Chapter 3 - THE CHILD'S DRAWING
The silence that followed the revelation of the gold pen was heavy enough to crush bone.
To my beloved daughter, Serena. — Vincent Maroni.
Alexander Bellucci stared at the engraved words. His chest rose and fell in slow, agonizingly controlled breaths. The woman he was engaged to marry, the woman who had slept in his bed for the past two years, wasn't just a socialite making a bad business deal.
She was the daughter of his greatest enemy.
“Alexander,” Serena whispered, her voice trembling. She took a step toward him, raising a hand pleadingly. “I can explain.”
“Explain?” Alexander repeated, his voice utterly devoid of emotion. He slowly dropped the gold pen onto the blueprint. “Explain how you spent two years in my home, wearing my ring, while reporting back to the man who put a bullet in my father’s spine?”
“I didn't!” Serena cried, tears finally spilling over her dark lashes. “I never gave them any information about the family business! My father planted me here, yes. He wanted me to get close to you. But I fell in love with you, Alexander. I swear to God, I fell in love with you.”
“So you showed your love by conspiring with my uncle to steal my mother’s sanctuary?” Alexander asked coldly.
“I didn't have a choice!” Serena shrieked, her composure completely shattering. She spun around and pointed a manicured finger at Richard. “He knew! Richard found out who I was six months ago! He told me if I didn't help him manipulate the trust, he would tell you the truth and let your men kill me!”
The eighteen dinner guests were practically holding their breath. This wasn't just a family dispute anymore. This was a mafia unmasking.
Richard didn't flinch. He buttoned his suit jacket with a sickening calm.
“She was a Maroni spy, Alexander,” Richard said smoothly. “I simply leveraged an asset. The Maronis wanted the land for their casino. I wanted the capital to expand our shipping routes. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement. You should be thanking me.”
“Thanking you?” Alexander murmured.
He didn't yell. He didn't lunge across the table.
Alexander simply raised his right hand and snapped his fingers once.
In total unison, the six armed guards stationed at the doors of the dining room stepped forward, drawing their suppressed weapons and aiming them directly at Richard.
Richard’s smug smile vanished instantly.
“You’re a traitor, Richard,” Alexander said softly. “And traitors don't get to expand shipping routes.”
Before the guards could take another step, a small, quiet voice echoed from the hallway behind me.
“Mommy? Why is everyone yelling?”
The entire room froze.
I turned around. Standing in the grand doorway, wearing a pair of overly large dinosaur pajamas, was a little boy. He couldn't have been older than seven. He was clutching a faded blue blanket in one hand and a piece of crumpled paper in the other. He had messy brown hair and large, frightened eyes.
Serena let out a horrified gasp. She ran past the guards, past Alexander, and dropped to her knees in front of the boy, pulling him desperately into her arms.
“Leo, sweetie, what are you doing out of bed?” Serena whispered frantically, trying to shield his face from the room. “You’re supposed to be in the west wing.”
Alexander stared at the child. His dark eyebrows pulled together in profound confusion.
“Serena,” Alexander said slowly. “Who is this child?”
Serena pressed her face against the boy’s hair, sobbing quietly. She looked up at Alexander, her eyes filled with a desperate, animalistic terror.
“He’s my son,” she confessed, her voice breaking. “From before. From my first marriage.”
The room murmured in shock. For two years, this woman had lived in the Bellucci estate, and she had hidden a child in the sprawling, unoccupied west wing of the mansion.
“You hid a child in my house?” Alexander asked, the betrayal deepening.
“My father wanted to take him,” Serena wept, clutching the boy tighter. “Vincent Maroni said a child would make me weak. He threatened to take Leo away and raise him in the syndicate if I didn't infiltrate your family. I hid him here because your estate is a fortress. It was the only place my father couldn't reach him.”
