Chapter 7 - THE IRON KEY IN THE BLOODSTAINED HAND
The elevator car plunged downward, the silence broken only by the ragged, desperate sound of Luca’s breathing.
“The true heir to both families?” I repeated, staring at the ornate iron key in my bloody palm. “Luca, what are you talking about? I’m just a maid. I grew up in foster care!”
“My mother didn't abandon you, Hannah,” Luca choked out, his head lolling back against the mirrored wall of the elevator. “She faked your death. Victor thought he killed you when you were a baby.”
I stopped breathing. The world tilted violently.
“Victor hired a hitman to execute you thirty years ago,” Luca gasped, his eyes struggling to stay focused on mine. “He wanted to wipe out the Rossi bloodline completely. But my mother intercepted the hit. She hid you in the foster system, erased all records of your existence, and forged a death certificate for a baby boy named Matteo to satisfy Victor.”
Tears streamed down my face, washing through the blood smeared on my cheeks. My mother hadn't thrown me away. She had sacrificed everything to keep me alive.
“But she left proof,” Luca whispered, his hand gripping mine weakly. “Proof of your lineage. Proof that you are the legal heir to the Moretti empire, not me. And not Victor.”
He coughed violently, a fresh wave of blood soaking the apron I had pressed against his stomach.
“If Victor finds out you’re the baby he tried to kill, he won't stop hunting you,” Luca wheezed, his grip on my hand loosening. “You have to find the proof. You have to take it to the Commission. They will strip him of all power.”
The elevator jolted to a halt, the doors sliding open to reveal the dim, cavernous underground parking garage of the casino.
It was empty. The chaos of the penthouse hadn't reached the basement yet.
“Come on,” I sobbed, hauling Luca to his feet. He was dead weight, his long legs dragging across the concrete, but adrenaline fueled my muscles.
I dragged him toward a sleek, black sedan parked near the exit—one of Marco’s secure vehicles. I managed to get the back door open and shoved Luca inside, laying him across the leather seats.
I scrambled into the driver’s seat. I didn't have keys, but the car was push-to-start, the fob already resting in the center console.
I hit the ignition, threw the car into drive, and tore out of the garage, the tires squealing against the concrete.
We burst out into the rainy Chicago night, speeding away from the casino.
I drove frantically, glancing in the rearview mirror every few seconds, terrified of seeing Victor’s men in pursuit. But the streets were relatively clear, the storm washing away the violence of the night.
“Where is the safe house?” I asked, looking back at Luca in the rearview mirror.
He didn't answer.
“Luca?” I cried, panic seizing my chest.
He was unconscious. His head was rolled back against the leather seat, his chest barely rising and falling. He had lost too much blood.
I couldn't go to a hospital. Victor owned half the cops and doctors in the city. If I brought Luca to an ER, Victor’s men would find him before he ever reached an operating room.
I needed a place to hide. A place Victor didn't know about.
I looked down at the iron key sitting in the cup holder.
Frank’s key. The one he had given me in the dining room before Victor killed him.
“There’s a locked grate behind the third rack on the left. This key opens it. Inside is a lockbox with the original financial ledgers.”
I had left the lockbox in the foyer of the estate when Victor ambushed us. The police probably had it now.
But Frank had known about the secret compartments in the estate. He had been a mechanic, a man who built things. He had known every hidden corner of the Moretti mansion.
I slammed on the brakes, throwing the car into a violent U-turn in the middle of a deserted intersection.
I wasn't going to a random safe house. I was going back to the estate.
It was insane. The mansion was crawling with police and crime scene investigators. But it was also the last place Victor would expect me to go. And if Frank had hidden the ledgers in the wine cellar, maybe he had hidden Luca’s proof there, too.
Thirty minutes later, I pulled the sedan into a thick, overgrown alleyway two blocks from the Moretti estate. The flashing red and blue lights of dozens of police cruisers illuminated the night sky above the mansion walls.
I left the car running, the heater blasting to keep Luca warm, and slipped out into the rain.
I navigated the back streets, using the old servant routes I had learned during my eleven months working at the house. I climbed the rusted wrought-iron fence bordering the rear gardens, dropping silently into the wet grass.
The back of the estate was heavily guarded by police tape, but the officers were concentrated near the front entrances and the dining room where the murders had occurred.
I slipped through the shadows, moving toward the old storm cellar doors hidden behind the rose bushes.
The padlock was broken—shattered by a gunshot during the earlier chaos.
I pulled the heavy wooden doors open and descended into the pitch-black basement.
The air was damp and smelled of old stone. I didn't dare turn on my phone flashlight. I relied on memory, trailing my hand along the cold stone wall, counting the heavy oak wine racks in the dark.
One. Two. Three.
I dropped to my knees, feeling along the stone wall behind the rack. My fingers brushed against the rusted iron grate.
It was open. The lockbox was gone.
But I didn't stop searching. I reached deeper into the dark ventilation shaft, feeling along the cold, damp stone.
My hand hit something hard. Something wedged tightly into a crevice near the back of the shaft.
I pulled it free, scraping my knuckles on the stone.
It was a small, heavy object wrapped in oilcloth.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and quickly flashed the light, just for a second.
I peeled back the oilcloth.
Inside wasn't a document. It wasn't a ledger.
It was a beautiful, ornate silver pacifier. The kind wealthy families bought for their newborns as keepsakes.
But that wasn't what made my breath catch in my throat.
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Engraved on the silver shield of the pacifier, in elegant, swirling script, was a name.
Hannah Moretti-Rossi.
