Chapter 8 - THE REVERSAL
“Put the guns down, Vince.”
Camille’s voice cracked like a whip through the dusty bunker.
Vince didn’t lower his rifle. He shot an annoyed glare over his shoulder. “Stay back, princess. Your father gave me direct orders. Ricci doesn’t walk out of here.”
“I said put it down!” Camille screamed, stepping fully into the light.
I gasped.
Camille’s beautiful face was bruised. Her lip was split, bleeding onto her expensive gown. It was obvious Marcus had hit her when she returned from the failed engagement dinner.
“He’s my fiancé,” Camille said, her voice shaking but full of venom. “The Sterling family handles its own business. Give me your gun.”
Vince hesitated, glancing at his two men. He chuckled darkly. “You want to pull the trigger yourself? Fine by me. Saves me the paperwork.”
Vince handed Camille his heavy handgun.
She took it, her manicured hands trembling under the weight of the steel. She turned slowly, aiming the barrel directly at Matteo’s chest.
Matteo didn’t raise his own weapon. He just stared at her.
“Camille,” Matteo said softly.
“Shut up,” she sobbed, tears cutting through the dust on her cheeks. “You ruined everything! I had it perfectly planned. Once we were married, I could have finally pushed my father out. I could have been safe!”
“Safe from the man who murdered our mother?” Matteo asked quietly.
The bunker went dead silent.
Vince frowned. “What the hell is he talking about?”
Camille’s hands shook violently. The gun wavered. “Don’t play mind games with me, Matteo.”
“It’s not a game, Camille,” Matteo took a slow step forward. He kept his hands open, non-threatening. “I read the journal. And I saw the drawing.”
Camille froze. The breath hitched in her throat. “What drawing?”
Matteo reached into his pocket and slowly pulled out the crumpled crayon drawing of the three stick figures. He held it out.
“You drew this for her,” Matteo said softly. “You were there the night of the fire, weren’t you? You didn’t just hear about it. You saw what Marcus did.”
Camille let out a choked, devastated sob. The cold, arrogant facade she had worn for months completely shattered.
“He made me watch,” Camille wept, the gun dipping slightly. “I was seven years old. He brought me to the house in the black car. He told me to watch the flames. He said, ‘That’s what happens to women who abandon their families.’”
I felt sick to my stomach. Marcus Sterling hadn’t just murdered Matteo’s parents; he had psychologically tortured a seven-year-old girl by making her watch her biological mother burn.
“She didn’t abandon you,” Matteo said, his voice breaking. He turned the drawing around, showing her the faded handwriting on the back. “She wrote this before she died. Read it, Camille.”
Camille stepped closer, her eyes scanning the smudged ink.
‘My heart breaks leaving my daughter in the hands of a monster.’
The gun slipped from Camille’s fingers, clattering loudly against the concrete floor.
She fell to her knees, clutching her face as years of repressed grief and manufactured hatred tore out of her in a visceral, agonizing scream. She had spent her entire life hating a mother who had loved her until her dying breath.
“Well,” Vince sighed, rolling his eyes. “This is a touching family reunion. But I still have a job to do.”
Vince raised his rifle, aiming it squarely at Matteo’s head.
“Goodbye, Boss.”
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
A shrill, electronic alarm suddenly echoed from Vince’s radio earpiece.
Vince paused, pressing a finger to his ear. “What? Repeat that.”
He went pale.
“The FBI just breached the front gates?” Vince yelled into his radio. “How? We own the local cops!”
My heart soared. Leo.
My little brother had found the clock. He had pressed the button.
“Feds are swarming the estate!” one of the armed guards panicked, backing toward the hallway. “They’ve got armored trucks!”
“Forget Ricci, we gotta bounce!” Vince shouted, turning to run.
But as Vince spun around, he found himself staring directly into the barrel of Matteo’s handgun.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Arthur’s son,” Matteo said, his voice cold as the grave.
BANG.
Matteo didn’t shoot to kill. He put a single bullet through Vince’s kneecap.
Vince screamed, collapsing in a heap of agony. The other two guards dropped their weapons instantly, throwing their hands in the air, terrified of the man they had just betrayed.
Red and blue sirens began flashing through the hallway above, reflecting down the stairs into the bunker. The heavy thud of tactical boots echoed through the house.
“FBI! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!”
Matteo slowly lowered his gun and placed it on the floor.
I didn’t wait for the agents to clear the room. I bolted past the guards, sprinting up the stairs toward the basement storage room.
“Leo!” I screamed, tearing through the dark hallways.
I burst into the storage room. It was filled with dusty, tarp-covered furniture.
In the center of the room stood a massive, antique mahogany grandfather clock.
And sitting on the floor beside it, covered in dust and cobwebs, was my twelve-year-old brother.
He was holding a small, black leather ledger.
“Soph!” Leo grinned, his face smeared with dirt. He held up the wooden rosary I had wrapped around his wrist. “I found it. Just like you said.”
I fell to my knees, wrapping my arms around him so tightly we both tumbled onto the floor. I buried my face in his dusty hair, sobbing uncontrollably.
“You did it, Leo,” I cried. “You saved us.”
Suddenly, the lights in the basement flickered on.
Standing in the doorway was a team of heavily armed FBI agents. But they weren’t looking at me and Leo.
They parted down the middle, making way for a tall, gray-haired man in an expensive suit, handcuffed, with blood dripping from a fresh cut on his cheek.
May you like
Marcus Sterling.
And walking directly behind him, holding the silver pocket watch, was Matteo.
