Chapter 7: Beneath the Church
Alessandro stopped turning the key.
I pressed my ear against the iron door.
“Emma?”
“Mama!”
Her voice echoed from somewhere below.
The man spoke again.
“Alessandro enters alone. No weapons.”
Marco shook his head.
“It is a trap.”
Alessandro removed his gun and handed it to him.
“Then I will walk into it.”
“No,” I said.
“They asked for me.”
“They took my daughter.”
He looked at me.
“And I will bring her back.”
The door opened onto a narrow stone staircase.
Alessandro descended alone.
Marco and I waited twenty seconds before following quietly.
The tunnel beneath the church led to an old burial chamber.
Emma sat tied to a chair near the far wall.
A masked man stood behind her.
Another man held a gun on Alessandro.
The second man looked so much like him that for a moment I understood how Daniel’s video had fooled me.
Matteo Moretti.
He had Alessandro’s dark eyes and strong jaw, but cruelty had changed his face.
“You were always the favored son,” Matteo said.
“We were cousins,” Alessandro replied.
“Your father treated you like a prince. Mine was expected to stand behind him.”
“Let Emma go.”
“When Vittorio receives your controlling shares.”
“That will not happen.”
Matteo pressed the gun against Emma’s chair.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
I moved from behind the stone column.
“Take me instead.”
Matteo looked surprised.
Alessandro’s expression turned furious.
“Sofia, get back.”
“She is my child.”
Matteo smiled.
“And you are the widow who caused all this trouble.”
“What did Daniel discover?”
“He found records he was never supposed to see.”
“Did you kill him?”
Matteo’s smile disappeared.
“No.”
I believed him.
Not because he looked innocent, but because the question frightened him.
A noise came from the tunnel behind us.
Marco stepped into the chamber with his gun raised.
The masked man turned.
Marco shot him in the shoulder.
Alessandro lunged at Matteo.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
I ran to Emma and pulled the tape from her wrists.
Matteo escaped through a second tunnel while Marco removed the mask from the wounded man.
It was Dr. Samuel Hargrove.
Vanessa’s private physician.
He was bleeding heavily.
“Who paid you?” Alessandro demanded.
Hargrove began laughing.
“You still do not understand.”
He looked at me.
“Daniel did not die because of what he found beneath Harbor Tower.”
“Then why?”
“Because he discovered who Sofia really was.”
I stared at him.
“What are you talking about?”
Hargrove’s eyes moved toward Alessandro.
“Ask your uncle why Daniel’s wife was chosen for the Moretti household.”
Then his body went still.
I had believed I found my job through a cleaning agency.
May you like
But someone had placed me inside that mansion.
And Vittorio had known who I was from the beginning.
