Chapter 3 – THE IRON KEY IN THE WINE CELLAR

The muffled thwip of the suppressed pistol echoed through the dark servant’s corridor, chilling me to the bone.

I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle a scream and ran.

The estate was a labyrinth of dark hallways and locked doors, but after eleven months of carrying trays and polishing silver, I knew the servant routes by heart. I slipped down a narrow spiral staircase that bypassed the main foyer, plunging into the damp, cool air of the basement.

The wine cellar was massive, lined with thousands of dusty bottles resting in heavy oak racks. The dim emergency lighting cast long, terrifying shadows across the stone floor.

Third rack on the left, Frank had said.

I hurried down the aisle, my heart hammering against my ribs. I counted the racks. One. Two. Three.

I peered behind the heavy oak structure. Sure enough, hidden in the shadows of the stone wall, was a small, rusted iron grate covering an old ventilation shaft.

I dropped to my knees on the cold stone, my hands shaking violently as I jammed the iron key into the ancient padlock securing the grate. The lock was stiff, rusted from decades of disuse.

“Please, please, please,” I whispered, twisting the key with all my strength.

With a loud crack, the lock gave way.

I pulled the heavy grate open and reached into the dark, dusty shaft. My fingers brushed against cold metal. I pulled it out.

It was a small, heavy steel lockbox.

I didn’t have the combination, but I didn’t need it. I just needed to get the box to Luca.

But as I stood up, clutching the lockbox to my chest, the heavy oak door of the wine cellar creaked open.

I froze, pressing my back flat against the stone wall, hiding in the shadows behind the third rack.

Footsteps echoed softly on the stone floor. Slow. Deliberate.

It wasn’t Luca’s heavy, commanding stride. It wasn’t Marco’s tactical boots.

It was the distinct, sharp click-clack of expensive leather dress shoes.

“Hannah,” Victor Moretti’s smooth, chilling voice called out into the dark cellar. “I know you’re down here.”

I stopped breathing. He had followed me.

“Frank told me everything before he died,” Victor lied, his voice echoing off the stone walls. “He said you helped him write that pathetic speech. And he said he gave you the key to his little secret.”

Tears streamed down my face. Frank was dead. The kindest man in this house, murdered because he finally stopped hiding.

“You’re a smart girl, Hannah,” Victor continued, his footsteps moving slowly down the first aisle. “You know how this world works. Give me the box, and I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars and a plane ticket anywhere in the world. You can start over. You never have to scrub another floor again.”

He paused, listening.

“Or,” Victor said, the polite veneer slipping into something dark and venomous, “I find you, I kill you, and I tell Luca that you murdered his father and Vanessa when they caught you trying to steal from the estate.”

My blood ran cold.

If Victor killed me down here and planted Vanessa’s jewelry on me, Luca would believe it. A desperate maid caught stealing, eliminating witnesses. It was the perfect cover story. Victor would walk away clean, the ledgers destroyed, and Luca would live the rest of his life thinking the woman who served his father dinner was a murderer.

I looked frantically around the dim cellar.

The door was blocked by Victor. There were no windows.

But there was a dumbwaiter.

At the far end of the cellar, an old, wooden dumbwaiter shaft connected the basement directly to the main kitchen two floors up. It was meant for sending heavy wine crates upstairs during large parties.

It was small. But I was small, too.

Victor’s footsteps moved to the second aisle. He was getting closer.

I hugged the heavy lockbox tightly to my chest and dropped to my hands and knees. I crawled silently under the bottom shelf of the wine racks, moving parallel to Victor, slipping past him in the shadows.

I reached the back wall. The dumbwaiter door was cracked open.

I squeezed inside the cramped wooden box, pulling my knees to my chest. The lockbox pressed painfully into my ribs.

I grabbed the heavy rope pulley.

I knew the mechanism was noisy. The moment I pulled it, Victor would hear me.

I held my breath, closed my eyes, and pulled the rope with all my strength.

The dumbwaiter groaned loudly, the old gears screeching in the quiet cellar.

“There you are!” Victor yelled, the sound of his dress shoes sprinting toward the back wall.

I hauled on the rope, frantic, hand over hand. The wooden box lurched upward, rising into the dark shaft just as Victor reached the cellar wall.

A gunshot rang out.

The bullet tore through the wooden floor of the dumbwaiter, missing my leg by a fraction of an inch, showering me in splinters.

I screamed, pulling the rope faster, fueled by pure adrenaline.

The box rose past the first floor, the darkness of the shaft swallowing me. I kept pulling until the dumbwaiter slammed into the stopper at the top of the shaft, level with the main kitchen.

I kicked the wooden doors open and spilled out onto the kitchen floor, gasping for air, clutching the lockbox.

The kitchen was empty, bathed in the flashing blue and red lights of the police cars surrounding the estate outside.

I scrambled to my feet and ran toward the main hallway.

“Luca!” I screamed, my voice tearing from my throat. “Luca!”

I burst into the grand foyer.

The massive room was swarming with police officers, crime scene investigators, and Marco’s security team.

Standing in the center of the chaos, talking to a police detective, was Luca. He looked exhausted, his face pale, holding the silver lighter tightly in his hand.

When he heard my voice, he spun around.

“Hannah!” Luca shouted, pushing past the detective and running toward me.

I collapsed against him, sobbing hysterically, the adrenaline finally crashing. He caught me, his strong arms wrapping around me, holding me steady.

“I have it,” I wept, shoving the heavy steel lockbox against his chest. “Frank told me to give it to you. The ledgers from thirty years ago. He said he’s sorry.”

Luca stared at the lockbox in his hands. Then, he looked at my tear-stained face.

“Where is my father, Hannah?” Luca asked, his voice trembling.

“He’s in the dining room,” I sobbed, unable to look him in the eyes. “Victor shot him. Victor killed him and Vanessa.”

Luca went completely still. The air around him seemed to freeze.

Before he could speak, a voice called out from the top of the grand staircase.

“Officer, arrest that woman!”

I looked up.

Victor Moretti was standing at the top of the stairs, looking frantic and disheveled. He pointed a shaking finger directly at me.

“She killed them!” Victor yelled to the crowded foyer. “I caught her trying to rob the safe in Vanessa’s room! Frank tried to stop her, and she shot him! She’s the killer!”