Chapter 5 - THE WAREHOUSE ON 4TH
Luca grabbed my waist and threw me toward the hallway.
“Move!” he roared.
We hit the corridor just as the blast ripped through Vanessa’s suite. The shockwave threw us against the plaster wall. Wood, glass, and expensive silk rained down around us.
Luca shielded my body with his own. The heavy weight of him pressed me into the floor, blocking the heat and the debris. My ears were ringing violently, but I could feel his heart hammering against my back.
He pulled me up, his face covered in white dust. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I coughed, clutching his arm. “Are you?”
He ignored the blood dripping from his own temple. He looked back at the burning room.
“She knew,” Luca said, his voice deadly calm. “She knew we would look in the chest. She set a tripwire.”
The fire alarms began screaming. Mrs. Carter and the remaining staff ran up the stairs in a panic.
“Get everyone out!” Luca ordered. He turned to Daniel, who had survived the blast because he had been closer to the door. “You. If you want my forgiveness, you earn it right now. Where is the boy?”
Daniel was bleeding from the shoulder but he scrambled to his feet. “I swear on my life, Boss, I don’t know. She never told me where she kept him. Only the fake photographs.”
Luca’s jaw clenched. He looked at the burning bedroom. The drawing was gone. Destroyed in the fire.
But I suddenly remembered the way the construction paper felt in my hands. The thickness of it.
“Wait,” I gasped. “When I held the drawing… there was a crease in the cardboard backing. Something was stuffed inside it.”
Luca turned to me, his eyes intense. “Did you see what it was?”
“No. But the corner was sticking out. It was yellow. Thick paper. Like a train ticket.” I closed my eyes, forcing my memory to pull the image back. “There were letters printed on the edge. S… T… A.”
“Stanton,” Daniel breathed out. “Stanton Boarding School. It’s an abandoned facility upstate. Vanessa’s father used to own the property.”
Luca didn’t hesitate. “Get the car.”
We drove an hour north in absolute silence. The rain beat against the windshield of the SUV. I sat in the passenger seat, my hands folded in my lap, feeling completely out of my depth. I was a maid. I made sixteen dollars an hour. Now I was sitting next to the most feared man in Chicago, racing to find a dead child.
“Why did she do it?” I asked quietly into the dark car. “If she wanted to marry you, why hide your nephew for three years?”
Luca kept his eyes on the road. “Because my father’s will stated that the syndicate and the fortune go to his first male grandchild. If Leo died, the inheritance passed to me.”
I stared at his profile in the passing streetlights. “She didn’t just want to marry you. She wanted to control the true heir.”
Luca’s knuckles went white on the steering wheel. “And she staged those photos with Daniel wearing my shirt so she could frame me for a pre-existing affair. If the syndicate bosses believed I was unfaithful before the marriage, it voids our prenuptial agreement.”
She was going to take everything.
The SUV swerved off the main road, crunching onto a gravel driveway. Through the trees, a massive, decaying brick building loomed in the headlights. Stanton Boarding School.
The front gates were chained, but Luca drove the SUV straight through them, shattering the rusted metal.
We ran inside. The air was freezing and smelled of mildew.
“Leo!” Luca shouted, his voice echoing down the dark, empty halls.
We searched the first floor. Nothing.
We ran to the second floor.
At the end of a long hallway, a single heavy wooden door was locked from the outside with a padlock.
Luca didn’t look for a key. He stepped back and kicked the door right at the lock mechanism. The wood splintered. He kicked it again, and the door flew open.
I followed him inside.
In the corner of a damp, freezing room, sitting on a bare mattress, was a little boy.
He was wearing the blue coat.
He looked terrified, his knees pulled to his chest. He had Luca’s dark hair, but his eyes were bright, piercing green.
Luca dropped to his knees, sliding across the dusty floor until he was in front of the boy. The mafia boss, a man who terrified entire cities, was crying.
“Leo,” Luca choked out, reaching out a trembling hand. “It’s me. It’s Uncle Luca.”
The boy didn’t move toward him. Instead, Leo’s green eyes shifted past Luca.
He looked directly at me.
May you like
The little boy slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn, silver necklace with a dent in the back. A perfect match to the one currently hanging around my neck.
“Are you her?” Leo whispered to me, his voice raspy from disuse. “Are you the lady my nanny said would come for me?”
