Chapter 5 – The Italian From Rome

Carlo stood perfectly still, his expensive suit pristine in the dim light of the laundry room.

He didn’t point the gun at us. He held it aimed at the floor.

“Do not scream,” Carlo said in rapid, flawless Italian.

“What is he saying?” Michael asked, stepping defensively in front of me.

“He says don’t scream,” I whispered back, my heart pounding in my throat.

I stepped out from behind Michael. “Mr. Vitale. Please. We have nothing to do with whatever Arthur promised you.”

Carlo’s dark eyes studied me.

Then he holstered the weapon inside his jacket.

“I am a businessman, Miss Carter,” Carlo replied in Italian. “I buy shipping routes. I buy restaurants. I do not buy dead children.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, translating for Michael as I spoke.

Carlo gestured to the plane ticket in my hand.

“Arthur Bellini approached me three months ago,” Carlo explained. “He told me Luca Moretti was losing his mind with grief over his dead son, and that the family business was vulnerable. He offered me a partnership. He never told me the boy was alive.”

“Then why are you down here?” Michael demanded, not trusting the man for a second.

“Because Arthur lied to me,” Carlo said coldly. “And in my world, men who lie about children are men who need to be dealt with.”

Carlo stepped closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.

“That ticket is not for your mother to escape, Emily. It is Arthur’s alibi. When the police find your mother and the boy dead tomorrow morning, they will find that ticket in her apartment. They will frame her as a crazed nanny who kidnapped the child, killed him, and was planning to flee the country.”

My knees gave out.

I grabbed the washing machine to steady myself.

They were going to kill my mother. And little Toby.

“No,” I sobbed. “No, she’s at home right now. They’re sleeping.”

“Not for long,” Carlo said, checking his gold Rolex. “Arthur sent two men to her apartment twenty minutes ago.”

Panic, pure and blinding, seized my chest.

“I have to call her! I have to warn them!”

I fumbled for my phone in my apron pocket, but my hands were shaking so badly I dropped it. The screen shattered on the tiles.

“Damn it!” I screamed, dropping to my knees.

Michael knelt beside me, pulling out his own phone. “I’ll call the police. I’ll send them to the apartment.”

“The police belong to Arthur,” Carlo said flatly. “If you call them, you only speed up the execution.”

I looked up at Carlo, tears streaming down my face.

“Then how do I save them?”

Carlo looked at me, then at Michael.

“You do not,” Carlo said. “Because the boy is not at the apartment.”

I froze. “What?”

Carlo pulled a small, folded piece of child’s construction paper from his pocket.

“I found this dropped near the guest house on my way inside tonight.”

He handed it to me.

It was a crayon drawing of a blue house with a yellow sun.

And in the corner, written in clumsy, backward letters, was the name: TOBY.

“He’s here,” I whispered, my mind spinning. “My mother brought him here?”

“Your mother works as a caterer for large events, yes?” Carlo asked.

I nodded slowly. “She took an extra shift tonight… at a mansion in the suburbs.”

The realization hit me like a freight train.

She was here. My mother was working in the kitchens of the Moretti estate tonight. And because she couldn’t find a babysitter, she had brought Toby with her and hidden him in the guest house.

“Arthur’s men are at an empty apartment,” Carlo said. “But Arthur is in the main house. And if he realizes the boy is on the property…”

“We have to get to the guest house,” Michael said urgently.

But suddenly, the heavy metal door to the laundry room slammed shut, locking from the outside.

And from the other side of the door, a chilling voice spoke through the air vent.

“Too late.”

It was Vanessa.

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