CHAPTER 3: THE FIRST RULE OF THE GAME
CHAPTER 3: THE FIRST RULE OF THE GAME
The message disappeared.
Every monitor went black at the exact same second.
Silence returned to the mansion.
No one spoke.
No one dared.
I stared at the empty screens, replaying every word in my mind.
Come alone.
It wasn't a request.
It was the first rule of a game someone had been preparing for years.
A guard finally broke the silence.
"Sir... we should call the police now."
"No."
The answer came instantly.
"They're expecting that."
Rinaldi looked at me.
"You really believe this reaches beyond the estate?"
I looked down at the obsidian chess king still resting in my hand.
"This wasn't left by amateurs."
Whoever planned this had erased records, controlled my staff, kidnapped Elena twice, escaped through tunnels that didn't exist on any blueprint, and hacked every security monitor inside one of the most secure private estates in Italy.
This operation hadn't begun three days ago.
It had begun years ago.
Maybe sixteen years ago.
An hour later...
I stood alone inside my father's old study.
The room had remained untouched since his funeral.
Mahogany shelves.
Leather-bound ledgers.
Dust that no servant had ever been permitted to clean.
My father believed that memories should age naturally.
He hated renovations.
He also hated secrets.
Or so I had always believed.
I walked toward the large portrait hanging above the fireplace.
Three generations of the Valenti family.
My father.
My older brother, Victor.
Myself.
Victor smiled confidently with one hand resting on his pregnant wife's shoulder.
Celeste.
Back then she looked different.
Warmer.
Less... perfect.
Sixteen years ago, Victor and his newborn son had supposedly died in a mountain road accident.
The vehicle burned before rescue teams arrived.
The bodies were identified through DNA.
The funeral was closed casket.
I attended it.
I carried my brother's coffin.
I remembered every second.
Or...
I thought I did.
A knock interrupted my thoughts.
"Come in."
Rinaldi entered carrying three thick folders.
"I found something."
He placed them carefully on the desk.
"Estate maintenance reports."
"From?"
"The last twenty years."
I opened the first file.
Nothing unusual.
Second file.
Nothing.
Third...
Page eighty-two.
A blueprint.
Not of the mansion.
Of the underground tunnels.
My heartbeat slowed.
There it was.
A corridor branching beneath the blue door.
Then another.
And another.
An entire underground network.
Hidden beneath the estate.
Someone had torn this page from every official copy.
Except this one.
In the bottom corner, handwritten in faded blue ink...
My father's signature.
Beneath it were six words.
Never allow anyone below Level Three.
Level Three?
I looked up.
"There are levels?"
Rinaldi slowly nodded.
"My grandfather mentioned them once."
"You never told me."
"I thought it was a story."
"What story?"
He hesitated.
Then quietly said,
"The estate wasn't built to protect the family."
A long pause.
"It was built to imprison something."
That evening...
The anonymous caller contacted me.
Not by phone.
By the grandfather clock.
At exactly seven o'clock, instead of chiming...
A recorded voice echoed through the empty hall.
"You came looking for Elena."
The voice changer disguised everything except confidence.
"You found her."
"Congratulations."
A pause.
"You've also found the first lie."
Every servant stopped moving.
The voice continued.
"Your brother Victor never died in an accident."
The room exploded with whispers.
Rinaldi looked horrified.
I remained still.
"You have one hour."
"Come alone."
"Bring the black king."
"If anyone follows..."
The recording stopped.
A single envelope slid from inside the old clock.
One of the guards carefully picked it up.
No fingerprints.
No return address.
Only my name.
ADRIAN.
Inside was a photograph.
Old.
Slightly burned around the edges.
It showed my brother Victor.
Alive.
Standing beside a stone doorway somewhere underground.
In his arms...
A baby.
The infant everyone believed had died sixteen years earlier.
Behind Victor stood another man.
His face had been deliberately scratched away.
But one detail remained untouched.
The man wore the same silver crown symbol engraved on the chess piece.
I flipped the photograph over.
Three handwritten words.
He survived too.
Forty-five minutes later...
Against everyone's objections...
I entered the underground tunnels alone.
The obsidian king rested inside my coat pocket.
No weapon.
No radio.
Just a flashlight.
Exactly as instructed.
The deeper I walked...
The colder the air became.
The fresh footprints from Marco's escape were still visible.
They ended before a massive iron gate.
Unlike the blue door...
This gate was ancient.
Covered in strange carvings.
At its center was a chessboard carved into the metal.
Thirty-two empty spaces.
One missing piece.
I removed the black king.
The moment I placed it into the center square...
A loud metallic click echoed through the darkness.
The gate slowly opened.
Beyond it...
Not another tunnel.
A staircase.
Descending far deeper than any foundation should have reached.
Stone steps disappeared into darkness.
One.
After another.
After another.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
The air smelled different now.
Cleaner.
As though someone actually lived below.
At the bottom...
Warm light flickered beneath another doorway.
Voices.
People.
I extinguished my flashlight.
Carefully...
I stepped closer.
The door wasn't fully closed.
Just enough to see inside.
What I saw made every hair on my body stand upright.
More than thirty people stood in complete silence.
Men.
Women.
Some old.
Some young.
Every one of them wore elegant black clothing.
Every one wore a silver crown pinned to their chest.
At the center of the room...
Marco knelt on one knee.
His head lowered.
Not as a prisoner.
As a follower.
Before him stood an elderly man with snow-white hair.
Calm.
Perfectly dressed.
He rested one hand on Marco's shoulder.
Then smiled.
"Rise."
Marco obeyed.
The old man looked toward the room.
"Our final guest has arrived."
The crowd slowly turned.
Not toward Marco.
Not toward the entrance.
Toward me.
Because somehow...
They already knew I was there.
The old man's smile widened.
"Welcome home..."
He paused deliberately.
"...Mr. Valenti."
Then he spoke the sentence that shattered everything I believed about my family.
May you like
"I've been raising your nephew for sixteen years."
END OF CHAPTER 3
