Chapter 7 – The Basement Vault

“What fail-safe?” I demanded, pressing harder on Thomas’s wound.

“During the Prohibition era,” Thomas wheezed, “the Moretti family rigged the foundation of this house with explosives. To destroy the evidence if the Feds ever raided. Only the boss knows the code. But Elias… Elias must have stolen the skeleton key that arms the system.”

“And Luca sent Vanessa to the basement,” I realized, horror washing over me. “He locked her in the vault.”

“She’s going to blow the house,” Thomas whispered, his eyes closing. “You have to stop her.”

I looked at Sophie. She was terrified, but she was quiet.

“Sophie, listen to me,” I said, grabbing her shoulders. “You stay right here with Grandpa Tommy. Keep this cloth pressed against his tummy. Do not let go. Do you understand?”

She nodded bravely, her small hands taking over the bloody apron.

I grabbed the hitman’s fallen shotgun. It was heavy, and my hands were shaking, but I didn’t care. I unlocked the panic room door and slipped back into the wine cellar.

The gunfire above had slowed to intermittent bursts. Luca was winning. But it wouldn’t matter if Vanessa blew the foundation.

I ran through the dark cellar toward the heavy iron door of the family vault.

It was locked from the outside. The two guards Luca had ordered to watch Vanessa were lying on the floor, their throats cut.

Vanessa hadn’t been locked in. Someone had freed her.

I pushed the heavy iron door open and stepped into the vault.

The room was massive, lined with safe deposit boxes and stacks of cash. In the center of the room, kneeling beside a large steel control panel set into the floor, was Vanessa.

She had the brass skeleton key inserted into the panel. She was frantically typing a sequence of numbers into a keypad.

“Step away from it, Vanessa!” I shouted, raising the shotgun.

Vanessa froze. She slowly turned her head. When she saw it was me, she laughed. It was a broken, hysterical sound.

“The maid,” she mocked. “You think you can stop this? The timer is set for three minutes, Hannah. The Bellini family lost the war tonight, but Luca is dying with us.”

“I said step away!” I pumped the shotgun, trying to look like I knew what I was doing.

“Shoot me,” Vanessa sneered, standing up. “If you shoot me, you can’t stop the timer. Only I know the abort code.”

She walked toward me, her eyes wild. “I was going to be the queen of this city. I spent three years playing mother to a brat I hated. I poisoned my best friend! I earned this!”

She lunged at me.

I didn’t shoot. I swung the butt of the heavy shotgun, catching her square in the jaw.

Vanessa crumpled to the floor, completely unconscious.

I dropped the gun and fell to my knees beside the control panel.

The digital timer was glowing bright red.

02:14

I stared at the keypad. I didn’t know the abort code. I didn’t know anything about bombs.

“Think, Hannah,” I muttered to myself. “She’s not a genius. She’s a hired thug. What code would she use?”

01:50

I looked at the skeleton key. It was turned to the ‘ARMED’ position. I tried to turn it back, but it wouldn’t budge. It needed the code first.

01:20

I closed my eyes. What had Thomas said? Your mother found something else. She found out Vanessa was a plant.

I remembered Catherine’s letter. Look at the prescription number. Look who signed for it.

Vanessa’s identity wasn’t Vanessa Bellini.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crumpled toxicology report Luca had dropped earlier. I scanned the bottom of the page.

The prescription number.

840291

My hands flew across the keypad. I typed the six numbers.

The screen flashed red. ERROR.

00:45

I panicked. I looked at the paper again.

What else? What date was Catherine killed?

August 14th. 0814.

I typed it. ERROR.

00:20

“Come on!” I screamed.

Then, a sudden, terrifying thought hit me.

Vanessa didn’t set the code based on Catherine. She hated Catherine. Vanessa was vain. She set the code based on the only thing she cared about.

Herself.

And what was happening tomorrow?

“You’re marrying my niece tomorrow,” Elias had said.

Tomorrow’s date. The date of her wedding to Luca Moretti.

October 17.

I typed: 1 0 1 7

The timer stopped.

00:03

The red light turned green. A soft click echoed from the panel, and the skeleton key released.

I collapsed backward onto the cold vault floor, gasping for air.

Suddenly, the vault door swung open wider.

Luca stood there. His suit was torn to shreds, his face covered in soot and blood, but he was alive. Behind him stood a dozen of his surviving men.

He looked at the unconscious Vanessa, then at the stopped timer, and finally at me.

“Hannah,” Luca breathed.

“It’s stopped,” I whispered, tears finally spilling over my cheeks. “The bomb is stopped.”

Luca walked over and helped me to my feet. He looked at me with a profound, quiet respect.

“Where is my daughter?” he asked.

“She’s in the panic room. With Thomas. But Luca… Thomas is badly hurt.”

Luca’s expression hardened. “Medic! Now!” he roared to his men.

We ran to the panic room.

TITLE: The End Of The Bellini Family

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