Chapter 6 - THE GHOST IN THE DRIVEWAY
The silence in the library was absolute, broken only by the sound of my own ragged breathing.
“What?” Ben whispered, the word barely escaping his lips.
He turned to me, his face pale, his eyes searching mine frantically. “Hannah? An ultrasound picture?”
My hands began to tremble so violently I nearly dropped Elena’s journal.
I hadn't told him.
I had been waiting for tonight. For our anniversary dinner at the diner. I had hidden the small, black-and-white sonogram photo beneath a false bottom in my bedside drawer, intending to slip it into the paper bag with his cheeseburger as the ultimate surprise.
“I’m pregnant, Ben,” I sobbed, the tears flowing freely now. “Ten weeks. I was going to tell you tonight.”
Ben’s face crumpled with a mixture of overwhelming joy and sheer terror. He pulled me into a crushing embrace, burying his face in my neck. “Oh, God, Hannah. A baby. We're having a baby.”
But the beautiful moment was instantly shattered by the reality of Luca’s words.
“Vanessa’s men found the picture,” Luca repeated, his voice tense, his eyes locked on the heavy double doors of the library. “They gave it to Vanessa before they were intercepted. She knows you're pregnant.”
“Why does that matter?” Ben asked, stepping slightly in front of me, his protective instincts kicking into overdrive. “Vanessa is locked in your cellar.”
“It matters because Vanessa didn't come to the library alone,” Luca said, checking the magazine of his pistol.
“Daniel was with her,” I pointed out, confused.
“No,” Luca shook his head. “Daniel was my security chief. He was already inside the house. The emergency perimeter alarm just tripped at the North Gate. Someone else is out there. Someone Vanessa called before she walked into this room.”
A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck.
“Who did she call?” Ben demanded.
Before Luca could answer, the lights in the library—and the entire mansion—suddenly cut out.
We were plunged into pitch-black darkness. The heavy, suffocating silence of the massive estate pressed in on us.
“Stay behind me,” Luca ordered, his voice barely a whisper.
He moved silently toward the library doors, peeking out into the long, dark hallway. The emergency backup lights hadn't engaged, meaning whoever had cut the power knew exactly how to bypass the estate’s secondary systems.
“We need to move,” Luca whispered, gesturing for us to follow him. “The library has no secondary exit. We’re sitting ducks in here.”
Ben gripped my hand tightly, and we followed Luca into the dark corridor.
The mansion felt entirely different in the dark. The luxurious carpets and expensive paintings were replaced by creeping shadows and the terrifying unknown.
“Where are Marco and the guards?” Ben whispered as we crept past the grand staircase.
“If the power was cut from the outside, they’re blind too,” Luca replied softly. “And communications are jammed. My earpiece is dead.”
We reached the massive kitchen at the back of the house. The moonlight streaming through the large windows provided the only illumination, casting long, eerie shadows across the marble countertops.
Luca signaled for us to stay low behind the central island.
“The service exit is just past the pantry,” Luca whispered, pointing toward a heavy steel door. “It leads directly to the garage. We get in one of the armored SUVs and drive straight through the front gates.”
“What about Vanessa in the cellar?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“She’s Marco’s problem now,” Luca said coldly. “My only priority is getting you and that baby out of this house.”
We moved slowly, staying crouched behind the cabinets.
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the front of the house. The sound of splintering wood and shattering glass. The front doors had been breached.
“Go! Now!” Luca ordered, pushing us toward the service door.
Ben threw his shoulder against the heavy steel door, pushing it open. We stumbled into the massive, climate-controlled garage. It housed five sleek, black, bulletproof SUVs.
“Get in the closest one,” Luca commanded, tossing a set of keys to Ben. “You drive. I’ll cover.”
Ben unlocked the driver’s side, and I scrambled into the passenger seat, clutching Elena’s journal to my chest.
Luca took a position near the garage entrance, his gun raised, eyes scanning the darkness.
Ben started the engine. The powerful roar of the V8 echoed in the enclosed space. He slammed it into reverse, the tires screeching against the polished concrete as he swung the heavy vehicle toward the garage doors.
He hit the manual override button on the dashboard, and the heavy metal garage doors began to slowly grind open, revealing the dark driveway outside.
“Luca, get in!” Ben yelled over the noise of the engine.
Luca turned to run toward the SUV.
But as he moved, a dark figure stepped out from the shadows near the tool racks.
The figure didn't hesitate. He raised a shotgun and fired.
The blast echoed like a cannon in the garage.
Luca let out a sharp grunt of pain, diving behind a concrete pillar as the buckshot shredded the wall where he had just been standing.
“Luca!” I screamed.
“Drive!” Luca roared from behind the pillar, returning fire toward the shadows. “Get her out of here, Ben!”
Ben hesitated for a fraction of a second, looking from Luca to me.
“Ben, we can't leave him!” I panicked.
“I’m not leaving my wife to die in a crossfire,” Ben gritted his teeth, slamming the SUV into drive.
We tore out of the garage, the tires spinning on the gravel driveway as we accelerated toward the front gates.
I looked back through the rear window, my heart breaking as the sounds of a gunfight raged inside the garage. Luca was buying us time with his life.
“Hold on, Hannah!” Ben yelled, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
The massive iron front gates of the estate were dead ahead. They were closed and locked, the power cut.
“We’re going to ram them,” Ben warned, accelerating the heavy armored vehicle.
I braced myself against the dashboard, squeezing my eyes shut.
But just as we approached the gates, the headlights illuminated a figure standing dead center in the middle of the driveway.
Ben slammed on the brakes. The heavy SUV skidded violently on the gravel, stopping just twenty feet away from the figure.
My heart hammered in my throat.
Standing in the beam of the headlights, wearing a dark trench coat, was a woman.
She wasn't holding a gun. She wasn't holding a weapon of any kind.
But the sight of her made my blood run completely cold.
“Hannah,” Ben breathed, staring through the windshield in absolute horror. “Who is that?”
I stared at the woman in the headlights.
She had dark hair. Hazel eyes. And the exact same slight curve to her jawline as me.
She looked identical to the picture we had just found in the library.
“It’s Elena,” I whispered, my mind completely short-circuiting.
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My sister, the woman who had supposedly been dead for ten years, was standing in the driveway, staring directly at me.
And she was wearing my thirty-nine-dollar silver wedding ring on her left hand.
