Chapter 7 - GET EVERYONE OUT
“EVACUATE THE HOUSE!”
Isabella’s voice thundered through the hallway.
Luca ran for the basement.
Vincent grabbed Sofia.
Rosa grabbed Mateo.
Mrs. Caruso froze.
“What’s happening?”
“Gas.”
Isabella took her mother’s arm.
The smell was faint upstairs.
Stronger near the rear stairwell.
Natural gas.
Enough of it, and one spark could turn the old townhouse into a grave.
Rosa pulled Mateo toward the front door.
He resisted.
“My coat!”
“Leave it.”
“It’s in the dining room.”
“Mateo.”
“But—”
Rosa knelt.
“Things can be replaced.”
His eyes filled.
“That one was Dad’s.”
Rosa stopped.
Isabella heard.
Mateo’s father had died when he was four.
The navy coat had belonged to him as a child, saved by Mateo’s grandmother and altered to fit.
That explained why Rosa had clutched it like more than clothing.
Why Mateo cared about one torn sleeve while killers surrounded them.
Isabella said, “I’ll get it.”
Rosa turned sharply.
“No.”
“Take him outside.”
“You’re not going back into a house filling with gas for a coat.”
Isabella almost smiled.
“You walked into an engagement dinner for him.”
“That was different.”
“Not from where I’m standing.”
Before Rosa could stop her, Isabella ran toward the dining room.
The gas smell strengthened.
Luca shouted from below.
“MAIN VALVE’S JAMMED!”
“Can you shut it?”
“Trying!”
Isabella entered the dining room.
The table remained overturned.
Broken chandelier crystals glittered across the floor.
Mateo’s coat lay beneath a chair.
She grabbed it.
Then heard something click.
A timer.
Her head turned.
Beneath the sideboard, wires.
A small ignition device.
Twenty-three seconds.
“LUCA!”
He appeared in the hallway.
She pointed.
His face changed.
“OUT!”
“What is it?”
“IGNITER!”
Nineteen seconds.
They ran.
Vincent had cleared the upper floor.
Sofia dragged Teresa Walsh toward the front despite the woman trying to resist.
“You’re saving me?” Teresa gasped.
Sofia glared at her.
“Don’t make me regret it.”
Twelve seconds.
Isabella reached the foyer.
Her mother was outside.
Rosa.
Mateo.
Guards.
Neighbors gathering.
“MOVE BACK!”
Seven.
Luca burst from the basement.
“Valve shut!”
Too late.
Gas remained inside.
Three.
Isabella and Luca dove through the doorway.
The townhouse windows erupted.
A deep boom rolled through the block.
Glass blew into the street.
Flames flashed orange behind the dining room windows.
Mateo screamed.
Rosa covered him with her body.
Isabella hit the pavement.
For several seconds, sound disappeared.
Then returned as ringing.
Sirens.
Shouting.
Someone grabbed Isabella’s shoulder.
“Boss!”
She rolled over.
Luca.
Blood down one side of his face from the earlier teacup, but alive.
“You?”
“Alive.”
Isabella looked toward the house.
Her home burned from the inside.
The chandelier.
Her father’s study.
The dining room where her engagement had ended.
The kitchen where her mother made Sunday sauce.
Gone.
Then Mateo appeared.
Rosa tried to hold him back.
He slipped free.
He ran to Isabella.
She sat up.
“You okay?”
Mateo nodded.
Then he saw what she held.
His coat.
His face changed.
“You got it.”
Isabella looked down.
The navy wool was singed at one shoulder.
Still there.
She handed it to him.
Mateo hugged it.
Then hugged her.
Again without warning.
This time Isabella did not freeze.
She held him.
Across the street, Teresa Walsh sat handcuffed beside an ambulance.
She watched.
Her revenge had burned Isabella’s house.
It had not erased her family.
Maybe that was the first thing she truly understood.
Three fire companies fought the flames.
By midnight, most of the townhouse was still standing.
The dining room and rear service corridor had taken the worst damage.
Isabella’s father’s study survived.
So did the upstairs bedrooms.
Her mother sat in an ambulance wrapped in a blanket.
Sofia beside her.
Vincent paced despite his ribs.
Rosa stood with Mateo.
Luca approached Isabella.
“Adrian knows.”
“How?”
“Word got out that the house exploded.”
“Of course.”
“He tried to make a call from holding.”
“To who?”
“They blocked it.”
Isabella looked toward the flames.
“Tomorrow he gets transferred.”
“Yes.”
“Maximum security.”
“For now.”
She nodded.
Something bothered her.
“What?”
Luca waited.
“The explosion.”
“What about it?”
“Teresa knew everybody would be home.”
“Yes.”
“She hated me.”
“Yes.”
“But she looked at my mother when I asked about the attack.”
Luca frowned.
“She might have been willing to kill everyone.”
“Maybe.”
Isabella looked toward Teresa.
Then walked to the ambulance.
The older woman looked up.
“Come to enjoy it?”
“No.”
Isabella sat across from her.
“Who was the bomb meant for?”
Teresa said nothing.
“My mother?”
Silence.
“Me?”
Teresa looked away.
“Adrian gave you instructions.”
Nothing.
“He wanted the whole family dead?”
Teresa finally looked at her.
“He told me the house would be empty.”
Isabella froze.
“What?”
“He said after the pier, you would all go to the hospital with Marco.”
“Then why rig tonight?”
“To destroy the house.”
“Why?”
Teresa laughed bitterly.
“Because he wanted you to understand you had nothing left.”
Isabella leaned back.
So Adrian had not ordered a mass killing.
Teresa had armed the device expecting an empty home.
Still a crime.
Still revenge.
But different.
“Why did it activate early?”
Teresa’s face changed.
“I didn’t activate it.”
Luca and Isabella looked at each other.
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
The timer should have been remote-controlled.
Someone else triggered it.
Adrian was in custody.
Teresa was upstairs.
Anthony was under guard.
One more person.
Again.
Luca’s phone rang.
He answered.
“Ferretti.”
Then went still.
“When?”
He looked at Isabella.
“Hospital.”
“Marco?”
“He’s alive.”
“What happened?”
“Someone tried to get into his room dressed as an orderly.”
Isabella stood.
“Caught?”
“No.”
“Description?”
Luca listened.
Then slowly lowered the phone.
“Female. Late thirties. Dark hair.”
Isabella frowned.
There were hundreds of women fitting that description.
Then Rosa spoke behind them.
“I saw a woman.”
They turned.
“At the safe house,” Rosa said.
“The one who drugged me.”
“What did she look like?”
“Dark hair. Maybe thirty-five or forty.”
“Anything distinctive?”
Rosa thought.
“Perfume.”
Isabella stared.
“What kind?”
“I don’t know. Strong. Flowers.”
Sofia looked up from beside her mother.
“Gardenia?”
Rosa turned.
“Yes.”
Sofia went pale.
Isabella saw it.
“Who?”
Sofia whispered a name.
“Camille Russo.”
Carlo’s daughter.
Adrian’s younger sister.
A woman who had sat at the engagement dinner drinking champagne and comforting Isabella’s mother while Sofia lay beneath the house.
Isabella felt the last piece fall into place.
Adrian had not built this alone.
He had built it with someone Isabella had barely looked at.
May you like
Because everyone had been watching the groom.
Nobody had been watching his sister.
