Chapter 5 - The Men In The Living Room
“They said if you don’t bring the boy out of the basement right now, they’re going to burn our house down with me inside it.”
The stone walls of the wine cellar seemed to close in on me.
I couldn’t breathe.
Vanessa wasn’t running.
She was cornered, and she was using the only leverage she had left.
“Mom, listen to me,” I whispered, panic clawing at my throat. “Do exactly what they say. Don’t fight them.”
“Claire, what is happening? Who are these people?”
The phone was violently snatched from her hand.
A man’s voice came through the speaker.
Thick. Raspy.
“You have three minutes, maid. Bring the kid up to the main foyer. Open the front doors. Or your mother is going to have a very warm night.”
The line went dead.
I dropped the phone. It clattered against the stone floor.
Matteo was staring at me in the dark.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his stutter entirely gone in his fear.
“They have my mother.”
Tears spilled down my face. I wiped them away furiously.
I needed this job to fix her roof. Now, the whole house was going to be ashes, and her along with it.
I looked at the heavy steel door.
I looked at the gun Luca had given me.
Then I looked at the fourteen-year-old boy I was supposed to protect.
If I took him upstairs, Vanessa’s men would kill him. Or worse, send him to that facility to rot so she could steal his father’s empire.
If I didn’t, my mother would die.
“We have to go up,” Matteo said quietly.
I blinked. “Matteo, no. If I take you up there—”
“They’ll kill your mom, Claire. My dad wouldn’t want that.”
He stood up.
He was just a boy, but in the dim light of the cellar, he looked exactly like his father.
“I know a way out,” Matteo said. “An old coal chute behind the wine racks. It leads to the side gardens. You can sneak out, take my dad’s spare car, and go save your mom.”
“I’m not leaving you here!”
“You have the gun,” Matteo said logically. “They won’t expect you to show up at your house armed.”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the back of the cellar.
He pushed a heavy wooden wine rack sideways. It swung open on hidden hinges.
Behind it was a small, rusted iron door.
“Go,” Matteo said.
“Matteo, Vanessa is waiting for you in the foyer.”
“I’ll keep her busy,” he said. “I’m good at stalling.”
Before I could stop him, he turned and ran toward the steel door, unbolting it.
“Matteo!” I hissed.
But he was already gone, running up the stairs.
I didn’t have a choice.
I squeezed through the coal chute and crawled out into the cold Chicago night.
I ran to the garage, found the keys in the visor of Luca’s old SUV, and sped toward my mother’s neighborhood.
I gripped the steering wheel, the heavy metal pistol sitting on the passenger seat.
When I pulled onto my mother’s street, my blood ran cold.
There was no smoke.
There was no fire.
But parked in my mother’s driveway was a black van.
I killed the headlights and parked two houses down.
I crept across the lawn, the gun shaking in my hands.
I peeked through the living room window.
My mother was tied to a dining chair.
Two men in cheap suits were pouring gasoline over the carpet.
But there was someone else in the room.
Sitting on the sofa, calmly looking at a piece of paper, was a man I recognized from the engagement dinner.
One of Luca’s wealthy business partners.
A man named Senator Sterling.
May you like
He looked at his watch.
“The three minutes are up,” the Senator said coldly. “Light the match.”
