicked shut. The lock engaged from the outside.
I dropped the paper and ran to the door, rattling the brass handle. “Hello? Is someone there?”
May you like
A voice drifted through the thick wood.
“Did you really think a few guards could keep me out of my own home, Nora?” Vanessa said softly from the hallway.
