Chapter 6 - THE CHILD’S DRAWING
The smell of burning wood hit the night air like a physical strike.
Luca didn't hesitate. He brought the butt of his gun down on the back of Vanessa’s neck. She collapsed instantly to the concrete floor, unconscious.
He sprinted out the door, plunging into the dark, freezing night.
“Call Daniel! Tell him to get the fire department and lock down the gates!” Luca yelled back at me as he ran.
I pulled my phone from my apron, dialed the security chief, and screamed the orders. Then, ignoring the agonizing, burning pain in my knee, I dragged myself out the door and hobbled after Luca toward the lake.
By the time I reached the water’s edge, the old wooden boathouse was fully engulfed in flames.
The heat was blistering.
Luca had kicked the heavy double doors open. Smoke poured out in thick, black plumes.
“Rebecca!” Luca roared, diving into the burning building.
“Luca, no!” I screamed, terrified the roof was about to collapse.
I stood near the muddy banks of the lake, shielding my face from the heat. Ten seconds passed. Twenty. It felt like an eternity.
Finally, Luca emerged from the smoke, coughing violently.
His hands were empty.
“They’re not in there,” he gasped, falling to his knees in the grass. “The room is empty.”
“Thank God,” I breathed, limping over to him.
“But they were here,” he said, his voice raw with smoke and panic.
He opened his blackened hand.
Clutched in his palm was a slightly singed piece of paper.
I knelt beside him in the wet grass and looked at it.
It was a child's drawing. Done in bright wax crayons.
It depicted two stick figures—a tall woman and a little girl in a yellow dress. They were holding hands.
But standing over them was a third figure.
It was a man. Drawn entirely in black crayon. And drawn across the man’s face, in stark red crayon, was a massive jagged scar.
“Lily drew this,” Luca whispered, staring at the paper.
“Who is the man with the scar?” I asked.
Luca’s expression turned to pure ice.
“Salvatore Rossi.”
My stomach plummeted. Even I knew that name. Salvatore Rossi was the ruthless leader of a rival faction, a man who had been fighting a brutal turf war with Luca for three years. Rossi was famous for the deep machete scar across his face.
The reversal was staggering.
Vanessa thought she was in control. She thought she was using her own men to hold Rebecca and Lily.
But she had been double-crossed.
One of her hired mercenaries must have realized who they were holding and sold the information to Rossi. Rossi didn't just want Luca’s money; he wanted to destroy Luca entirely. And now Rossi had his sister and his niece.
“They didn't start the fire to kill them,” Luca realized, looking at the burning building. “Rossi’s men started the fire to destroy the evidence that they took them.”
I looked down at the ground near the lake’s edge.
The mud was thick from yesterday’s rain.
“Mr. Moretti,” I said, pointing to the dirt.
Deep, fresh tire tracks cut through the mud, leading away from the boathouse and directly toward the old, rusted service gate hidden in the trees—the gate Vanessa had given the guard the key to.
But that wasn't what caught my eye.
Lying in the center of the deep tire rut, completely covered in thick red blood, was a second gold pocket watch.
I frowned.
I reached into my apron. Before I left the hallway, I had picked up the gold watch Vanessa had dropped.
I pulled it out.
“Luca,” I said, my voice trembling. “Vanessa had Michael’s watch.”
Luca looked at the clean watch in my hand, then down at the bloody watch in the mud.
He reached down and picked up the bloody one. He flipped it over.
Engraved on the back were the initials: M.D.
Michael Dawson.
“Vanessa had a fake,” Luca breathed, the realization dawning on him. “She used a fake to try and prove to me she had broken him.”
He stared at the blood coating the real watch.
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“Michael didn't run away,” Luca said softly. “He came here tonight. He tried to stop Rossi’s men from taking them.”
The blood in the mud told a horrifying story. Michael had fought, and he had lost.
