Chapter 4 - Somebody Inside the House
Every armed man in the Bellandi estate moved at once.
Doors locked.
Security teams spread through corridors.
Marco barked orders into his radio.
Luca placed Nico directly into my arms.
“Stay with Bianca.”
“No.”
His eyes flashed.
“Mara.”
“My mother just called me after being dead for seven years. I’m not waiting upstairs while you decide what I’m allowed to know.”
“This is not a debate.”
“Then stop talking and go find whoever slammed the door.”
He stared at me.
Bianca muttered, “I like her.”
Luca ignored his sister.
“Marco, two men here.”
“I don’t need—”
“Two.”
Marco nodded.
Luca disappeared down the corridor.
I looked at Bianca.
“Is he always like this?”
“Worse when he likes someone.”
“He doesn’t like me.”
She gave me a look.
I pointed at Nico.
“This is about him.”
“Of course.”
Her tone was annoyingly unconvinced.
We went upstairs.
Two armed guards remained outside Nico’s nursery.
I tried calling my mother’s number.
Disconnected.
Again.
Nothing.
“Can they trace it?”
“They’ll try,” Bianca said.
“If she’s alive, why hasn’t she contacted me?”
Bianca didn’t answer.
“Seven years.”
My voice broke.
“She let me bury her.”
Nico touched my chin.
I looked down.
His expression was serious.
Then his little hand patted my cheek.
Once.
Twice.
I laughed through tears.
“You really are trouble.”
Bianca smiled.
“He likes you.”
“He thinks I’m his mother.”
“No.”
“What?”
“He has photographs of Alessia everywhere. He never reaches toward them.”
That unsettled me.
“Then why me?”
“Maybe because you’re alive.”
Before I could answer, the lights went out.
Complete darkness.
Nico startled.
One guard cursed outside.
Then emergency lights flickered red.
“Bianca?”
“I’m here.”
A gunshot exploded downstairs.
Then another.
Nico screamed.
One of the guards opened the nursery door.
“Mrs. Bellandi, we need to move.”
“I’m not Mrs.—”
“Not important,” Bianca said. “Move.”
We entered the hallway.
Red emergency lights made everything look soaked in blood.
The second guard led.
The first remained behind us.
We reached the servants’ staircase.
A man appeared below.
Our guard lifted his weapon.
“Identify!”
The figure raised both hands.
“It’s me.”
Gabriel.
Luca’s godfather.
He was in his sixties, gray-haired, calm.
A tiny crown tattoo was hidden beneath his cuff.
My stomach dropped.
“Gabriel,” Bianca whispered.
He smiled gently.
“Thank God. Give me the baby.”
The guard hesitated.
“He stays with Miss Hart.”
Gabriel’s smile disappeared.
“I said give me the baby.”
Everything happened fast.
He pulled a gun.
The guard fired first.
Gabriel ducked.
The bullet shattered a wall sconce.
Bianca dragged me backward.
Our second guard fired.
Gabriel returned fire.
The guard collapsed.
I screamed.
Nico wailed.
“Run!” Bianca shouted.
We ran.
I clutched Nico against my chest and followed Bianca through a narrow service corridor.
Gunshots echoed behind us.
“Where are we going?”
“Safe room.”
“Does your family have one in every hallway?”
“Almost!”
She shoved open a linen closet.
Behind the shelves was a keypad.
Her fingers shook.
“Come on.”
She entered a code.
Red light.
Wrong.
“Bianca.”
“I know.”
Footsteps.
She tried again.
Green.
The wall unlocked.
We slipped inside.
Bianca pulled the steel door shut.
Darkness.
Then small emergency lights came on.
Nico cried against me.
I rocked him.
“It’s okay.”
My voice trembled worse than his.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
Bianca pressed a button.
“Marco?”
Static.
“Luca?”
Nothing.
She tried again.
Someone pounded against the outer door.
I froze.
“Mara!”
Luca.
Bianca unlocked it.
The second he came through, his eyes found Nico.
Then me.
Blood streaked his white shirt.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He looked at Bianca.
“She’s fine.”
“You?”
“Not mine.”
Luca took Nico.
The baby clung to him.
For the first time since I met them, father and son looked equally shaken.
“What happened?”
“Gabriel killed one of my men and disappeared into the east wing.”
“Why?”
“We found a tunnel.”
“A tunnel?”
“Original construction. Leads beyond the southern wall.”
“Did he escape?”
“Yes.”
Luca’s voice was flat.
He hated that answer.
