Chapter 5 - IN THE DARK
The darkness in the bunker was absolute.
No emergency lights kicked on. The hum of the ventilation system slowly ground to a halt. The heavy steel door sealed shut with a chilling, mechanical thud.
“Leo!” I screamed blindly in the dark.
“I’m here, Soph!” his voice came from a few feet away, shaking with fear.
I scrambled across the floor until my hands found the cold metal of his wheelchair. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him tightly against my chest.
“Stay exactly where you are,” Matteo’s voice cut through the pitch black. It was terrifyingly calm. The voice of a man who had lived his entire life preparing for the dark.
I heard the metallic slide of his handgun being chambered.
“Are they going to open the door?” I whispered, my heart slamming against my ribs.
“No,” Matteo replied. I heard his footsteps moving silently across the concrete floor. “Vince knows he can’t take me in a gunfight. He cut the power to suffocate us. This bunker is airtight. Without ventilation, the oxygen will run out in a few hours.”
A whimper escaped Eleanor, who was lying on the cot in the corner.
“Matteo…” the old woman rasped.
A small, bright beam of light suddenly pierced the darkness. Matteo had turned on a tactical flashlight attached to his weapon. He pointed it at the floor, providing just enough ambient light for us to see each other’s terrified faces.
He walked over to Eleanor, kneeling beside her cot.
“I’m sorry, Eleanor,” he said, his voice thick with guilt. “I brought this on you.”
“You brought us the truth,” she whispered, reaching out to touch his bloodstained cheek. “Open the journal, son. Before the air gets too thin.”
Matteo hesitated. He looked at me, then at Leo.
“We need to find a way out first,” Matteo said, standing up and shining the light along the reinforced concrete walls.
“There is no way out, Mr. Ricci,” I said, panic bubbling in my throat. “You built this room to withstand an airstrike.”
“There’s a manual override for the air vents behind the main panel,” Matteo said, moving toward a massive steel breaker box on the wall. “Hold the light.”
He handed me the heavy flashlight. Our fingers brushed. His hand was warm, steady, and incredibly strong. For a split second, in the cold, terrifying dark, I felt absurdly safe.
As Matteo used a pocket knife to pry open the steel panel, I aimed the beam over his shoulder.
“Sophie,” Leo whispered from his chair. “Is that the mafia guy?”
“Yes, Leo,” I said softly.
“He’s pretty cool,” my brother mumbled, oblivious to the fact that we were slowly running out of air.
Matteo paused his prying and glanced back at the boy. A faint, almost invisible smile touched his lips. “You’re pretty brave yourself, kid.”
With a loud crack, the panel gave way. Matteo reached inside, his muscular forearm flexing as he pulled a heavy lever.
Nothing happened.
Matteo cursed under his breath. “Vince welded the external vent shut before he cut the power.”
The reality settled over us like a shroud. We were buried alive under a fifty-million-dollar mansion.
Matteo walked back to the metal table. He set his gun down and picked up the charred leather journal.
“Hold the light over the pages,” he told me.
I stepped close to him. Our shoulders touched. He smelled of smoke, expensive cologne, and sweat.
He opened the delicate, water-stained pages.
The handwriting was elegant, though rushed.
December 4th, the first entry read. Marcus came to the house today. Vincenzo doesn’t see it, but I see the greed in Marcus’s eyes. He is moving money through the offshore accounts. Arthur is helping him.
Matteo’s jaw tightened. “Arthur. Vince’s father. They planned it together.”
He flipped further toward the back, to the final entry, dated the day of the fire.
They are coming tonight, his mother had written. I heard Arthur on the phone. They plan to kill Vincenzo and burn the house. I have hidden Matteo’s blanket with Eleanor. She will protect him. But there is something else. Something Marcus doesn’t know I have.
I leaned in closer, my breathing shallow. “What is it?”
Matteo’s finger traced the smudged ink.
I found Marcus’s secret ledger. The proof of his treason against the Commission. I am hiding it inside the old grandfather clock in the study. If anything happens to me, whoever finds it will have the power to destroy the Sterling family forever.
“The grandfather clock,” Matteo whispered.
“Did it burn in the fire?” I asked.
“No,” Matteo said, his eyes widening. “The study was on the north wing. It survived. When Marcus took over my father’s estate, he moved all the surviving furniture into storage.”
“Where?”
“Here,” Matteo said. “In the sub-basement of this house.”
Suddenly, Leo spoke up.
“Hey, guys?”
We both turned.
Leo was holding a small, crumpled piece of paper he had found on the floor near his wheelchair. It looked like it had fallen out of the journal when Matteo dropped it earlier.
“What is that, Leo?” I asked.
“It’s a drawing,” Leo said, squinting in the dim light. “It looks like a kid drew it.”
Matteo stepped over and took the paper. I shone the light on it.
It was a crayon drawing of three stick figures holding hands in front of a house.
Two tall figures, and one small figure.
But at the top, written in messy child’s handwriting, were the words:
To Mommy. Love, Camille.
Matteo stared at the drawing, his breath hitching.
“My mother kept a drawing made by Camille?” Matteo asked, utterly bewildered.
“Turn it over,” Eleanor rasped from the bed.
Matteo flipped the paper.
On the back, in his mother’s elegant handwriting, was a single, shattering sentence.
I will die tonight to protect my son, but my heart breaks leaving my daughter in the hands of a monster.
The flashlight slipped from my hands, clattering against the concrete.
May you like
Camille wasn’t just Marcus Sterling’s daughter.
She was Matteo’s sister.
