Chapter 6 - The Notebook and the Gun.
.Anna pulled Sofia behind the banister as Victor leveled the weapon toward the stairs.
Luca did not move.
"Let Rosa go."
Victor laughed once.
"You still think you are giving orders."
The four men who had entered with Victor spread across the entry hall.
Two were Luca's own security officers.
That betrayal seemed to wound Luca more deeply than the gun pointed at him.
Victor nodded toward the blue notebook in his hand.
"Throw it down."
Luca glanced at Anna.
She understood immediately.
The notebook mattered because Victor believed it was the only record of what Elena had discovered before the crash.
Anna stepped into view.
"You tried to kill me four years ago."
Victor's eyes found hers.
For the first time, the calm mask disappeared.
"I tried to save this family from you."
"By running my car off a road?"
Victor's jaw tightened.
The memory sharpened inside Anna.
Rain hammered the windshield.
Victor had forced his way into the passenger seat after she left a private clinic with Sofia.
He had demanded the notebook.
When she refused, he had grabbed the wheel.
The car struck the barrier.
Anna remembered metal folding, Sofia screaming, and Victor crawling from the wreck before the fire started.
She also remembered someone else arriving.
Dr. Voss.
"You took me from the crash," Anna said.
Voss looked sick.
Victor turned his head slightly.
That distraction was enough.
Rosa drove her heel down on the foot of the man holding her.
Luca hurled the notebook toward the chandelier instead of toward Victor.
Every eye followed it.
Anna grabbed Sofia and ran for the upstairs corridor.
Gunfire erupted below.
Luca fired from behind a marble column.
Rosa dropped to the floor and crawled toward the kitchen.
Victor shouted for his men to get the girl.
Anna knew the house without consciously knowing it.
She pulled Sofia through a bedroom, opened a wardrobe panel, and found another narrow passage.
"How many secret doors did I build?"
Sofia gave a frightened little laugh.
"Daddy said Mama never trusted normal hallways."
The sound broke Anna's heart and strengthened her at the same time.
They descended a hidden staircase to the wine cellar.
A door at the far end opened onto the garden.
Anna nearly reached it when one of Victor's men stepped from behind a rack.
He lunged for Sofia.
Anna smashed a bottle against the stone wall and held the jagged neck between them.
"Don't touch my daughter."
The words came without hesitation.
The man smiled.
"There she is."
He rushed her.
Anna slashed his sleeve, kicked his knee, and shoved Sofia toward the garden door.
The man caught Anna by the throat and drove her against the rack.
Wine bottles crashed around them.
Then a shot sounded.
The man released her and fell.
Luca stood at the foot of the stairs, breathing hard.
"Are you hurt?"
Anna shook her head.
Sofia ran to him and wrapped both arms around his waist.
For a moment the three of them stood together while alarms echoed through the mansion.
Then Luca looked toward the ceiling.
"Victor got out."
Anna stared at him.
"He will come for the notebook."
Luca held up a small blue object.
May you like
He had recovered it from the marble floor.
"Then we make sure he comes where we want him."
