Chapter 4 - THE CHAPEL DOOR
The blast shook the windows.
Emma screamed.
Lorenzo pulled both children’s caretaker, Rosa, from the hallway.
“Take Emma upstairs. Lock the safe room.”
“Daddy—”
“Now.”
Sophia grabbed Lorenzo’s arm.
“Mia.”
“My driver is already moving.”
Gunshots cracked outside.
Lorenzo didn’t flinch.
He took a pistol from a locked drawer beneath the foyer table.
Sophia stared at him.
“You keep a gun in the furniture?”
“My family has enemies.”
Valentina laughed bitterly.
“Finally, something true.”
Lorenzo pointed the pistol at her.
“You’re coming with us.”
Her eyes widened.
“You’re threatening me?”
“I’m asking you to walk.”
“That gun says otherwise.”
“Then listen to the gun.”
They moved down the marble corridor toward the private chapel.
Outside, men shouted.
More shots.
Someone was trying to enter the estate.
Carlo had vanished.
Lorenzo tried his phone again.
No signal.
“They cut communications.”
Sophia looked at Valentina.
“You knew this was coming.”
Valentina said nothing.
The chapel was small compared with the mansion, lined with dark wood and old religious paintings.
Lorenzo crossed to the altar.
“My father used to come here every night.”
Sophia held up the bronze key.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Valentina smiled.
“That’s because he never trusted you.”
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened.
Sophia searched the walls.
Bronze candleholders.
Bronze plaques.
Bronze hinges.
Then she noticed a small angel carved into the side of the altar.
One eye was missing.
The hole was key-shaped.
Sophia inserted the bronze key.
Click.
The entire altar shifted.
Behind it stood a narrow steel door.
Lorenzo stared.
“I lived here twenty-seven years.”
“You never knew?”
“No.”
Valentina suddenly moved.
She grabbed a brass candlestick and swung at Sophia’s head.
Sophia ducked.
Lorenzo caught Valentina from behind.
She screamed and kicked.
“You idiot! Do you think you’re the good Moretti?”
Lorenzo pinned her against the wall.
“What does that mean?”
“You think your father built an empire selling refrigerators?”
Sophia opened the steel door.
A staircase descended underground.
Cold air drifted upward.
Then her phone suddenly regained one bar.
A text arrived.
Unknown number.
She opened it.
A photograph loaded.
Mia was inside Lorenzo’s black SUV.
Sophia almost smiled.
Then she noticed the driver.
It wasn’t Lorenzo’s driver.
It was Carlo.
Under the photograph was one sentence.
THANK YOU FOR SENDING HER TO US.
May you like
Sophia’s scream filled the chapel.
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