Marco entered.
“Call trace bounced through four countries.”
“My mother?”
“Couldn’t locate her.”
I swallowed disappointment.
Marco continued.
“But Gabriel left something behind.”
“What?”
“A laptop.”
Twenty minutes later we were in the security room.
The laptop sat disconnected from every network.
One of Luca’s technicians opened encrypted folders.
Photographs filled the screen.
Me.
Hundreds.
From childhood.
School pictures.
My high school graduation.
My mother and me at a county fair.
Me leaving the hospital after her supposed death.
Recent photographs from outside Bellagio.
Then Nico.
Pictures taken through estate windows.
My blood chilled.
“He’s been watching both of us.”
Marco clicked another folder.
Bank transfers.
Names.
Dates.
Payments to employees.
A mechanic.
A nurse.
A funeral director.
My heart stopped at the funeral director’s name.
“That's the man who handled my mother’s body.”
“Yes,” Marco said.
“So she faked it.”
“It appears someone helped her.”
Another file opened.
A video.
Timestamp: seven years earlier.
My mother sat in a motel room.
Salvatore Conti stood beside her.
The man I had called Uncle David.
Celia looked directly into the camera.
“If Mara ever sees this, then we failed.”
I stopped breathing.
She continued.
“Baby, I’m sorry. I know what I’m about to do will hurt you. But if you believe I’m alive, they can use you to find me. If they find me, they find you.”
Tears blurred the screen.
“The Bellandi family has a traitor. I thought it was one person. It isn’t.”
Luca leaned closer.
My mother continued.
“There are three.”
Marco froze.
“Three?”
“One controls money. One controls security. One controls information.”
She looked off camera.
“Salvatore believes Gabriel is security.”
Luca’s fist tightened.
“Who are the others?”
Celia looked back at the camera.
“I don’t know yet.”
The video jumped.
Different date.
My mother looked thinner.
“The financial traitor helped arrange Daniel’s death.”
I glanced at Vittorio.
He closed his eyes.
“The information traitor convinced Vittorio that Daniel was working for Salvatore. They have been turning the Bellandis and Contis against each other for decades.”
Luca whispered, “Why?”
Another voice spoke from off-camera.
Salvatore.
“Because war is profitable.”
The screen went black.
Silence swallowed the room.
Then Marco found another file.
Audio only.
Gabriel’s voice.
“Alessia found out.”
Another man answered.
Distorted.
“You were supposed to watch her.”
“I did.”
“Then why was she contacting Celia?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fix it before Luca discovers the network.”
“When?”
“Before the baptism.”
Gabriel hesitated.
“The baby?”
A pause.
Then the distorted voice replied:
“No witnesses.”
Luca stood so violently his chair crashed backward.
Nico startled in Bianca’s arms.
I grabbed Luca’s wrist without thinking.
“Don’t.”
He looked at my hand.
Then at me.
His breathing was hard.
“I want every person connected to those payments,” he told Marco.
“We’ll get them.”
“Alive.”
Marco understood.
“For answers?”
Luca’s eyes turned empty.
“At first.”
I released him.
The technician opened one final file.
A live camera feed appeared.
A concrete room.
A chair.
A woman sat tied to it.
My mother.
Alive.
Her face bruised.
Her wrists bound.
I moved toward the screen.
“Mom.”
The camera zoomed automatically.
Someone entered the room.
Only his arm showed.
A black suit.
Gold watch.
Dragon tattoo.
He placed a phone in front of Celia.
Then words appeared across the screen.
MIDNIGHT TOMORROW.
MARA FOR CELIA.
I felt Luca beside me.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
“That’s my mother.”
“It is a trap.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
The words landed harder than they should have.
Everyone went quiet.
Luca seemed to realize what he had said.
His voice hardened.
“You are the only person who may know what Alessia discovered. They want you because Celia told them something.”
“She didn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“You cannot stop me.”
He stepped closer.
“I can.”
“Then I’ll hate you.”
Something painful moved across his face.
“So be it.”
Before I could answer, the security technician made a strange sound.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“The feed metadata.”
Marco leaned over him.
“What about it?”
“It isn’t remote.”
Luca went still.
The technician swallowed.
“This camera is broadcasting from inside the estate.”
I looked at the screen.
At my mother tied to a chair.
At the concrete wall behind her.
Bianca whispered, “That looks like the old wine cellar.”
Luca drew his weapon.
We all turned toward the floor beneath our feet.
May you like
My mother wasn’t across the city.
She was downstairs.