I looked at the little boy. Leo was trembling, terrified by the men with guns and the shattered glass on the table. My heart ached. I knew what it meant to protect family at all costs. I was scrubbing floors to keep my brother in college. Serena was selling out a mafia boss to keep her son alive.
Richard let out a harsh, mocking laugh.
“Such a touching story,” Richard sneered. “But it doesn't change the facts, Alexander. The power of attorney is signed. The deed transfer clears at midnight. If you kill me now, the Maronis will roll over this estate by morning, and they will slaughter everyone in it. Including the boy.”
Alexander’s jaw tightened. He knew Richard was right. Without the legal rights to the land, the Bellucci family would be viewed as hostile occupiers by the city and the rival syndicate. A war would tear Chicago apart.
“Mr. Bellucci,” Thomas Reed, the elderly farrier, suddenly spoke up. His voice was gravelly but firm.
We all looked at him.
Thomas pointed his wooden cane toward the little boy. “The child is holding something.”
I looked down. Leo was still clutching the crumpled piece of paper in his small hand.
“Leo,” I said softly, crouching down to his eye level. I offered him a warm, reassuring smile. “What do you have there, buddy?”
Leo sniffled, looking at my uniform. He slowly held out the paper.
“It’s a drawing,” Leo whispered. “I made it for Mommy. But I saw the bad man do it.”
I gently took the paper from his hand. I unfolded it and stood up.
My breath caught in my throat.
It was a child’s crayon drawing, but the details were chillingly clear. It showed the interior of the horse stables. There was a large brown horse with a white patch on its face—Lady June.
Standing next to the horse was a stick figure in a black suit. The figure was holding a green bottle, pouring something into the horse’s water trough.
Underneath the drawing, written in a child’s clumsy handwriting, were the words: Uncle Richard gave the horsey sleepy juice.
Alexander walked over and took the drawing from my hands. He looked at the image, then looked at his uncle.
“You poisoned my mother’s horse,” Alexander stated, the reality settling over him like a shroud of ice. “You didn't just forge a vet report. You systematically poisoned Lady June to mimic organ failure so the vet would condemn her.”
Richard swallowed hard, taking a step backward. “The mare was old, Alexander. It was a gentle sedative.”
“You monster,” Margaret hissed, her frail body shaking with rage. “She suffered for a week! She couldn't stand!”
Alexander looked back down at the drawing. He turned to the little boy.
“Leo,” Alexander said, his voice surprisingly gentle. He knelt down so he was eye-level with the child. “When did you see him do this?”
“Four days ago,” Leo whispered, hiding behind his mother’s arm. “I was playing hide-and-seek in the hayloft. Uncle Richard poured the green bottle. Then he hid the bottle inside a hole in the wall.”
Alexander’s eyes flashed. He looked at the guards.
“Lock the estate down,” Alexander barked. “Nobody leaves this room. Sophie, Margaret, Thomas—come with me. We are going to the stables.”
Before anyone could move, Richard suddenly lunged backward, knocking a heavy silver candelabra off the table and plunging half the room into darkness. In the chaos, he bolted through the service doors leading to the kitchen.
“Stop him!” Alexander roared, drawing his own weapon and sprinting after his uncle.
I didn't wait. I grabbed Margaret’s hand and Thomas’s arm, and we rushed out the side entrance toward the sprawling grounds.
We had to find the green bottle. It was the only physical proof that Richard had committed fraud to force the land transfer.
We ran across the dark, manicured lawns toward the massive wooden structure of the retirement stables. The night air was bitterly cold.
As we approached the heavy barn doors, my stomach dropped.
The doors were chained shut from the outside.
And from beneath the wooden planks, a thick, acrid cloud of black smoke was beginning to billow into the night sky.
“No!” Margaret screamed, dropping to her knees.
May you like
On the ground near the chain, reflecting the terrifying orange glow of the growing flames inside, lay a silver lighter.
Richard wasn't just trying to destroy the evidence. He was burning the remaining five horses alive.
