Chapter 7 - THE CHILD’S DRAWING
The silver-haired man looked like an older, more violent version of Marco.
Dante De Santis. My father.
"You're alive," I breathed, keeping my body firmly between him and Leo. The ropes around Leo's wrists fell away, but I gripped his hand tightly, warning him not to run.
"I've always been a survivor, Clara," Dante chuckled softly, taking a step forward. His expensive Italian boots crunched on the loose coal. "I must say, you played your part perfectly. You infiltrated the estate. You got close to the boy. You even found the music box. I’m very proud of you."
"I didn't do any of it for you," I spat, my voice shaking with disgust. "You abandoned my sister and me! We starved while you plotted to steal an empire!"
Dante’s smile faded into a cold, hard line.
"I was protecting you from Marco," Dante lied smoothly. "Marco is a monster, Clara. He took everything from me. My birthright. My family. I had to fake my death in that Naples prison just to escape his assassins."
"You're the monster," Leo piped up from behind me, his small voice bravely cutting through the darkness.
Dante looked at his nephew. "Quiet, boy. Your father's sins are finally catching up to him."
"Marco didn't try to kill you," I said, remembering the absolute shock on Marco’s face when he saw the pocket watch. "He thought you were dead. You and Victor planned this together."
Dante raised an eyebrow. "Victor is a useful idiot. He thought he was helping me take the empire so I would give him Sofia in return. But Sofia is irrelevant. Once Marco walks through that rigged front door, he burns. And I walk away with the De Santis fortune."
He raised the suppressed pistol, pointing it directly at my chest.
"Now, step away from the boy, Clara. You've served your purpose."
I didn't move.
"No," I said firmly.
Dante’s eyes narrowed. "Don't be stupid. I won't hesitate to kill my own blood if it's standing in my way."
Before he could pull the trigger, a loud, metallic clatter echoed from the wooden stairs leading down to the basement.
Victor Hale descended the steps, holding a heavy tactical flashlight and a drawn gun.
"Dante," Victor barked, his face pale and sweating. "The perimeter alarms just triggered. Marco didn't come through the front. He's outside."
Victor’s flashlight beam swept across the room and landed on me.
His eyes widened in shock. "How did she get down here?"
"Through the coal chute," Dante said calmly, not lowering his weapon. "It doesn't matter. The plan changes. Grab the boy. We’ll use him as a human shield to get to the helicopter."
Victor stepped forward to grab Leo.
Suddenly, a realization slammed into my mind.
I reached into my apron pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper I had found on the floor of my wrecked room hours ago. I hadn't understood it then. But I did now.
"Victor," I yelled, my voice echoing in the concrete basement. "Do you know what this is?"
Victor stopped, shining the flashlight on the paper in my hand.
It was a child’s drawing. Done in crayon.
"It's a drawing," Victor sneered. "So what?"
"It's a drawing Leo made three years ago," I said, holding it up so the beam illuminated the crude stick figures.
It showed two men standing near a small boat. One man had a scar on his face. The other man had a dark suit. They were pushing a woman with black hair into the water.
"Leo didn't just hear the lady in the walls," I said, my voice rising above the hum of the furnace. "He saw what happened the night his mother drowned. He drew it from his bedroom window."
Victor stared at the drawing, the color completely draining from his face.
He looked slowly toward Dante.
"You told me she ran away," Victor whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying realization. "You told me she took the boat into the storm to escape Marco. You said if I helped you take the empire, you would help me find her."
Dante sighed, rolling his eyes. He didn't look guilty. He looked annoyed.
"Sofia was a liability, Victor," Dante said coldly. "She found out I was alive. She was going to tell Marco. I had to silence her. I pushed her off the boat."
Victor’s breathing became erratic. The man who had spent five years obsessing over a woman, betraying his boss, and drugging an old woman... had just realized he was working for her murderer.
"You killed her," Victor choked out, raising his gun, pointing it away from me and directly at Dante.
"Don't be dramatic, Victor," Dante scoffed, aiming his own gun at Victor. "Put the gun down. We have to leave."
"You promised her to me!" Victor screamed, completely losing his mind.
The two men who had orchestrated the destruction of the De Santis family were now locked in a Mexican standoff, blinded by greed and obsession.
It was the only distraction I was going to get.
I grabbed Leo’s hand and dove hard to the right, throwing us both behind the massive iron furnace.
Thwip! Thwip!
Two suppressed gunshots echoed in the basement.
Victor cried out, stumbling backward against the wooden stairs, clutching his stomach. Dante’s bullet had hit him square in the gut.
Victor raised his gun to return fire, but Dante was faster.
Dante stepped forward, aiming directly at Victor’s head to finish the job.
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door at the top of the basement stairs was kicked open with the force of an explosion.
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Marco De Santis stood at the top of the stairs, looking down into the darkness, a heavily armed tactical rifle raised to his shoulder.
"Dante!" Marco roared, a sound that shook the very foundations of the cabin.
