Chapter 3 – THE VOICE FROM THE INTERCOM

The dining room erupted into panic.

Guests screamed in the pitch black. Chairs crashed against the marble floor.

“Silence!” Matteo bellowed.

His voice carried so much authority that the room instantly quieted to terrified whimpers.

Emergency backup lights flickered on, casting a dim, red glow across the panicked faces of the elite guests.

I pulled Isla behind a heavy oak serving buffet, pressing her small body against mine. She was trembling violently.

I’m right here, I signed in the red light. You’re safe.

She clung to my neck.

“Daniel!” Matteo shouted at the intercom. “Unlock these doors right now, or I will end you.”

Static crackled over the speaker. Then, a dark chuckle.

“You can’t end what you can’t reach, Matteo,” Daniel’s voice drifted down. “I’m in the security control room. I have the music box. I have the video. But unfortunately for you, I know there are physical documents hidden at the lake house. And I need the gold key your brat is holding.”

Matteo stepped in front of the buffet, shielding us. “You’ll have to kill me first.”

“That’s the plan,” Daniel replied smoothly. “But let’s make a trade. The key, for the lives of your eighty guests. If you don’t slide it under the door in three minutes, I’ll trigger the fire suppression system. Except I’ve swapped the halon gas with something much more… flammable.”

People began weeping. Richard Vale collapsed into a chair, holding his chest.

“He’s bluffing!” Nico yelled.

“Am I?” Daniel asked. “Meredith, why don’t you tell them what kind of man I am?”

Meredith was kneeling on the floor, clutching her torn red silk dress. “He’s a monster,” she sobbed. “He arranged the whole thing. He found out my father’s company was bankrupt and promised to save it if I married Matteo and took control of Isla’s trust.”

Matteo stared at her in disgust. “You sold my daughter to a murderer to save a real estate firm?”

“I didn’t know he killed Olivia!” Meredith screamed, tears ruining her makeup. “I thought it was just white-collar crime! Please, Matteo, you have to believe me!”

“I don’t care what you knew,” Matteo said coldly. He turned back to the doors.

He needed to get us out.

“There’s a manual override panel,” Meredith suddenly choked out, wiping her nose. “Behind the painting of the horses. My father’s firm installed this security system.”

Matteo immediately ran to the oil painting on the far wall. He ripped it down, revealing a steel keypad.

“What’s the code, Richard?” Matteo demanded.

Richard Vale was hyperventilating. “I… I don’t remember.”

Matteo grabbed Richard by the lapels and slammed him against the wall. “Remember it, or you burn with us!”

“It’s the date of the company’s founding!” Richard gasped. “04-12-1988!”

Matteo punched the numbers in.

The keypad beeped green. A small steel drawer popped open beneath it.

“There’s no override switch in here,” Matteo growled.

“Look deeper!” Meredith cried out.

Matteo reached his hand into the dark cavity.

His face changed.

He didn’t pull out a switch or a wire.

He pulled out a stack of heavily redacted hospital bills, bound together with a rubber band.

And tucked under the rubber band was a faded Polaroid photograph.

Matteo looked at the photo. Then he turned and stared directly at me.

“Hannah,” Matteo said, his voice laced with sudden, terrifying suspicion.

I stood up, keeping Isla behind me. “Sir?”

Matteo threw the photograph onto the floor at my feet.

I looked down.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was a picture of my mother, sitting in her hospital bed.

And standing next to her, paying for her surgery at the billing counter in the background, was Daniel Mercer.

From the intercom, Daniel’s voice echoed with cruel delight.

“Did you really think it was a coincidence you were hired, Hannah? I always keep a spy in the house.”

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