Chapter 6 - The Hunting Cabin
The drive to Lake Geneva took two hours.
It felt like a lifetime.
I sat in the passenger seat of the SUV, staring down at the heavy black gun resting in my lap. I had never held a weapon before. It felt cold, unnatural, and terrifying.
Luca drove with one hand on the steering wheel, his jaw clenched so tightly a muscle twitched in his cheek.
He didn't bring an army. Just as Marcus demanded, we came alone.
“Do you know how to turn the safety off?” Luca asked quietly, breaking the heavy silence.
“No,” I whispered.
He reached over and clicked a small lever on the side of the gun with his thumb.
“Now it’s off. Point and pull. But you only use it if I’m on the ground, Hannah. Do you understand?”
I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.
We turned off the main highway onto a deeply rutted dirt road surrounded by towering pine trees.
The Moretti hunting cabin appeared through the dense woods. It was a massive, rustic log structure with a wraparound porch, looking abandoned and weathered by fourteen years of neglect.
Four black SUVs were parked haphazardly in the tall grass.
A dozen armed men in dark coats stood around the perimeter.
“Stay in the car until I open your door,” Luca said.
He parked. He stepped out, his hands empty and visible, though I knew he had another weapon holstered at his back.
He walked around and opened my door.
I stepped out, keeping the gun concealed inside the deep pocket of my wool coat.
“Well, well,” a voice boomed from the porch.
Marcus Bellini stepped out the front door of the cabin. He was a massive man, broad-shouldered, with silver hair and eyes as dead and black as coal.
He smiled when he saw me.
“You brought the maid. How poetic. The daughter watches the mother die.”
“Where is she, Marcus?” Luca demanded, stopping ten feet from the porch.
Marcus gestured inside. “She’s comfortable. Hand over the key, Luca, and you can both walk away.”
“I see her first.”
Marcus sighed dramatically, then snapped his fingers.
Two men wheeled a wooden dining chair out onto the porch.
My mother was tied to it.
“Mom!” I screamed, stepping forward.
She looked exhausted, pale, and terrified, but when she saw me, her eyes widened in panic. “Hannah, run! Get out of here!”
“Shut her up,” Marcus ordered. One of the guards slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth.
I pulled the gun halfway out of my pocket, my vision blurring with red-hot rage.
Luca put a firm hand on my shoulder, physically grounding me.
“The key, Luca,” Marcus said, pulling a revolver from his coat and aiming it directly at my mother’s chest.
Luca reached into his pocket. He pulled out the small brass key.
It glinted in the overcast afternoon light.
“Toss it,” Marcus ordered.
“No,” Luca said calmly. “I bring it up. You let her go down the steps. A trade.”
Marcus smirked. “Fair enough. Walk slowly.”
Luca began walking up the wooden steps. His eyes were locked on Marcus.
I watched as my mother struggled violently against her ropes. She wasn't just scared for her life; she was trying to warn us.
She kept shaking her head, her eyes darting frantically toward the roof of the porch.
I followed her gaze.
Hidden in the shadows of the eaves, directly above the front door, was a tiny, blinking red light.
A detonator.
“Luca, stop!” I screamed. “It’s rigged!”
Marcus’s smirk vanished. He raised his revolver to shoot Luca.
Before Marcus could pull the trigger, Luca dove forward, tackling Marcus through the front door into the cabin.
Gunfire erupted.
The guards in the yard raised their rifles at me.
I didn't think. I dropped to the ground, pulled the heavy gun from my pocket, and fired blindly toward the porch.
The recoil threw me backward into the mud.
Inside the cabin, glass shattered. Bodies crashed against the wooden walls.
I scrambled to my feet and ran toward the porch.
Two of Bellini’s guards were rushing up the steps to help their boss.
Suddenly, the roar of an engine shattered the woods.
A black pickup truck smashed through the tree line, plowing directly into Bellini’s parked SUVs.
It was Matteo.
Luca had told me we were coming alone. He had lied to Marcus, and to me.
Matteo leapt from the truck with an assault rifle, laying down a wall of suppressing fire that forced Bellini’s men to dive for cover.
I sprinted up the porch steps.
My mother was sobbing behind the tape. I ripped it off her mouth and began desperately untying the thick ropes around her wrists.
“Hannah, the floor!” my mother gasped. “Under the rug!”
Inside the cabin, a gunshot rang out.
I froze.
Luca walked backward out the front door, his gun aimed steadily at the interior. Blood was dripping from a deep gash on his forehead, but he was standing.
Marcus Bellini was on the floor inside, clutching a bleeding wound in his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” Luca grabbed my arm, helping me pull my mother from the chair.
“Wait,” my mother cried, resisting his pull. “Frank didn't hide the ledger in a wall. He hid it in the storm cellar! The trapdoor is under the bear rug!”
Luca looked at the blinking red detonator above the door.
“Marcus has the place wired with C4,” Luca said. “He was going to blow the cabin with us inside it.”
“Then we have thirty seconds before he crawls to the trigger,” I said.
I ran past Luca, back into the cabin.
“Hannah, no!” Luca shouted.
May you like
I grabbed the edge of the massive, dusty bear rug in the center of the living room and threw it back.
There, flush with the floorboards, was a heavy iron ring.
