Chapter 6 – THE PHOTOGRAPH IN THE VAULT

“Dad, what are you doing?!” Vanessa screamed, backing away as Robert pressed the barrel of the gun against her arm.

“Shut up, Vanessa,” Robert sneered, his polished facade completely shattered. He looked up at Antonio. “You old fool. You’ve been inside my vault?”

Antonio didn’t flinch. He signed three sharp words.

“He says yes,” I translated.

Luca walked slowly down two steps, placing himself between the stairs and his mother. “What’s in the vault, Robert?”

Robert laughed, a frantic, unhinged sound. “Insurance! Real insurance! You think I just kept your mother alive for fun? I kept her alive because she knew the truth about the Moretti money.”

Vanessa was trembling, tears ruining her face. “Dad, please. You’re hurting me.”

Robert ignored her. He looked at Luca.

“Your father didn’t owe me money, Luca. Your father discovered I was skimming from the union pensions. He was going to turn me in. So I took Isabella. I told him if he went to the police, he would never see her again.”

“And you kept her in my own house,” Luca said, his voice deadly cold.

“It was the perfect place! You never went to the attic because it reminded you of her. But I needed a guarantee that your grandfather wouldn’t ruin it. So I took something from him, too.”

Robert looked at me.

“The maid,” Robert sneered.

My breath caught. “What?”

Robert smiled cruelly. “Why do you think you were hired, Emily? Out of all the applicants for this house, why did Vanessa choose a girl with a deaf brother and crushing medical debt?”

I looked at Vanessa. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

Antonio began signing frantically. His face was a mask of absolute heartbreak.

“He says…” I stuttered, tears filling my eyes as I watched his hands. “He says… he found a photograph in the vault.”

“What photograph, Emily?” Luca demanded.

I looked at Antonio. The old man was weeping as he made the signs.

“A photograph of a hospital room,” I translated, my voice breaking. “A photograph of my mother. And Robert Bellini holding a pillow over her face.”

The room spun.

“No,” I whispered, stepping back. “My mother has a chronic lung condition. It’s an illness.”

“It wasn’t an illness, Emily,” Robert laughed. “I smothered her just enough to cause permanent brain damage. It kept her in the hospital. It kept you desperate for money. And it kept you working in this house, where I could control you.”

My legs gave out. I collapsed onto the stairs, sobbing.

Luca looked at my broken figure, then down at Robert.

“You destroyed her family just to keep a maid?” Luca asked.

“I needed someone who could translate for Antonio, but who was too terrified of losing her job to ever question Vanessa,” Robert said. “It was a perfect system. Until tonight.”

Suddenly, the heavy front doors of the mansion burst open downstairs.

Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second.

Robert grabbed Vanessa tighter, aiming the gun at her head.

“I’m leaving!” Robert shouted. “And if anyone tries to stop me, I’ll kill her!”

Vanessa sobbed, looking up at Luca. “Luca! Please, save me!”

Luca looked at the woman who had humiliated me, the woman who had helped keep his mother locked in a floorboard.

Luca pulled a gold lighter from his pocket and flicked it open.

“I’m not saving you, Vanessa,” Luca said coldly. “I’m the one who called the police.”