Chapter 6 - The Fire In The Library
“Open the door, Vanessa!” Luca roared, slamming his fist against the heavy oak. The wood barely rattled. It was a reinforced security door, installed by his father years ago to make the study a panic room. Now, it was a cage.
Vanessa’s laughter echoed through the thick wood. “I don't think so, darling. My father left two of his men behind to keep an eye on things. They’re standing right out here with me.”
I backed away from the door, my heart hammering in my throat. If Vanessa had her men out there, my mother was trapped upstairs.
“What do you want, Vanessa?” Teresa called out, leaning heavily against Luca’s desk. Her voice was steady, betraying none of the pain radiating from her knee.
“I want the keys,” Vanessa replied, her voice muffled but clear. “I realized my purse felt a little light when I got to the car. And then I remembered the stupid pocket watch. Toss them under the door gap, Luca, or I’ll have my men go upstairs and pay Hannah’s mother a visit.”
My breath hitched. “Luca, please,” I begged softly.
Luca didn't look at me. He looked at his mother. Teresa gave him a barely perceptible nod.
“If I give you the keys, you leave the women out of this,” Luca shouted back.
“Of course,” Vanessa purred. “We’re family now, remember?”
Luca knelt down by the door. He took the gold pendant and the silver key from the pocket watch. He held them for a second, his knuckles white, before sliding them through the half-inch gap beneath the oak door.
We heard the scuff of a heel as Vanessa crouched to pick them up.
“Perfect,” she said, her voice dripping with triumph. “I’ll be taking these to the library now. Oh, and Luca?”
“What?” he growled.
“The wedding is still on for Saturday,” she laughed. “Make sure your mother’s walker is polished.”
Footsteps echoed away down the marble hallway, fading into silence.
I looked at Luca in despair. “She has the keys. She’s going to empty the vault.”
“Let her try,” Teresa said calmly.
I turned to her. She was already moving toward the large, built-in bookshelf on the far wall of the study. “What do you mean?”
Luca walked over and helped his mother. “My father was paranoid, Hannah. He didn't just build a panic room. He built a trap.”
Teresa reached out and pulled a thick, leather-bound volume of Dante’s Inferno from the middle shelf. Behind it was a small, digital keypad. She typed in a four-digit code.
With a deep, mechanical groan, the entire bookshelf unlocked and swung outward like a heavy door, revealing a narrow, pitch-black passageway.
“A servant’s corridor,” Teresa explained, looking at me. “It connects the study directly to the back of the library. My husband used it to move assets without the staff seeing.”
“We need to move fast,” Luca said, pulling his suit jacket off and tossing it onto the desk. He rolled up his sleeves, his tattoos flexing in the dim light. “Once Vanessa puts those keys into the vault lock, she has exactly sixty seconds to enter the biometric passcode. A passcode only my father and I possess.”
“And if she doesn't?” I asked, stepping into the dark passage behind him.
“The vault incinerates everything inside,” Luca said grimly. “And it seals the library doors permanently.”
Panic spiked through my chest. “The evidence! The confession your father signed! If it burns, Carlo goes free!”
“Then we better catch her before she turns the keys,” Luca said, grabbing a heavy iron fireplace poker from the study before stepping into the darkness.
We moved quickly through the dusty, unlit corridor. It smelled of old wood and damp stone. Teresa stayed behind in the study; there was no way she could navigate the narrow, uneven steps in the dark.
I stayed close behind Luca, using the faint glow of his phone screen to see.
“Hannah,” Luca whispered as we hurried down a narrow staircase. “When we get in there, you run straight to the main doors and unlock them from the inside. I’ll deal with Vanessa’s guards.”
“What if they have guns?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“They won't shoot in the mansion. Carlo needs this merger to look legitimate. A shootout ruins the wedding.”
We reached the end of the passage. Luca pressed his hand against the wooden paneling. We could hear voices on the other side.
“Just put the keys in, Vanessa,” a gruff male voice said. “The boss wants the ledger.”
“I’m doing it, hold on,” Vanessa snapped. “The gold one goes on the left, the silver on the right.”
Luca looked at me. He held up three fingers.
Three. Two. One.
Luca slammed his shoulder into the hidden panel. The wood burst open with a deafening crack, spilling us out from behind a massive tapestry in the library.
Vanessa screamed, dropping the keys onto the Persian rug.
Her two guards spun around, reaching inside their jackets.
Luca didn't hesitate. He swung the heavy iron poker in a vicious arc, catching the first guard perfectly across the kneecap. The man went down with a howl of pain. The second guard lunged, but Luca ducked, driving his shoulder into the man’s chest and sending him crashing through a glass display case.
“Hannah, the doors!” Luca shouted, grappling with the guard on the floor.
I sprinted past Vanessa, who was frozen in shock, and threw myself at the massive mahogany doors of the library. I grabbed the heavy brass deadbolt and twisted it hard.
Click.
The doors were unlocked.
But Vanessa had recovered her senses. She dove onto the rug, snatching the gold and silver keys. She scrambled to her feet and ran toward the massive oil portrait of Antonio Moretti hanging over the fireplace.
She slammed her hand against the hidden release switch Teresa had described. The painting swung open, revealing a sleek, steel vault door with two keyholes.
“No!” I screamed, running toward her.
Vanessa jammed the gold key into the left slot. She jammed the silver key into the right slot.
She turned them both.
A loud, mechanical alarm began to blare overhead. A red light flashed furiously above the vault door.
“Biometric scan required,” an automated voice chimed through the room. “Fifty-nine seconds to incineration.”
Vanessa panicked. She grabbed the handle of the vault and pulled, but it wouldn't budge. “Open!” she screamed, kicking the steel.
Luca shoved the second guard away, leaving the man groaning on the floor. He ran to the vault, grabbing Vanessa by the shoulders and throwing her backward onto the rug.
“Forty seconds,” the automated voice warned.
Luca pressed his thumb against the glowing green scanner next to the keyholes.
The scanner beeped wildly. The red light flashed faster.
“Access denied. Biometric signature unrecognized.”
Luca stepped back in horror. “What? That’s impossible.”
He pressed his thumb again.
“Access denied. Thirty seconds to incineration.”
“Luca!” I cried over the alarm. “Why isn't it working?!”
Luca stared at the scanner, his face draining of color. He looked at the keys.
Then he looked at me.
“It’s not looking for my fingerprint,” Luca whispered, the terrifying truth dawning on him. “It’s looking for the man who hid the second key.”
“My father?” I gasped. “But he’s dead!”
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“Twenty seconds.”
“Hannah,” Luca said, his voice dropping an octave, dead serious. “Give me your hand.”
