Chapter 5 – THE BLOOD ON THE TICKET

I froze, the heavy basement door closing shut behind me with a sickening click.

Vanessa stood at the bottom of the concrete stairs, the silenced pistol pointed directly at my chest. She wasn’t wearing her elegant red gown anymore; she had changed into a sharp black suit.

She looked less like a bride and more like an executioner.

“I told my men you were too stupid to run, Rachel,” Vanessa smiled, her eyes cold and dead. “You just had to play the hero.”

I raised my hands, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it might burst.

“Marco is outside,” I bluffed, my voice shaking. “His men are surrounding the house.”

Vanessa laughed. It was a sharp, grating sound.

“Marco is a coward. He’s sitting in a town car three blocks away, hoping a maid will do his dirty work. He doesn’t have men. He has a driver.”

She gestured with the gun toward Daniel, the grounds manager, who was bleeding heavily from a cut above his eye, struggling against thick zip-ties.

“Daniel here thought he could play hero, too,” Vanessa sneered. “He tried to sneak the mother cat out of the greenhouse before my transport team arrived. Didn’t you, Daniel?”

Daniel groaned through his gag, his eyes wide with warning.

“Where is the cat?” I demanded, finding a sudden, reckless courage.

“Dead, I assume,” Vanessa shrugged casually. “My men threw it in the river. I couldn’t risk leaving it alive. Emma is too attached. Attachments make people hard to control.”

My stomach violently turned. The poor mother cat.

“You’re a monster,” I whispered.

“I’m a survivor,” Vanessa corrected sharply. “Luca’s empire is built on blood. He just became too weak to spill it himself. Now, kick your phone across the floor. Slowly.”

I reached into my apron pocket and slid my phone across the concrete.

Vanessa stomped on it with her heel, shattering the screen.

“Now,” she ordered, raising the gun level with my head. “Walk up the stairs. You’re going to help me pack.”

“Pack?” I asked, confused.

“I’m leaving for Switzerland tonight,” she said smoothly. “With Emma.”

I stopped. “You’re taking Emma?”

“Of course I am. Once Luca has his tragic… accident… in the study tonight, I will be the grieving fiancée stepping in to care for his orphaned child. But Chicago is too dangerous. Emma needs a quiet boarding school in the Alps. A place where she won’t be allowed any visitors.”

She was going to lock a ten-year-old girl away in a foreign country and steal her inheritance.

“She won’t go with you,” I said firmly.

Vanessa smiled. “She will if she thinks I’m taking her to see her precious kittens.”

Vanessa nudged Daniel’s chair with her foot. “Keep quiet,” she warned the bleeding man. “I’ll deal with you later.”

She pressed the cold barrel of the gun against my spine.

“Move,” she whispered.

I walked up the narrow servant stairs, my mind racing. Marco couldn’t hear me because my phone was broken, but I still had his earpiece in my ear. He had to know something was wrong.

We stepped into the quiet kitchen. The house was eerily silent. The guests must have been sent home.

“Where is Mr. Moretti?” I asked quietly.

“In his study,” Vanessa replied. “Drinking scotch. Two of my men are standing outside his door. In ten minutes, they will go inside and finish this.”

We reached the second floor. Emma’s bedroom was at the end of the hall.

Vanessa pushed me forward. “Go inside. Wake her up. Tell her Luca told you to pack her a bag because we’re going to get the kittens.”

I opened Emma’s door.

The room was dark, illuminated only by a small nightlight.

Emma was asleep in her large canopy bed, holding the tiny gray kitten, Pip, to her chest.

I walked over, tears springing to my eyes.

“Emma,” I whispered gently, shaking her shoulder.

She blinked awake, her dark eyes confused. “Miss Rachel? Are you allowed to be here?”

“I’m here, honey,” I choked out.

Vanessa stepped into the room, hiding the gun behind her back.

“Emma, darling,” Vanessa said in a sickeningly sweet voice. “Get dressed. Your father wants Rachel to pack your things. We’re going to a special sanctuary to pick up Pip’s mommy and siblings.”

Emma sat up immediately, her face lighting up with pure joy.

“Really? Daddy found them?”

“Yes, sweetheart. But we have to hurry.”

Emma scrambled out of bed, gently placing Pip in a small travel carrier. She ran to her closet to grab her shoes.

I pulled a small duffel bag from the shelf and began throwing clothes into it. My hands were shaking so badly I dropped a sweater.

As I bent down to pick it up, I noticed a piece of paper sticking out from beneath Emma’s pillow.

It was a crumpled airline ticket.

I discreetly pulled it out.

It was a first-class ticket to Geneva, Switzerland.

But it wasn’t dated for tonight.

It was dated for three months ago.

And the passenger name wasn’t Emma Moretti.

It was Elena Moretti.