Chapter 4 – THE ROSARY LEFT IN THE EMPTY CELL

“What do you mean, gone?” Luca’s voice was lethal.

“The basement cell is empty,” Marco said, breathing heavily. “The guard watching the door is unconscious. Someone let her out.”

Luca didn’t waste a second. “Lock down the perimeter. No vehicles leave the estate.”

He turned to me. “Emma, take Sophie and Evelyn to the safe room on the second floor. David, you go with them.”

“I’m helping you find her,” David insisted.

“You are keeping your granddaughter safe,” Luca ordered. “Go. Now.”

I grabbed Sophie’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs.”

We hurried up the grand staircase. The safe room was hidden behind a bookshelf in Luca’s private study. I knew the code from cleaning the room.

I locked the heavy steel door behind us.

The room was quiet, lined with monitors showing the estate’s security cameras.

David paced back and forth, staring at the screens. “She has help. She couldn’t take out a guard by herself.”

“Harrison?” Evelyn asked, trembling.

“Harrison is a coward,” David scoffed. “He doesn’t have the stomach to assault a guard.”

I watched the monitors. The estate was massive. It would take hours to search every room.

Then I noticed something on camera four—the service hallway leading to the garage.

A shadowy figure was moving quickly, holding a duffel bag.

“There,” I pointed at the screen. “Someone is heading to the garage.”

David squinted at the monitor. “That’s not Vanessa. That’s a man.”

Before we could figure out who it was, the screen went dark.

Someone had cut the camera feed.

Downstairs, Luca was tearing the basement apart.

He stood in front of the empty cell where Vanessa had been held.

The heavy iron door was swung wide open.

Marco knelt beside the unconscious guard, checking his pulse. “He’s alive, boss. Hit hard on the back of the head with something blunt.”

Luca walked into the cell.

It was completely empty, except for a single object resting on the cold concrete floor.

Luca picked it up.

It was a delicate silver rosary.

Luca stared at it. His face drained of all color.

“Marco,” Luca whispered.

“Yes, boss?”

“Where did this come from?”

Marco looked at the rosary. He frowned. “I don’t know. It wasn’t on her when we brought her down here.”

“I know,” Luca said. “Because this rosary belonged to my mother.”

Marco’s eyes widened.

Answer one: Vanessa didn’t escape alone. She had an accomplice inside the house.

Open two: Why would the accomplice leave a deeply personal family heirloom in the cell?

“Only three people in the world have keys to my mother’s jewelry vault,” Luca said, his voice thick with betrayal. “Me. My sister, Isabella. And you, Marco.”

Marco immediately stepped back, raising his hands. “Boss, I swear on my life, I didn’t do this. I’ve been with you since the dining room.”

Luca knew Marco was telling the truth.

Which left only one person.

“Isabella,” Luca breathed.

His own sister had freed the woman who murdered his wife.

Suddenly, a massive explosion rocked the foundation of the house.

The ground shook violently. Dust rained down from the basement ceiling.

The explosion hadn’t come from the house. It came from outside.

Luca and Marco sprinted up the stairs and out the front doors.

In the distance, near the front gates, a black SUV was engulfed in roaring orange flames.

It had smashed directly into the reinforced steel barricade at ninety miles an hour.

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