We scrambled down the dark, narrow stone steps leading to the wine cellar. The air grew freezing cold. I fumbled with the keys in the dark, my hands shaking so violently I dropped them twice.
Above us, heavy footsteps pounded against the kitchen floor.
“They’re in the cellar!” Vanessa’s voice echoed down the stairwell.
I finally found the rusted iron key. I shoved it into the heavy metal door at the back of the wine racks and turned. The lock clicked.
We threw ourselves into the dark dirt tunnel just as bullets began shattering the expensive wine bottles behind us.
Luca slammed the iron door shut and threw the heavy deadbolt.
We stood in pitch blackness, breathing heavily. The smell of damp earth and old brick filled my lungs.
Teresa slumped against the dirt wall. “Where does this tunnel go?”
“To the old carriage house,” Luca said, pulling a small flashlight from his pocket. He clicked it on, casting a pale beam down the endless, terrifying corridor. “From there, we take a car and disappear.”
He looked down at his mother. Then he looked at me.
“Thank you, Hannah,” he said quietly.
I nodded, gripping the key ring.
But as the flashlight beam swept across the dirt floor, my stomach completely dropped.
Lying in the center of the tunnel, covered in a thin layer of dust, was a child’s red velvet shoe.
Teresa saw it too. She let out a horrifying, choked gasp.
“Luca,” Teresa whispered, pointing a trembling finger at the tiny shoe. “She told me she buried her.”
TITLE: THE VELVET SHOE IN THE TUNNEL
Chapter 4 – THE VELVET SHOE IN THE TUNNEL
The pale beam of the flashlight trembled in Luca’s hand, illuminating the small red velvet shoe.
The silence in the dirt tunnel was suffocating. I stared at the tiny object, my heart hammering against my ribs. I had been in the Moretti house for eleven months. I knew every room, every photograph, every secret the staff whispered about.
But I had never heard anything about a child.
“Mom,” Luca said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. “Whose shoe is that?”
Teresa was trembling violently, clutching the collar of her cardigan as if she were freezing to death. She pressed her back against the damp brick wall, unable to tear her eyes away from the velvet fabric.
“It’s Isabella’s,” Teresa whispered, the name tearing out of her throat like barbed wire.
Luca froze. “Isabella died at birth, Mom. Twenty years ago.”
“She didn’t die,” Teresa sobbed, sliding slowly down the wall until she sat on the dirt floor. “Your father… he told me she died. But I heard her cry, Luca. I swear to God, I heard my baby cry before they took her out of the delivery room.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. Luca’s younger sister. The one the family never spoke about.
“Why would Dad fake her death?” Luca asked, dropping to his knees beside his mother. The terrifying reality of the night was rapidly spiraling into something far darker than a simple inheritance dispute.
“Because she wasn’t perfect,” Teresa cried, burying her face in her hands. “Your father wanted an empire. When the doctors told him Isabella was born with a severe spinal defect… that she would never walk… he said she was a weakness the family couldn’t afford.”
Luca looked as if he had been physically struck. The mafia boss, the man who controlled half the city, was unraveling in a dirt tunnel under his own home.
“He gave her away?” Luca asked.
“He gave her to Vanessa’s father,” Teresa confessed, her voice breaking. “To hide in one of their private medical facilities. That’s why Vanessa has so much power over Michael. Her family has been holding the true Moretti heir hostage for twenty years.”
My stomach churned. The “lovely private residence” Vanessa had threatened to send Teresa to wasn’t a nursing home. It was the same hidden facility where they had locked away her disabled daughter.
And Michael knew.
“That’s why Michael is helping her,” Luca breathed, realization dawning in his eyes. “If I die, and the board finds out there’s a surviving child… Vanessa controls the child. She controls the entire syndicate.”
Suddenly, the heavy iron door behind us shuddered violently.
BOOM.
Dust rained down from the brick ceiling. They were hitting the door with a sledgehammer.
“They’re breaking through,” I panicked, grabbing Teresa’s arm. “We have to go!”
Luca scooped up the tiny red velvet shoe and shoved it into his pocket. He hauled his mother to her feet. “Can you walk, Mom?”
“I have to,” Teresa said fiercely. The frail, terrified old woman from the dining room was gone. She was a mother who had just realized her stolen daughter might still be alive.
We ran.
The tunnel was damp and uneven. I held Teresa’s hand, guiding her over exposed roots and crumbling bricks. The sound of the sledgehammer hitting the iron door faded behind us, replaced by the terrifying echo of our own breathing.
After what felt like miles, the tunnel began to incline. We hit a dead end: a heavy wooden trapdoor set into the ceiling.
Luca pushed his weight against it. It creaked, then gave way, swinging upward into the dark.
We climbed out into the old carriage house. It smelled of motor oil and dust. Sitting in the center of the concrete floor, hidden under a canvas tarp, was a vintage black Mustang.
“Get in,” Luca ordered, tossing the tarp aside.
I helped Teresa into the back seat and climbed in beside her. Luca jumped into the driver’s seat. He didn’t need keys; he reached under the dashboard and hot-wired the ignition in seconds. The engine roared to life with a deafening growl.
Luca hit the garage door opener on the wall. As the wooden doors rolled up, he slammed on the gas.
We tore out of the carriage house, fishtailing onto the wet gravel driveway behind the estate.
“Where are we going?” I yelled over the engine.
“To find my sister,” Luca said, his eyes burning in the rearview mirror. “Vanessa’s family owns a private clinic in the North Suburbs. If Isabella is alive, she’s there.”
He cranked the steering wheel, rocketing the Mustang through the back service gates and onto the deserted highway.
