Chapter 4 - THE TRAPDOOR BENEATH THE FLOORBOARDS
The rain battered the roof of the SUV as we sped toward the restaurant.
I couldn’t stop staring at the rusted iron key in my palm. Its teeth were jagged and uneven, heavy with age. The child’s drawing it had been taped to was crumpled in my lap.
“What trapdoor, Luca?” Michael asked from the front seat, his voice tight. “Dad’s office was on the ground floor. It was just concrete under the carpet.”
“Not all of it,” Luca said, his eyes fixed on the dark road ahead. He was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. “When I was ten, I caught him pulling up a section of the floorboards under his desk. There was a hidden space. He told me it was just for old tax records.”
“And you believed him?”
“He was my father, Mike. We didn’t question him.”
I held the drawing up to the passing streetlights. It was in crayon. A red brick building, a yellow sun, and two stick figures standing outside. One tall, one short.
“That’s me and you, Emmy,” my mother had told me when I drew it.
But why would whoever took my mother leave this specific drawing behind?
“They want us to go to the restaurant,” I whispered, the realization sending a chill down my spine. “Whoever took her… they didn’t find what they were looking for here. They left the key so we would find it for them.”
Luca glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “If Marcus Bellini is alive, he wants the property. But he already has the deed. Why tear apart your apartment?”
“Because the deed Carlo bought only covers the land,” Michael said suddenly, turning around in his seat. “Julian said the building itself was sold to someone else. What if Marcus doesn’t actually own the restaurant yet? What if my dad hid the original foundational charter?”
“Then whoever holds the charter controls the demolition,” Luca realized, stepping on the gas.
We pulled into the gravel alley behind Moretti’s Italian Kitchen.
The building was completely dark. It looked so small and fragile against the towering Chicago skyline. A heavy padlock hung on the back door.
Luca didn’t bother looking for a key. He raised his heavy boot and kicked the door right off its hinges. The wood splintered with a deafening crack.
We stepped into the kitchen.
The air smelled like dried oregano, old garlic, and dust. The stainless steel prep tables where my mother had spent decades chopping vegetables were covered in white sheets. It felt like walking into a graveyard.
Luca flicked on a heavy flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, landing on the swinging doors that led to the dining room.
“Stay close,” he muttered, leading the way.
We walked through the silent dining room and into the small office in the back. The air here was stale. Luca’s father’s heavy oak desk still sat in the center of the room.
Luca shoved the massive desk aside with a grunt of effort.
Underneath, the faded red carpet looked normal. But Luca dropped to his knees and ran his hands along the baseboard. He found a small seam, gripped the edge of the carpet, and ripped it back.
Beneath it were thick oak floorboards.
“Here,” Luca said, pointing to a small, recessed keyhole practically invisible against the wood grain.
I knelt beside him and handed him the rusted key. My hand brushed his, and I felt the heat radiating from his skin.
He slid the key into the lock. It turned with a heavy, grinding click.
Luca wedged his fingers into a small groove and pulled upward. A two-foot square section of the floor lifted away on hidden iron hinges.
Inside was a cavity about the size of a shoebox.
Luca shined the flashlight inside.
My breath caught.
There was no charter. There were no tax records.
Inside the hidden compartment was a loaded revolver, and a stack of faded, Polaroid photographs.
Luca reached in and pulled out the photos. He flipped to the first one.
I gasped.
It was a picture of my mother. She looked impossibly young, maybe twenty. She was standing in this exact office. She was crying, holding a bundle wrapped in a blue blanket.
But that wasn’t what made my heart stop.
Standing next to her, with his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders, was Luca’s father.
And lying on the floor at their feet was a man covered in blood.
“That’s Marcus Bellini,” Michael whispered, staring at the bloody man in the photo.
Luca flipped to the next photo.
It was a close-up of the bundle in my mother’s arms. The blue blanket was pulled back to reveal a sleeping baby.
Me.
“Why does he have a picture of you as a baby hidden with a gun?” Luca asked, his voice rough.
Before I could answer, a loud, slow clapping echoed from the dining room.
We all spun around. Luca raised his flashlight and his weapon simultaneously.
Standing in the doorway of the office, flanked by three men in heavy winter coats, was Vanessa.
She wasn’t wearing her red silk engagement gown anymore. She was wearing a black leather jacket, and she was holding a silver lighter.
“I told you she was a thief, Luca,” Vanessa smiled, her eyes gleaming with malice in the flashlight beam. “But I didn’t realize she was the bastard daughter of your beloved father.”
I stopped breathing.
“What did you say?” Luca growled, aiming his gun directly at Vanessa’s chest.
Vanessa laughed. “Oh, please. Look at the photo. Why else would the great don of the Moretti family give a dishwashing girl a house? Why else would he put the restaurant in her name? Emily isn’t just your maid, darling. She’s your half-sister.”
The room spun. I looked at the photo of my mother, then at Luca.
“That’s a lie,” I whispered, stumbling backward.
“Is it?” Vanessa asked. “Then why did your mother confess it to my father two hours ago?”
Luca’s safety clicked off. “Where is Sarah?”
Vanessa smiled and struck the lighter. A small flame danced in the dark.
“She’s tied to a chair in the basement of this restaurant,” Vanessa said softly. “And if you don’t hand over that rusted key, I’m going to drop this lighter in the gasoline my men just poured across the dining room floor.”
She lowered the flame toward the carpet.
“Wait!” a voice suddenly shouted from the shadows behind Vanessa.
One of Vanessa’s men grunted and collapsed to the floor.
Stepping over his body, holding a heavy iron tire iron, was Julian Vance.
And in his other hand, he was holding a thick, leather-bound ledger.
“She’s lying, Luca,” Julian said, breathing hard. “Emily is not your sister. And Marcus Bellini isn’t looking for a deed.”
Vanessa’s face twisted in rage. “Kill him!” she screamed at her men.
“Look at the final photograph!” Julian yelled over the chaos.
Luca flipped quickly to the last Polaroid in his hand.
He shined the flashlight on it.
I looked over his shoulder.
It was a picture of my mother, twenty-three years ago, standing in front of a crib.
But she wasn’t holding me.
She was holding a small boy with dark hair and a birthmark shaped like a crescent moon on his neck.
Michael reached up and instinctively touched the crescent-shaped birthmark on his own neck.
“No,” Michael whispered, his voice breaking.
May you like
Julian looked at Michael.
“Sarah Carter isn’t Luca’s father’s mistress,” Julian said quietly. “She is your biological mother, Michael. And she has been watching you grow up from across a dining room for twenty-three years.”
