Chapter 5 – The Servant’s Tunnels

The words hung in the ruined apartment like a death sentence.

They’re slaughtering your entire family.

Luca’s mother, his younger sister, his two nephews—they were all sleeping in the east wing of the Chicago mansion.

Luca didn’t waste time threatening Daniel further. He struck him once, a sharp, precise blow to the temple, and Daniel went limp against the linoleum.

Luca stood up, breathing heavily, and picked up Daniel’s dropped gun. He checked the magazine and turned to me.

“Abigail, take Mrs. Carter. Go to the police station. Hand them the USB drive from the rosary and tell them everything.”

He turned toward the door, preparing to walk into a massacre alone.

“No,” I said, my voice shockingly steady.

Luca stopped. “Abigail, this isn’t a request. The mansion is a warzone.”

“And how are you going to get inside?” I demanded, stepping into his path. “Vanessa’s men will have the perimeter locked down. The front gates, the garage, the staff entrances—they’ll be heavily guarded. You’ll be shot before you reach the front steps.”

Luca’s jaw clenched. “I’ll find a way.”

“I already have one,” I told him, grabbing my coat from the floor. “The servant’s tunnels.”

Luca frowned. “The old coal chutes were sealed off forty years ago.”

“Not all of them,” I said. “Six months ago, the kitchen staff discovered a hollow wall behind the wine cellar. The original architect built a series of narrow service corridors that run directly behind the walls of the main house. We use them to move laundry without disturbing the guests. They lead straight to the east wing.”

Luca stared at me. He saw the fierce, unyielding determination in my eyes. I wasn’t just a maid anymore. I was a widow who had finally found the people who murdered her husband.

“We don’t have time to argue,” I said, picking up the silver rosary from the table and slipping it into my pocket.

Luca gave a single, curt nod. “Stay exactly behind me.”

We left Mrs. Carter at the apartment with strict instructions to lock the door and call the police in exactly twenty minutes—giving us enough time to get inside.

We took Daniel’s unmarked sedan. Luca drove like a madman, weaving through the storm until we reached the dense, wooded perimeter of the Moretti estate. He killed the headlights a mile out and parked the car in a thick grove of pine trees.

The rain masked the sound of our footsteps as we sprinted across the dark lawn.

The mansion loomed ahead, a massive stone fortress. Through the rain-slicked windows, I could see shadows moving. Men with rifles. Vanessa had brought an army.

I led Luca to a rusted iron grate hidden beneath a tangle of dead ivy near the foundation.

“Help me pull,” I whispered.

Together, we heaved the heavy grate aside. We slipped into the pitch-black tunnel, the air instantly turning cold and smelling of damp earth and old stone.

I clicked on a small penlight from my apron pocket. The tunnel was barely wide enough for Luca’s shoulders. We moved quickly and silently, the sound of our breathing echoing off the brick walls.

“Take the left fork,” I whispered as we reached a junction. “This runs behind the grand staircase.”

As we crept forward, the muffled sounds of the house began to bleed through the walls. Shouting. The crash of breaking glass.

Suddenly, a terrifyingly familiar voice echoed through a heating vent just above our heads.

It was Vanessa.

“Check the guest rooms again!” she shrieked, her voice shrill with panic. “The mother and the sister aren’t in their beds! They have to be in the house!”

Luca stopped, his eyes meeting mine in the dark. His family had managed to hide.

“The armory,” Luca whispered, his voice barely audible. “My father built a panic room behind the library. The staff calls it the old armory. That’s where my mother would take them.”

“I know where it is,” I nodded. “The tunnel runs right past it.”

We hurried down the corridor, the air growing warmer as we neared the library. Through the slats of a wooden vent, we could see the library floor.

Three heavily armed Bellini men were tearing the room apart, ripping books from the shelves and smashing antique lamps.

And standing in the center of the room, looking furiously at a heavy steel door set into the back wall, was Vanessa.

She was holding a blowtorch.

“Burn the hinges off!” Vanessa ordered one of the men. “Luca’s mother is in there. I want them dragged out before the police realize what’s happening.”

Luca raised Daniel’s gun, aiming it through the wooden slats of the vent. He had a clear shot at Vanessa’s head.

But before he could pull the trigger, the heavy steel door of the armory suddenly clicked from the inside.

Vanessa stepped back, her eyes widening in surprise.

The heavy door creaked open.

Standing in the doorway wasn’t Luca’s frightened mother.

It was a man in a tailored grey suit, holding a massive, antique shotgun leveled directly at Vanessa’s chest.

I gasped.

I knew that man. He was the pawnshop owner we had left terrified on the south side just an hour ago.