Chapter 8 - The Safe Behind the SaintMaria could barely stand by the time we reached the linen closet.
I pulled her inside, shut the door, and pressed one finger to my lips.
Then I tapped the black device in my pocket twice.
Within seconds, Marco’s voice came through my earpiece.
“Where are you?”
“Linen closet, east corridor,” I whispered. “Maria knows something.”
Maria stared at my ear.
“You’re wired?”
“Apparently.”
“Good,” she said, then winced as her split lip moved.
Marco’s voice sharpened. “What does she know?”
Maria gripped my arm. “Matteo gave me something before he died.”
My throat closed.
“What?”
“A key.”
The closet seemed to tilt.
She swallowed painfully. “He came to laundry the night before the accident. He looked scared. I had never seen Matteo scared.”
My husband had always smiled. Even when bills stacked up. Even when my pregnancy made me sick for months. Even when Lorenzo asked him to drive through storms at midnight. Matteo smiled like kindness was a choice he had made so long ago it had become bone.
“He said if anything happened to him, I should keep the key hidden until you were safe,” Maria whispered.
I could barely breathe.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Because the next day he was dead. Then Vincent came to laundry.”
My blood chilled.
“He asked about Matteo. Asked if he gave me anything. He was smiling, but I knew. I told him no. He searched my room anyway.”
“Where is the key?”
Maria glanced toward the door.
“Not here.”
Marco’s voice came through the earpiece. “Where, Maria?”
She hesitated.
Then whispered, “In the chapel.”
The Duca chapel sat at the back of the estate, attached to the oldest wing. It was small, private, and rarely used except by Rosa on saints’ days and Lorenzo on the anniversary of his brother’s death. I had cleaned it every Thursday for seven years.
Candles. Marble altar. Carved saints. A statue of the Virgin Mary with sorrowful eyes.
Maria continued. “Behind Saint Anthony. The base opens if you turn the left foot.”
Marco cursed softly in my ear.
Lorenzo’s voice followed, weaker but clear.
“My office safe has two locks. Mine and Alessio’s. I thought Alessio’s key was lost in the crash.”
Maria shook her head though he could not see her. “Matteo had it.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth.
Why would my husband have Alessio Duca’s safe key?
Lorenzo answered before I asked.
“Because Alessio trusted him.”
Pain moved through me so sharply I nearly bent over.
All these years, I had thought Matteo was only a driver in a dangerous house. A good man near bad men. But he had been closer to the truth than I ever knew.
Maria clutched my wrist. “There is more. Vincent asked about the key again last month.”
“Last month?”
“He said old things sometimes turn up in laundry. He offered money. Then he threatened my nephew.”
Marco said, “Vincent suspects the key is still in the house.”
Lorenzo said, “And if he gets into my office safe, he won’t need the memory card.”
I whispered, “What is in the safe?”
Silence.
Then Lorenzo said, “Everything.”
The word landed heavily.
“Accounts,” he continued. “Names. Transfer routes. Recordings. The original files my father collected. If Vincent gets them, he can erase his past and buy his future.”
Maria closed her eyes. “Then we have to get the key first.”
I almost laughed at the insanity of it.
The chapel was across the main hall, past two guarded corridors, under cameras Vincent now controlled, while the house was locked down by armed men.
“Tell me there is another hidden passage,” I whispered.
Marco paused.
“There is.”
Of course there was.
“But not to the chapel,” he added. “Only near it.”
Maria tried to straighten. “I’ll go.”
“You can barely walk.”
“I know the chapel.”
“So do I.”
She looked at me. “Sophia—”
“He hurt you because of me.”
“He hurt me because he is evil. Do not give yourself such importance.”
Despite everything, I smiled weakly.
Maria squeezed my hand. “Your Matteo saved my brother once. Got him work when he came out of prison and nobody would hire him. I owed him before he gave me that key.”
My eyes burned.
“Where exactly behind Saint Anthony?”
“Left foot. Turn it toward the wall. The base opens. The key is wrapped in blue thread.”
Marco’s voice came through. “Sophia, I am coming to your corridor.”
“No,” Lorenzo said.
Marco went silent.
Lorenzo continued, “Vincent expects Marco to move like a soldier. He expects Ricci to hide me. He expects Rosa to guard the child. He does not expect Sophia to walk into a chapel and steal a key from a saint.”
“I am standing right here,” I said.
“I know.”
“And I am not invisible anymore.”
“No,” Lorenzo said softly. “But you know how to become overlooked.”
That was true.
Servants had a magic powerful people never understood. We could disappear while standing in front of them because they had trained themselves not to see us unless they wanted something.
I helped Maria sit on a stack of folded sheets, then opened the closet door a crack.
The corridor was empty.
Too empty.
I moved quickly, head lowered, carrying a bundle of towels to look useful. No one stopped a maid with towels. People assumed messes existed for us to clean.
Near the east gallery, I passed two of Vincent’s men.
One barely glanced at me.
The other said, “You.”
I stopped.
He nodded toward the towels. “Where are you going?”
“Guest powder room, sir.”
“Why?”
I looked at him blankly. “Because someone vomited.”
His face changed immediately.
“Go.”
Men with guns feared many things. Apparently vomit was one of them.
I continued toward the chapel.
At the end of the corridor, the lights dimmed. The old wing smelled of beeswax and cold stone. The chapel doors were closed, but not guarded.
My hand touched the brass handle.
Then voices sounded inside.
Vincent.
And Greco.
I froze.
The door had not fully latched. Through the narrow crack, candlelight flickered.
Vincent’s voice was low and furious.
“You embarrassed me in front of them.”
Greco replied calmly. “You embarrassed yourself.”
“You are a guest in this house.”
“No,” Greco said. “I am the reason you are still alive tonight.”
A pause.
Then Vincent said, “Once I find the key, Lorenzo’s empire is mine.”
Greco laughed softly. “Yours? You still misunderstand the arrangement.”
My blood chilled.
Vincent did not answer.
Greco’s voice sharpened.
“You get the chair, Romano. I get what is beneath it.”
Beneath it?
My mind flashed to Lorenzo’s office. His chair. The walnut desk. The safe.
Vincent said, “We agreed—”
“We agreed you would open the door,” Greco interrupted. “Not that you would own the house.”
Silence.
Then Vincent asked, “And if I refuse?”
A gun cocked inside the chapel.
Greco’s voice became almost kind.
“Then I will explain to your men that you killed Lorenzo but failed to inherit him.”
My hand tightened on the towels.
I had thought Vincent was the snake.
But snakes could be eaten too.
Inside the chapel, footsteps moved toward the door.
I turned, searching for somewhere to hide.
There was nowhere.
The handle began to turn from the inside.
Then a small hand grabbed mine from a side alcove and yanked me into the dark.
I nearly screamed.
A palm covered my mouth.
A boy’s voice whispered, “Don’t.”
It was Luca, one of the kitchen boys.
May you like
He looked terrified.
And in his other hand, wrapped in blue thread, was the key.
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