Chapter 7 – THE DEBT NEVER PAID

I stopped breathing.

The rain poured down my face, but I couldn’t feel the cold. I could only see my father. He sat rigid in the backseat of the luxury town car, his eyes wide with confusion and fear. He couldn’t hear the engine idling. He couldn’t hear my muffled scream.

“Dad!” I lunged toward the car, but two massive men in dark suits stepped out from the shadows of the gatehouse, blocking my path.

The man in the backseat—the one holding the gun—leaned forward. He was older, in his late sixties, with silver hair and an impeccably tailored charcoal suit. He looked like a wealthy banker, not a hitman.

“Claire Bennett,” the man said. His voice was smooth, cultured, and terrifyingly calm. “Please, get in the car. It’s raining.”

“Let him go!” I shrieked, struggling against the men holding my arms. “He has nothing to do with this! I don’t even know who you are!”

“I am Vincenzo Rossi,” the man said gently.

The name hit me like a physical blow.

Answer One: Dominic and Vanessa’s father was alive. He was the head of the Rossi family.

“Dominic is a disappointment,” Vincenzo continued, his eyes cold. “Vanessa is a fool. They thought they could overthrow Luca Moretti with a nurse and a bodyguard. Amateurs.”

He gestured with the gun. “Get in the car, Claire. Or I will shoot your father right here, and leave him in the mud for Mr. Moretti to find.”

My father raised his hands slowly, signing to me with shaking fingers.

Run, Claire. Please run.

Tears blurred my vision. I couldn’t leave him. I stepped forward, allowing the guards to shove me into the front passenger seat. The doors locked instantly. The town car pulled away from the Moretti estate, disappearing into the dark, rain-slicked streets of Chicago.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, gripping the leather seat to stop my hands from shaking. “Luca destroyed the microchip. Your son’s blackmail is gone.”

Vincenzo chuckled softly from the backseat. “I don’t care about a microchip, my dear. I care about the ledger.”

I frowned. “What ledger?”

“The physical book,” Vincenzo said, his tone turning lethal. “Before Mrs. Moretti took the microchip, she stole the master ledger from my private safe. Fifty years of my family’s secrets, bank accounts, and political bribes. Written in ink. She hid it in that house.”

The reversal paralyzed me. Mrs. Moretti hadn’t just taken a microchip. She had stolen the Rossi family’s bible.

“I don’t know anything about a book,” I said quickly.

“But you know the old woman,” Vincenzo replied. “You speak her language. Tomorrow morning, you are going to walk back into that mansion. You will ask her where she hid my ledger. If you don’t bring it to me by midnight tomorrow…”

He pressed the barrel of the gun harder into my father’s ribs. My dad flinched.

“Your sister’s dental surgery is tomorrow at 9:00 AM, isn’t it?” Vincenzo asked with a sickening smile. “It would be a tragedy if her surgeon’s hand slipped.”

Open Two: How could I possibly get back into the mansion and find the ledger without Luca finding out?

The car screeched to a halt outside my dilapidated apartment building.

“Get out,” Vincenzo ordered.

The guards shoved me out into the rain. The car sped off, taking my father with it.

I collapsed onto the wet pavement, sobbing uncontrollably. My father was a hostage. My little sister was in danger. I was a maid with no money, no power, and no weapons.

But as I knelt in the freezing rain, a quiet, dangerous anger began to burn in my chest.

Vincenzo Rossi had made a mistake. He thought I was just a frightened girl. He didn’t know that growing up in poverty, protecting a disabled father and a sick sister, taught you how to survive.

I wiped my face, my resolve hardening into steel.

I wasn’t going to steal the ledger for Vincenzo. I was going to find it, and I was going to use it to burn his entire empire to the ground.

I stood up and pulled my phone from my pocket. It was soaked, but it still turned on.

I dialed a number I had memorized from the caller ID in the mansion’s kitchen.

The line rang twice before a deep, exhausted voice answered.

“Who is this?” Luca Moretti demanded.

“It’s Claire,” I said, my voice steady and cold. “Vincenzo Rossi just took my father. He wants a ledger your mother hid. I need your help, Luca. And if you help me get my family back…”

I paused, looking up at the dark sky.

“I’ll help you kill Vincenzo Rossi.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

Then, Luca Moretti said three words that sealed our alliance.

“I’ll pick you up.”

TITLE: The Blueprint In The Floorboards

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