Chapter 12 - The Night the Cameras Finally Mattered
I drove home like a man trying to outrun his own past.
The gates stood open.
That alone told me someone had compromised the security system.
I drew my pistol and entered through the side door. The corridors were dark, and the usual guards were nowhere to be seen.
“Clara?”
No answer.
I checked the sitting room.
Empty.
Matteo's bedroom.
Empty.
The wheelchair was overturned beside the bed, and a strip of torn fabric lay near the window.
My stomach dropped.
I ran to the security room and opened the camera feeds.
Most showed darkness. Someone had cut power to the main system.
But one hidden lens remained active.
The tiny camera in the smoke detector of Matteo's bedroom.
The same camera that had caught Clara closing the curtains.
I opened the feed.
The image showed Clara kneeling beside Matteo, quickly securing a protective strap around his waist. She had placed a backpack across his lap and was checking the wheels on his chair.
A man appeared behind her.
He wore a guard's uniform.
Clara saw him in the mirror.
She didn't scream.
She didn't beg.
She grabbed a metal lamp and struck the man's wrist as he reached for her.
His weapon fell to the floor.
She shoved Matteo's wheelchair toward the wardrobe, pulled a concealed lever, and opened a narrow panel in the wall.
I stared at the screen.
A hidden passage.
My estate had been designed by my father, who loved secret rooms almost as much as he loved money.
Clara pushed Matteo inside and followed him, closing the panel just as a second man entered the bedroom.
The feed went black.
I ran.
I found the hidden passage behind the wardrobe, but the entrance was locked from the other side. I hammered my fist against the panel.
“Clara! Matteo!”
A faint sound came through the wall.
“Vincent?”
“Open the door!”
“I can't. The lock is jammed.”
I searched the frame and found an old emergency release hidden beneath the floor molding.
The panel opened with a metallic click.
Clara was crouched in the narrow passage, breathing hard. Matteo sat in his wheelchair beside her, clutching the backpack.
There was blood on Clara's sleeve.
“Are you hurt?”
“It's not mine.”
I looked at Matteo.
He was trembling but conscious.
I knelt beside him.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded.
Then he grabbed my hand with surprising strength.
“Daddy, they wanted to take me.”
“I know.”
“The man said Uncle Luca sent him.”
I closed my eyes.
“I know, son.”
Clara rose carefully.
“We need to move. There are at least three of them, and they've disabled the main security system.”
I looked down the passage.
“There's an exit to the old greenhouse.”
“Then let's go.”
We moved through the narrow corridor, Clara guiding the wheelchair while I kept my pistol raised.
Halfway down, Matteo suddenly caught my wrist.
“Stop.”
I froze.
“What is it?”
He pointed toward the wall.
A faint red light blinked behind a metal grate.
A security sensor.
I recognized it immediately. The passage contained motion detectors linked to an emergency alarm, but the system had been disconnected years ago.
Someone had reactivated it.
Matteo's gaze darted upward.
“They know we're here.”
A metallic slam echoed behind us.
Then another.
The men were entering the passage.
Clara pushed Matteo forward.
“Run, Vincent!”
I moved behind them, firing once into the ceiling to slow the men approaching from the rear. The sound thundered through the passage.
We reached the greenhouse exit and burst into the rain.
Two guards waited beyond the glass doors.
One pointed his gun at us.
“Mr. Rossi, step away from the boy.”
I aimed at his chest.
“Drop it.”
“Your brother says the child needs medical supervision.”
“My brother doesn't give orders in my house.”
The guard's gaze shifted toward Matteo.
That fraction of a second was enough.
Clara pushed the wheelchair sideways. I struck the guard's weapon arm, and the pistol skidded across the wet floor.
The second guard turned and ran.
I shouted for my men, but nobody answered.
Then my phone vibrated.
A live video appeared.
Luca sat in his office, holding a familiar object in his hand.
Isabella's wedding ring.
“Hello, brother,” he said calmly.
I stared at the screen.
“Where did you get that?”
“From the place where you hid it.”
The ring had been inside my father's vault.
Locked behind three security doors.
Only a handful of people knew the vault existed.
Luca smiled.
“You've been busy, Vincent. Digging up old records. Questioning loyal employees. Frightening your little boy with stories about his uncle.”
“You sent armed men into my house.”
“I sent people to retrieve something that belongs to the family.”
“Matteo doesn't belong to you.”
“No,” Luca replied. “He belongs to you. That's the problem.”
His smile faded.
“Your son remembers what happened. And now he remembers something else, doesn't he?”
I looked at Matteo.
His face had gone white.
Luca leaned toward the camera.
“Ask him what his mother put inside the rabbit.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Then Matteo whispered, “The key.”
“What about it?” I asked.
He stared at the dark phone.
“Mommy said it opened the place where Uncle Luca kept the bad things.”
A cold wind moved through the greenhouse.
We had found the evidence Isabella hid.
We had uncovered Luca's betrayal.
But he had just revealed something worse.
May you like
He knew exactly what we had found.
And he was still one step ahead of us.
