Chapter 10
Marco had taken nothing from the nursery.
That frightened Luciano more.
No clothing.
No documents.
No medication.
Nothing that suggested a plan to remove Celeste or the unborn child.
Instead, he had opened a wall panel behind the nursery wardrobe.
Inside was an old service passage Luciano had never known existed.
Augusto knew it.
His face revealed that immediately.
Luciano looked at him.
“What is this?”
Augusto sat heavily in one of the foyer chairs.
“Old family construction.”
“Where does it go?”
“East wing.”
Anthony shook his head. “Further.”
Augusto glared at him.
Anthony continued.
“Old chapel.”
Luciano knew the chapel.
Closed for twenty years.
Used now only for storage.
The passage had been built when the mansion was first expanded. A private route between the family rooms and the chapel.
Safe movement during attacks.
Or secret movement when someone wanted not to be seen.
They followed it.
At the midpoint they found Marco’s discarded jacket.
Then blood.
Not much.
A smear across the wall.
Celeste was ordered to remain behind.
She refused.
Luciano looked at her.
She placed one hand over her belly.
“I was pushed down stairs because everyone kept deciding what I should know.”
He had no answer to that.
So she came.
The chapel door stood open.
Inside, Marco lay unconscious beside a wooden pew.
Alive.
Someone had hit him hard from behind.
On the altar sat a sealed envelope.
Luciano approached carefully.
No name.
Only the Ferraro crest.
Inside was a photograph.
Rafael Ferraro.
Alive.
Older.
Taken recently.
Anthony stopped breathing.
Augusto made a sound that barely resembled a word.
Luciano turned.
“You said he died.”
Augusto stared at the photograph.
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“I said he went over the ravine.”
Celeste understood first.
“There was no body.”
Anthony looked at Augusto.
“You knew.”
Augusto shook his head.
“No.”
For once, Luciano believed him.
Because fear like that was difficult to fake.
May you like
Rafael Ferraro had survived the fall.
And someone had waited thirty-four years to reveal it on the exact night Augusto tried to repeat the same mistake.
