Chapter 4 - The Whisper in the Walls
I stared at the blinking red light hidden inside my four-year-old’s shoe.
Every conversation I’d had with Ellie in our small apartment. Every time I had sung her to sleep. Every whispered comfort I had given Isabella in the quiet halls of this estate.
Dominic had heard all of it.
Bile rose in my throat. I didn’t just feel violated; I felt hunted.
I quickly ripped the tiny microphone from the shoe and threw it onto the marble floor, crushing it beneath my heel. The small red light died instantly.
“Mommy, you broke it,” Ellie said, her lower lip trembling.
“It’s okay, baby,” I whispered, pulling her into a tight hug. “It was a bad bug. Mommy got rid of it.”
Isabella stood frozen by the closet, clutching the blue wool coat. She stared at the crushed microphone.
“He knows everything,” Isabella said, her voice shaking.
“Not anymore,” I lied. I had to stay strong for them.
I looked down at the brass key in my hand, and the note wrapped around it. The truth about Anna’s husband is inside.
Sofia Moretti, a Mafia boss’s wife, knew something about my Mark. My kind, gentle Mark who worked as a city accountant. The police said he was mugged for a fifty-dollar watch.
Had Dominic killed him? Had Vincent?
A heavy knock at the bedroom door made all three of us jump.
“Anna. It’s Vincent.”
I hurried to the door and unlocked the deadbolt. Vincent stepped inside, his broad shoulders slumped, a dark smudge of blood on his white dress shirt.
He didn’t look like the ruthless head of a syndicate. He looked like a shattered husband.
“Is he dead?” I asked quietly, ensuring the girls couldn't hear.
“No,” Vincent said roughly. “He’s tied to a chair. He won’t speak. He just keeps laughing.”
Vincent looked toward his daughter. “Bella, honey. You need to tell Daddy everything. Why was Dominic chasing Mommy’s car?”
Isabella clutched my hand. She looked terrified, but she finally had her voice back, and she was desperate to use it.
“Mommy found out he was stealing,” Isabella whispered.
Vincent frowned. “Stealing? Money?”
“No,” Isabella said. “People.”
Vincent and I exchanged a chilling glance.
“What do you mean, people, sweetheart?” Vincent asked softly.
“Mommy heard him talking on the phone,” Isabella said, tears spilling down her cheeks. “He was moving people in big trucks. Mommy said he was a monster. She said she was going to the police to give them the papers.”
Human trafficking.
Dominic Vesceri, the brilliant attorney, had been running a trafficking ring under the cover of Vincent’s legitimate shipping businesses. If Sofia had gone to the police, Dominic would have faced life in federal prison.
He had to silence her.
Vincent’s hands curled into fists. The knuckles turned bone-white. “He killed my wife. He killed my child. Because she was going to expose his side business.”
Vincent turned toward the door. The grief in his eyes had entirely burned away, replaced by a cold, terrifying fury.
“Wait,” I said, stepping in front of him.
I opened my hand and showed Vincent the small brass key and the note.
“Isabella found this in Sofia’s coat,” I said.
Vincent took the note. He read it once. Then twice. He looked at me, a deep confusion knitting his brows.
“Anna… what does this mean? What does your husband have to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice breaking. “Mark was an accountant for the city. He didn’t know anyone like Dominic. But Sofia thought there was a connection.”
Vincent stared at the brass key.
“Union Station,” Vincent muttered. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
Before he could dial, a loud, shrill alarm began blaring through the estate.
It was the perimeter breach alarm.
Vincent’s phone rang. It was his head of security.
Vincent answered it on speaker. “What’s happening?”
“Boss, we have a problem,” the guard shouted over the siren. “Three black SUVs just rammed the front gates. Heavily armed men are swarming the grounds.”
“Who are they?” Vincent demanded.
“They aren’t cops. They look like mercenaries. And boss…” The guard’s voice hesitated. “Dominic isn’t in the basement anymore.”
My blood ran cold.
Dominic hadn’t been laughing because he was crazy. He was laughing because he knew his private army was already on the way.
“Barricade the doors,” Vincent ordered the guard. He hung up and grabbed my arm.
“We have to go. Now.”
He rushed to the master suite’s massive walk-in closet and pushed aside the rows of Sofia’s shoes. Behind the mirrored wall was a hidden steel door. A panic room.
Vincent pushed the heavy door open. It was dark, smelling of dust and cold metal.
“Get inside,” Vincent ordered.
I pushed Ellie and Isabella in first. I turned to follow, but Vincent didn’t move to join us.
Instead, he handed me a heavy black handgun.
“Vincent, no,” I begged. “Come with us.”
“If I hide, they will burn the house down with us inside,” Vincent said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “I have to hold them off.”
He looked at his daughter, his eyes softening one last time. “I love you, Bella. Be brave for Mommy.”
He didn’t mean Sofia. He meant me.
Vincent slammed the steel door shut. The lock clicked, plunging us into total darkness.
I fumbled for the light switch on the wall and flipped it on.
The small room was lit by a single bulb. But as the light washed over the space, I didn’t see survival supplies.
May you like
I saw walls covered entirely in photographs.
Hundreds of photographs of my dead husband, Mark.
