Chapter 4 - The Rabbit on the Floor
Sophia’s scream tore through the mansion.
“Emma!”
She grabbed the gray rabbit from the floor and ran toward the servants’ corridor, but Alessandro caught her before she reached the corner.
“Sophia, stop.”
“Let go of me! My daughter—”
“If you run blind, they win.”
She struck his chest with both hands.
“My child is gone!”
“I know.” His voice cracked just enough for her to hear the man under the billionaire. “And we will get her back. But you need to breathe.”
Sophia stared at him like she hated him for being calm.
Maybe she did.
This was his house.
His family.
His enemies.
And now her three-year-old daughter had disappeared because she had told the truth.
Alessandro turned to Matteo.
“Seal every exit inside the house. Check every vehicle. No one goes through the gates.”
Matteo was already speaking into his radio.
Dr. Royce knelt beside Sophia, checking her pulse even as Sophia tried to pull away.
Raffaele stood near the wall, rubbing his shoulder where he had hit something during the blackout.
Beatrice was gone.
Alessandro noticed immediately.
“Where is she?”
Raffaele looked up.
“What?”
“My aunt. Where is Beatrice?”
“I don’t know. The lights went out.”
Alessandro stepped closer.
“You were standing beside her.”
“And you were standing beside the housekeeper. Did that stop the child from disappearing?”
Sophia flinched.
Alessandro grabbed Raffaele by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
The sound echoed through the corridor.
“For once in your life,” Alessandro said softly, “choose your next words like they matter.”
Raffaele’s face reddened.
“You think I took a child?”
“I think you would sell a child if the price was right.”
Before Raffaele could respond, Matteo’s radio crackled.
“East service stairs clear. Garage sealed. Basement door open.”
Alessandro released Raffaele.
“Basement.”
Sophia ran before anyone could stop her.
Alessandro followed, Matteo and two security men behind him. The service stairs spiraled down beneath the mansion, past wine storage, old staff quarters, and utility rooms built long before Alessandro was born.
Sophia’s breath came in sharp broken sounds.
“Emma!” she screamed. “Baby, answer me!”
Nothing.
Only the hum of pipes.
Only their footsteps.
At the bottom of the stairs, the basement corridor stretched ahead, dim and cold. The air smelled of dust, stone, and old water.
Then Emma’s tiny voice answered.
“Mommy?”
Sophia nearly collapsed.
“Emma!”
The voice came from behind a storage door.
Alessandro reached it first.
Locked.
He kicked once.
Twice.
The old frame splintered on the third kick.
Sophia pushed past him.
Emma sat on the floor between crates of old linens, hugging her knees. Her cheeks were wet, but she was alive.
Sophia dropped beside her and gathered her into her arms.
“My baby. My baby. My baby.”
Emma sobbed against her mother’s neck.
“She said I had to be quiet.”
Alessandro went still.
“Who said that?”
Emma’s little finger pointed toward the back of the room.
There, near a second door Alessandro had never noticed before, lay a pearl earring.
Beatrice’s.
Matteo picked it up with shaking fingers.
“This passage leads to the old garden tunnel,” he said.
Alessandro turned.
“Old what?”
“Your grandfather had it sealed after the kidnapping threats in the eighties. At least, we thought he did.”
Alessandro crossed the room and pulled open the narrow door.
A tunnel yawned beyond it.
Dark.
Cold.
Wide enough for one person.
Sophia held Emma tighter.
“Why would your aunt know about this?”
Matteo’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“Because she grew up here.”
Alessandro stared into the darkness.
Beatrice had not fled through the front gate.
She had vanished through the bones of the house.
And she had tried to take the only witness small enough to be dismissed by everyone.
Emma lifted her tear-streaked face.
“She said if I told about Daddy, Mommy would go to sleep too.”
Sophia went rigid.
Alessandro felt something inside him turn to ice.
He crouched before Emma.
“Did she say anything else?”
Emma nodded.
“She said Daddy should have kept the papers hidden.”
Sophia’s eyes widened.
“What papers?”
Emma sniffled and touched the gray rabbit.
“Daddy put them with Bunny.”
Sophia looked down.
The rabbit’s belly had a crooked seam.
A seam she had never noticed.
With trembling fingers, she turned the toy over.
Inside the worn gray fabric, beneath the stuffing, was something hard.
Matteo handed her a small knife.
Sophia cut the seam open.
A tiny plastic drive fell into her palm.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Alessandro looked at the tunnel.
Then at the drive.
Then at Emma.
Marco Alvarez had not died because he was sick.
May you like
He had died because he knew something.
And he had hidden the truth inside his daughter’s favorite toy.
