Chapter 5 – THE GHOST AT THE GATES

“Gabriel?” I breathed, my hand trembling against the phone.

“Are Bellini’s men at the front gate?” he asked, his voice urgent.

“Yes. Three cars.”

“They’re coming for the ledger. Michael promised it to them.”

“What ledger?”

“The one my mother hid,” Gabriel said. “Hannah, you have to find my mother. Look at her neck. She wears a locket. Inside isn’t a picture.”

I remembered the locket. Teresa never took it off.

“Lock the door,” Gabriel ordered. “I’m three minutes away.”

The line went dead.

I turned to Sophie. “Stay exactly here. Hide in the closet. Don’t come out until I say your name.”

Sophie nodded, her little face brave, and scrambled into the wardrobe.

I unlocked the bedroom door and sprinted back down the hall to Teresa’s room.

The doctor was gone. Teresa was awake, sitting up, her eyes wide with fear.

“Hannah! I heard shouting.”

“Mrs. Moretti, Gabriel is coming.”

Teresa gasped, her hand immediately flying to the silver locket at her throat.

“He called,” I said. “He said Bellini’s men are here for a ledger.”

Teresa began to cry, shaking her head. “No… no, I promised his father I would keep it safe.”

“Where is it?”

Before she could answer, the bedroom door splintered open.

Michael stood there, a gun in his trembling hand.

“Give me the locket, Mom,” he demanded, sweat pouring down his face.

Teresa clutched the necklace. “Michael, what have you done?”

“I owed them, Mom! Bellini was going to kill me! The ledger has all of Bellini’s offshore accounts. If I give it to him, he lets me live.”

“You traded your family for your own life?” I yelled.

Michael pointed the gun at me. “Shut up, maid.”

Suddenly, a shadow filled the doorway.

Luca grabbed the back of Michael’s collar, slamming him face-first into the doorframe. The gun clattered to the floor.

I kicked it under the bed.

Luca dragged Michael into the room, his face a mask of pure rage.

“You sold out our mother? You forged her signature to give Bellini her estate?”

“He was going to kill me, Luca!” Michael sobbed on the floor.

Luca turned to Teresa. “Mom, what ledger?”

Teresa unclasped the locket with shaking fingers. She popped it open.

Inside wasn’t a picture. It was a tiny, micro-SD card.

“Your father’s insurance,” Teresa whispered. “Against Bellini.”

A massive crash echoed from downstairs. The front doors had been breached.

Luca took the locket. He looked at me. “Where is Sophie?”

“Hidden in her closet.”

“Go to her. Lock the door.”

“No,” Teresa stood up, her legs surprisingly steady. “I’m not hiding anymore.”

Then, the lights in the mansion completely cut out.

Plunged into darkness, we heard a voice echo up the grand staircase.

“Luca!” Don Bellini shouted. “Give me the card, and I’ll only kill your brother.”

In the darkness, another voice rang out from the back hallway.

“You’re not killing anyone, Bellini.”

I turned.

Standing in the shadows, holding a heavy shotgun, was a man who looked just like Luca, but with scars across his jaw.

Gabriel had come home.

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